The initiators of the removal of Khrushchev from power were a group of young leaders who earned the nickname "Komsomol members" from more experienced party comrades. They considered Brezhnev who replaced him as a temporary figure, after which the real leader should come - Alexander Shelepin.
“Komsomol members” were united not only by their relatively young age, but also by a similar career path that they followed.
Iron Shura
Alexander Shelepin was born a year after the revolution in Voronezh in the family of a railway worker. Arriving in Moscow, he entered the Institute of Philosophy, History and Literature, where he became the secretary of the Komsomol organization. During the Finnish war, he volunteered for the front, where he received frostbite, but then - a place in the capital city committee of the Komsomol.
By and large, he spent the Great Patriotic War in the rear. And after the war, Stalin made him the head of the Komsomol.
Until the end of his life, Shelepin had respect for Stalin. But when the 20th Congress burst out, he ardently denounced the personality cult, which was a kind of expression of devotion to Khrushchev. He demonstrated this loyalty in October 1957, ardently opposing the Stalinists who tried to remove Nikita Sergeevich from power. Enraged Voroshilov then shouted: “Is this for you, boy, should we give explanations? Learn to wear long pants first!"
For the 39-year-old "boy" the October plenum turned out to be a fateful milestone. Khrushchev entrusted him with the leadership of the State Security Committee. At the same time, he asked: "Make sure that they do not listen to me." Shelepin, of course, promised.
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Having received the nickname Iron Shurik by analogy with Iron Felix Dzerzhinsky, he immediately announced that his department should focus on working with external enemies, and not on tracking the mood of citizens. The staff was reduced by 3200 people. The rehabilitation of the repressed and the cleaning of organs from persons who have stained themselves in "excesses" continued. From this, however, it does not follow that Shelepin was a liberal. For example, he advocated a tough deal with the participants in the riots in Novocherkassk.
After the XXII Congress of the CPSU, Shelepin received another promotion, becoming simultaneously the Secretary of the Central Committee and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
A little later, he headed the Commission of Party and State Control of the Central Committee of the CPSU, turning, so to speak, into the "conscience of the party."
You, too, will be removed soon
Trusting his protege, Khrushchev allowed him to independently choose a successor in the KGB. As a result, this post went to Vladimir Semichastny, who was six years younger than Shelepin and worked under his leadership in the Central Committee of the Komsomol.
The changing of the guard took place in November 1961. Shelepin and Semichastny continued to stick together and in the same way, in a "duet", offered their services to senior comrades in the matter of Khrushchev's removal.
The Soviet Union needed a clear strategic course, stability and a strong, sane leader, capable of conducting a dialogue with both the immediate environment and the people. Shelepin considered himself such. This opinion was shared not only by Semichastny, but also by other immigrants from the Central Committee of the Komsomol, whom Iron Shurik promoted to leading positions.
Shelepin's betrayal came as a surprise to Khrushchev. And after the plenum, he whispered to his protégé: "You too will soon be removed."
It is difficult to say whether Shelepin took this warning seriously. He clearly did not expect to become Khrushchev's successor. The party had enough older and, most importantly, more famous comrades with more serious track records: Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, Suslov, Ustinov. In terms of their political weight, they were approximately equal, and therefore preferred to entrust the highest power to the one who, according to the general opinion, was better able to smooth out contradictions and was considered a completely predictable person. That is, Leonid Brezhnev.
The attitude of other leaders to him was characterized by Leonid Zamyatin, close to the top of the party: "Brezhnev is a maximum regional worker, not the head of a huge state, primitive, he cannot connect two or three thoughts, no theoretical knowledge." But he does not show any special power ambitions, he knows how to get along with people. Then, when the situation stabilizes, it will be possible to change it. This was the opinion not only of the “Komsomol members”, but also of people close to the party-state Areopagus.
Long live Shelepin
Brezhnev showed confidence in Iron Shurik and at one time even made friends with him at home. Shelepin entered the Politburo and, in charge of the party cadres, promoted several more of his supporters to the top. Among them were the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee Nikolai Egorychev and the chairman of the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting Nikolai Mesyatsev.
However, barely emerging, the Brezhnev-Shelepin tandem quickly fell apart. The rise of the Iron Shurik aroused jealousy among more eminent party members, who tried to explain to Brezhnev that Shelepin was aiming for his place.
For example, Khrushchev's son-in-law Aleksey Adzhubei confided in his acquaintances: “Soon everything will change. Lenya won't sit for a long time, Sasha Shelepin will come. " But Adjubey is no longer close to power. A more serious signal came to Brezhnev from the leader of Mongolia, Tsedenbal. He said that when in March 1965 the Soviet delegation headed by Shelepin and Mesyatsev arrived in Ulan Bator. Months, tipsy, pointed at Iron Shurik and shouted: "This is the value!" An alarming sign.
However, Mesyatsev himself attributes such careless drunken conversations to others. Here is one of his confessions: “When we were all dispersed, we were often told: it cannot be that you do not have an organizational bond. But she was not there, we have always remained just friends and like-minded people. " And then a characteristic clarification: “They often gathered at my dacha. But there was no such talk that Brezhnev should be overthrown and Shelepin installed. I knew it was all bugged or might be bugged. I myself worked in the state security … Although there were fools among us who, giving in, stood up on the table and shouted: "Long live Shelepin!"
In the Kremlin, there was talk of a shadow cabinet, allegedly even drawn up by the "Komsomol members". And then Brezhnev decided to act, carefully marking the “Komsomol members” with red flags.
