Chapter 377
The position of Chairman of the Central Supervisory Committee is a hot commodity for many people. There are countless people who want to take it. Even Andreyev, who is always peaceful and rarely competes with others, is probably unwilling to give up this position. But this position is also a hot potato for Yuri. If possible, he really hopes to stay as far away from this position as possible.
But the problem is that in today's Soviet Union, today's Moscow, who can sit on this position and who cannot sit on it is not something that ordinary people can decide. And for Yuri, what position he wants to hold and what position he can sit on is also not decided by himself.
On the same day that Comrade Zhdanov was buried in the cemetery outside the Kremlin walls, the Central Committee made a decision on appointments and removals: Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov, member of the Central Committee and alternate secretary of the Central Secretariat, was removed from the post of Chairman of the Supreme Soviet House of Nationalities. At the same time, he was appointed Secretary of the Central Secretariat (in charge of the daily work of the Party Organization Department and the Administrative Organs Department) and Chairman of the Central Supervisory Committee.
This appointment decision was published in Pravda, occupying only a very inconspicuous space. For ordinary people, this appointment decision does not seem to be worthy of attention and does not trigger too many associations. However, for the real Soviet bureaucracy, this appointment decision means that a dazzling political star has risen.
The first point is the leap from alternate secretary to secretary. According to the appointment and removal rules of the Soviet Central Secretariat, an alternate secretary can be added as a formal secretary only when the formal secretary is vacant. In the recent personnel changes, only Zhdanov, the Secretary of the Central Secretariat, was vacant due to his death. As the additional secretary of the Secretariat, Yuri has actually become the first person in the second echelon of the central core layer.
Looking at his specific party positions, he was appointed Chairman of the Central Supervisory Committee. The Central Supervisory Committee is a very special department. From the organizational structure of the Soviet Bolshevik Party, this department is parallel to the Presidium and the Central Secretariat. They are all directly led by the Central Committee and are only responsible to the Central Committee. It is a department with a very high status. According to convention, this department should be chaired by a member of the Presidium. According to domestic rules, the chairman of the department should be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
In addition, as the Secretary of the Central Secretariat, the two departments that Yuri is in charge of within the department are also very sensitive.
If we trace the origin of the Party Organization Department, we can find that this department was born at the Eighth and Ninth Congresses of the Communist Party of Russia, and finally took shape at the Twelfth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia. Its predecessor was the Central Registration and Allocation Department established in accordance with the resolution on the appointment system. Its main task is to complete the main tasks of registration and allocation. To put it bluntly, it is responsible for the promotion and transfer of party staff and cadre registration.
Those who are familiar with the Soviet cadre system should know that the Soviet cadre system follows the so-called "national cadre list system", which is divided into three levels , namely the so-called "No. 1 List", "No. 2 List" and "No. 3 List". Among them, positions that can only be appointed through the resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee belong to the "No. 1 List"; positions that can only be appointed with the approval of the Secretariat of the Central Committee belong to the No. 2 List; and the list of positions determined by each state agency and approved by the Secretariat of the Central Committee belongs to the No. 3 List.
These three lists cover the scope of leaders of all competent departments in the Soviet Union from the central to the local levels. The so-called "with the approval of the Central Secretariat" in List No. 2 and List No. 3 actually means the approval of the Party Organization Department. This department also has another name, the "Central Committee Organization and Distribution Department."
This department, which is specifically responsible for personnel work, was greatly strengthened in the 1930s and 1940s, and basically replaced the functions of the Central Organization Bureau. The reason why Comrade Zhdanov was able to create an amazingly cohesive "Leningrad faction" was because, as secretary of the Central Secretariat, he had long been in control of the daily work of this department.
Take Yuri as an example. His current appointment does not need to be approved by this department, but is discussed and decided by the Presidium of the Central Committee. To put it bluntly, it is decided by Comrade Stalin himself. In the Soviet bureaucratic system, officials like him who need to be appointed by the Presidium of the Central Committee personally account for less than one-third of the entire Soviet bureaucratic system. The bureaucrats on the No. 2 and No. 3 lists account for more than two-thirds of the leaders of the main management departments of the Soviet Union. All of these bureaucrats are reviewed and decided by the Party Organization Department.
