Higher Mathematics

Khrushchev was feeling cocky about his stature at home as well as abroad. At a reception in Bucharest, Nikita casually told a story of how his fellow Presidium members nearly deposed him in the 1957 leadership showdown. Said Khrushchev, as the jaws of listening comrades dropped: "Bulganin, my friend for more than 20 years, told me: 'We are seven against your four.' I replied that this may be mathematically correct, but in politics things are different. Although in mathematics two plus two are four, this does not apply."

All seven opponents have since lost high office, and five have been sent to oblivion, e.g., Premier Bulganin, pensioned off in Moscow, Molotov exiled to an ambassadorship in Outer Mongolia.