In December 1965, Shelepin was removed from the post of deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and removed from the leadership of the party cadres, replacing Kapitonov, who closed on Brezhnev himself. As a result, Leonid Ilyich's associates in his work in Moldova, Kazakhstan and especially in Dnepropetrovsk began to move up instead of the “Komsomol members”. It was at this time that the joke went for a walk that the history of Russia is divided into three periods - pre-Petrine, Petrine and Dnepropetrovsk.
Seeing alarming symptoms, Iron Shurik decided to attack, though not yet Brezhnev himself, but the "Ukrainian lobby" that supported him.
The reason was a note by the head of the Central Committee of Ukraine, Petro Shelest, with a request-proposal to grant his republic the right to independent foreign trade.
Brezhnev did not like the idea, and Suslov and Kosygin recalled Shelesta and other nationalist excesses, including Ukrainian signs in the city of Russian glory, Sevastopol. But Shelepin spoke out the harshest of all, and accused of nationalist excesses not only Shelest, but also the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Nikolai Podgorny, who was the closest ally of Brezhnev himself, who oversaw Ukraine.
The attack was neatly hushed up, and on the sidelines Shelepin was advised to do more work in the new areas of work entrusted to him: finance, light and food industries. In these areas, Alexander Nikolaevich showed himself to be a person with a broad outlook. Here is the opinion of the candidate for the Central Committee, Valery Kharazov: “He was a supporter of opening private hairdressing salons and watch shops. I considered it stupid to liquidate the industrial cooperation …”.
However, the real economy of the country was headed by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin. And the "Kosygin reform" carried out by him really made the Soviet economy healthy. Accordingly, the positions of Brezhnev himself were strengthened, which irritated Shelepin and other “Komsomol members”. And this anxiety pushed them to careless actions.
Forerunner of perestroika
Anastas Mikoyan recalled: “Quite unexpectedly for me, Shelepin's group at the beginning of 1967 approached me with an offer to take part in their struggle against Brezhnev's group … to act first, based on my authority in the party, after which they will all speak out and remove Brezhnev from the post of the first secretary.
Iron Shurik himself, however, showed caution, distancing himself from his supporters. And Brezhnev played ahead, putting Yuri Andropov at the head of the KGB instead of Semichastny.
The reason for the displacement was a signal from Pyotr Shelest, who, in turn, retold the denunciation of the head of the Ternopil KGB Directorate Leonid Stupak.
He reported on the visit to the region of representatives of the central apparatus of the KGB and on conversations, the essence of which boiled down to the following: “Muscovites do not like Brezhnev and do not take seriously as a statesman. They say that he is an accidental person who came to power as a result of a palace coup, because he was supported by gullible people. He does not shine with intelligence or organizational skills, he does not know the economy. He is an intriguer and an artist, but not for the big stage, but for the provincial stage. One can only be surprised that a person with such personal qualities ended up at the head of the CPSU Central Committee ….
It is clear that Semichastny had to be responsible for the chatter of his employees, and the “Komsomol members” lost control over the key power department.
As a result, the entire attack on Brezhnev's team boiled down to Yegorychev's speech at the plenum of the Central Committee (June 1967), where he attacked not even Leonid Ilyich, but the Ministry of Defense headed by Marshal Andrei Grechko, allegedly not coping with its duties.
The attack was ill-prepared, since Grechko had only replaced Marshal Malinovsky in this post for only three months, and everything was not so bad with defense capability. Egorychev was appointed Deputy Minister of Tractor and Agricultural Engineering, which meant the end of his career.
In such situations, Shelepin simply did not have the opportunity to intercede for his supporters, and Brezhnev continued to deliver well-calculated blows.
Alexander Nikolaevich himself was sent to lead the trade unions. The then secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Alexandra Biryukova later recalled: “He is not made of iron … he was terribly indignant at how poorly the people were living. For a whole month, on his instructions, we were preparing a note to the Politburo about the need to make a deviation towards the production of consumer goods and start technical re-equipment. But to no avail."
Shelepin's hardware weight dropped to a minimum. All "Komsomol members" were gradually removed from the governing bodies, sometimes accompanied by demonstrative flogging. For example, the head of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Agency Mesyatsev was first sent as ambassador to distant Australia, and then completely expelled from the party for a murky story with an attempt to rape a ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater.
Shelepin, on the other hand, was sometimes blamed for “false democracy,” which meant a demonstrative unwillingness to use nomenklatura privileges. And in September 1975, in addition to being removed from the Politburo, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Vocational Education to a very ridiculous position for a person of this caliber.
In the final resignation of Alexander Nikolaevich was sent in 1984, leaving the descendants to guess whether his defeat in the fight against Brezhnev was for good or evil.
He lived for another 10 years, and constantly communicated with his "friends-Komsomol members" who remained loyal to him. Having lived up to "perestroika", they were all convinced that if Shelepin had taken Brezhnev's place in due time, all this "perestroika" would have been unnecessary.
She is to death, he is to a poem
In November 1941, it was Shelepin, after a personal conversation, who ordered the Komsomol member Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya to be enrolled in the sabotage detachment, whose candidacy was initially rejected by the command. For this, Alexander Nikolaevich was awarded several complimentary lines in the poem by Margarita Aliger "Zoya", which was awarded the Stalin Prize. It is possible that it was from this poem that the leader first learned the name of Shelepin.
Journal: Secrets of the USSR №5 / С. Author: Oleg Pokrovsky