Let's look at the Ministry of Administrative Organs. This department is also an extraordinary institution. The Central Committee defines the authority of this department as: responsible for guiding the ideological work of the army, intelligence and dictatorship departments. In other words, the political commissar system within the army, the Military Intelligence Bureau, the State Security Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the political commissar system of the border guard system, and the ideological education departments of military academies all need to be supervised and controlled by this department. Its existence is the basis for the Bolshevik Party to lead the army and violent departments. The former head of this department was Comrade Kuznetsov.
After understanding this, look back at the series of appointments made by the Central Committee.
Yuri is not a standing member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, nor is he a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. However, in terms of power, he holds a position that only members of the Politburo Standing Committee can hold. Judging from the level of power, his ranking in the Politburo is at least higher than Andreyev, and he is a middle-level figure in the first echelon of the core of power.
This young man, who is only in his early thirties, controls the appointment and removal of party positions on one hand, and the suppression organs within the party on the other . In addition , he also monitors the ideological work of the army, border guards, intelligence and security departments. He is a real powerful boss. However, because he is not a main member of the presidium, his status in the party is lacking, which is a contradiction.
What this contradiction highlighted was Comrade Stalin's emotional insecurity - he not only distrusted his relative Zhdanov and the Leningrad faction led by him, but he also distrusted Malenkov who had just been recalled to Moscow. To be more precise, he no longer trusted any of the old guys in the Presidium.
Comrade Stalin is old, over sixty years old, and his health has been getting worse in the past two years. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is gradually approaching old age. Old people like him often have strange tempers and are very suspicious. A change in the expression of the people around him or a simple conversation may be imagined by him as a conspiracy against him. To put it bluntly, since the end of the war, he has been consciously kicking out those in the core circle, including Voroshilov, Budyonny, Kaganovich, Malenkov, Molotov...
From a certain perspective, when Comrade Stalin promoted Voznesensky and others, he might not have really valued their abilities. Perhaps he valued their youth and their low prestige in the party. Furthermore, he might have valued Yuri for this reason.
Of course, the reason why Comrade Stalin gave Yuri the two key departments, the Party Organization Department and the Administrative Organs Department, was because this young man was easier to control and knew more about the limits. For example, in some personnel appointments, Yuri could not act on his own like Zhdanov did in the past.
Or... Or maybe Comrade Stalin really planned to promote the reform of young cadres, and the young Yuri was him... the successor he chose? Haha, this possibility is too small, no one would believe it.
…
The warmth of early spring has not yet reached Moscow, and the breeze blowing at dusk still carries a hint of late winter chill.
On Heping Street, in the square in front of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition Hall, Yuri, wearing a black leather coat, walked down the steps in front of the exhibition hall slowly. Around him, there were a crowd of thirty or forty people. On the steps below, there were several reporters taking pictures. In their cameras, Yuri was the centerpiece, and the guys around him were, without exception, just background panels.
Following closely on Yuri's right side, and half a step behind him, was a tall but gentle-looking middle-aged man. His name was Georgy Mikhailovich Popov. He was not yet fifty years old and was a genuine mechanical engineer. However, his current job had nothing to do with mechanical engineering. He was the current First Secretary of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee.
On his left, also half a step behind, was a young man with a slicked-back hair. His name was Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin, and he was Anteliya's former boss. Not long ago, he was transferred here by Yuri to be in charge of the daily work of the Party Organization Department.
Yuri didn't know much about the former, and he had heard of the latter in his previous life, but he didn't know what the other person had done. He just had an impression of this person's name, and remembered that this person's name always appeared together with "Semichasny".
The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition Hall was built in 1935 at the order of Comrade Stalin himself. It was used to showcase the achievements of Soviet agricultural construction. It was once open to the public and allowed free visits. However, during the Great Patriotic War, this place was bombed by the Germans and was severely damaged. Two years ago, the state began to restore this significant building, which was not officially completed until recently.
The reason why Yuri came to this place today was to conduct an inspection. This was the task assigned to him by Comrade Stalin. Later, Comrade Stalin will come to inspect in person, so he came here to paved the way.
