Anyone who has read the novel by Alexandre Dumas "The Three Musketeers" knows the concept of "gray cardinal". In this famous book, there are arguments that all affairs in France are not controlled by the king, but by Cardinal Richelieu. It was rumored that there was a more powerful man in Paris - Father Joseph, but he preferred to be in the shadows. As a Capuchin monk, he invariably wore a gray robe - from which the name went.
Eminence grise
Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, the long-term secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU for ideology, was often called the Soviet "gray eminence". He was entrenched in the party Areopagus even under Stalin and remained influential until his death in 1982.
Ascetic of the Central Committee
He was considered the main communist ascetic and educator. At one time, Stalin nominated the young communist Suslov, noting his ability to find a suitable quote from Lenin, Marx or Engels at the right time. In those days without computers, such talents were highly valued! Even outwardly, he was very different from his comrades in the Politburo. He was bespectacled when he was young. Lanky, thin, with a disobedient shock of gray hair, he inspired fear in many. In particular, representatives of the creative intelligentsia, which he supervised on duty. It was they who created Suslov's demonic reputation …
During the war years, he - the secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU - led the partisan movement in southern Russia. The Nazis gave 10 thousand marks for Suslov's head, but they could not get to him!
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And then, when the Red Army liberated the Baltic States from the Germans, he was sent to root out Nazi sedition in Lithuania and Latvia. This was not a job for the faint of heart. I had to deal with the rescue of children who were kept in concentration camps and those who collaborated with the Nazis. The Balts were afraid of Suslov.
When Khrushchev conceived a large-scale de-Stalinization, it was Suslov who theoretically substantiated the harmful essence of the personality cult. He was a sincere supporter of collective leadership, and the hype around Stalin's genius always seemed to him a shameful relic of religiosity. But Mikhail Andreevich treated Nikita Sergeevich without enthusiasm: he was disgusted with the adventurism of the new leader.
No wonder it was Suslov who read the main report at the plenum of the Central Committee in October 1964, when Khrushchev was removed from power. Then many considered him the secret puppeteer of the conspiracy, the gray eminence. After all, he was the first to publicly laid out the whole truth about "Tsar Nikita"! Although there is information that he was only the tip of the iceberg, and Suslov had nothing to do with the entire operation preceding the removal from power of the first person. He was involved in the case at the very last stage, when it was necessary to "bring the Marxist base" under the resignation of a man who until recently was called by everyone the main communist of the Earth. Suslov was a performer who only outwardly resembled a Capuchin ascetic.
Eternal student
French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing called Suslov "a man with the face of an aging student." Indeed, it did not have a touch of lordship, characteristic of many state dignitaries. Young, attentive eyes gleamed from under the glasses.
A new political orchestra was gathering around Brezhnev. And Suslov became one of its main soloists. The new head of the party and state entrusted him not only with Marxist theory and propaganda, but also with the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee - the General Secretary paid tribute to Suslov's efficiency. And he was also satisfied that Mikhail Andreevich did not like to intrigue and did not aim at the leader. Yes, and he had authority, both European and Latin American communists saw in Suslov the successor of Russian revolutionary traditions. Although it was noted that the Moscow ideologist from the Old Square is boring. Artistry (typical, for example, of a bearded comrade Fidel) he clearly lacked. He delivered speeches in detail, but far from ardent. He was a bookworm, not a hero of the barricades. It is not surprising that in 1968 Suslov did not support the revolt of the Parisian students. He thought,that these spoiled boys are far from the real labor movement. It was he who had to justify the ideological differences between the Kremlin and the restless Mao Zedong. He saw in the Chinese "great helmsman" a dictator, not a revolutionary, and did not recognize his ambition to lead the world communist movement.
A must for ideology
"Kvass cannot be prepared without wort, and ideology - without Suslov," Brezhnev joked. In general, he used to laugh good-naturedly at his older comrade. Over his professorial antics, over his terrifyingly old-fashioned way of dressing. At the same time, Suslov was not at all a primitive rusk. When the battles between "physicists" and "lyricists" were going on in the 1960s, Ilya Ehrenburg published an article in defense of lyrics in the age of electronics, in which he argued that in space, man also needs a branch of lilac. A few days later, noticing Ehrenburg at some kind of reception, Mikhail Andreevich went up to the writer and began to shake his hand vigorously: “Thank you! Thanks for the lilac branch! " However, if this romantic sensed an attempt on the foundations of the communist doctrine, he became adamant: Thus, Suslov stood as a wall in the way of the publication of Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate. He read it in manuscript from the first to the last page and realized that from this book the reader will inevitably draw a conclusion about the similarities between the Hitler and Stalinist systems. And this, in his opinion, firstly, did not correspond to the truth, and secondly, it contradicted the interests of the state and society. "This novel will not be published earlier than in 100 years …" - that was his verdict.
At the same time, Suslov did not suit anyone noisy, he was friendly and courteous in communication, including with opponents. And even in his eighth decade, he did not make discounts for himself at work. When "fraternal Poland" was shaken by a political crisis, it was he who was sent to Warsaw to "restore order." And as usual, he acted there methodically, culturally and harshly. They say that on the way back, at the airport, Mikhail Andreevich asked a Polish party member: "Tell me, where is the men's room here?" The Pole threw up his hands: "For you - everywhere!".
Shock and rage
Suslov's move is mysterious. When the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, began to try on the laurels of a fighter against corruption in the highest echelons of power, the main ideologist of the Central Committee became worried: the matter also concerned party leaders. And Suslov considered even rumors about bribes among party workers unacceptable. After all, this hype reduces the authority of the authorities! And when he found out that the threads of corruption stretched right up to the family of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, he flew into a rage. Andropov's deputy, General Semyon Tsvigun, was summoned to Staraya Square. Suslov ordered him to immediately stop this investigation. A few days later Tsvigun shot himself at his own dacha. The news of this suicide shocked the old party member. A sick heart could not stand it. He died in the Epiphany frost of 1982, six months before his 80th birthday. He died with faith in his ideals and in anxiety for their fate.
“We are losing the best people,” L. I. Brezhnev when he was informed of the death of an old comrade-in-arms. At the funeral, Leonid Ilyich did not hide his tears. As if he felt that the "five-year funeral" was beginning, in which almost no one from the "immortal legion" of the old members of the Politburo would survive.
Coat with galoshes
Nobody could accuse Suslov of untidiness. Even on business trips, having eaten lunch at the regional committee's buffet, he invariably left 80 kopecks on the table - so as not to eat at anyone's expense. And he gave the lion's share of his own fees to charity. His rubles went to orphanages, and for the construction of a library in his native Saratov region, and for equipment for a cardiological center, and for a memorial at the Piskarevskoye cemetery … At the same time, for 30 years he wore a heavy woolen coat, sewn under Stalin. The coat was dilapidated, but he still did not want to part with it! Once, Brezhnev even ironically suggested that his Politburo comrades throw in a new coat for a colleague. In addition, he was almost the last of the Muscovites who was able to give up the habit of wearing galoshes in chilly weather and forbade his driver to exceed speed,installed for Moscow motorists under Tsar Gorokh - 40 km / h.
Magazine: All the riddles of the world №6. Author: Arseny Zamostyanov