 Podgorny briefly fell out of Khruschev 's favor in 1961 when he blamed bad corn yields in the Ukrainian SSR on " bad weather " . Khrushchev claimed the crops had been " stolen " and " pilfered " . However , in 1962 , Podgorny reported to Khrushchev that agricultural output had again increased : Under Podgorny 's leadership , the Ukrainian SSR had doubled Ukraine 's supply of grain to the state from the previous year . Because of his handling of agriculture , First World commentators saw Podgorny as one of Khrushchev 's many potential heirs . According to historian Ilya Zemtsov , the author of Chernenko : The Last Bolshevik : The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika , Brezhnev began starting a conspiracy against Khrushchev when he found out that he had chosen Podgorny , and not himself , as his potential successor . The coup evidently took Podgorny by surprise , seeing that he left Moscow on 10 October , two days before the coup was initiated . 
