How to impress leaders with the fastest speed? Netizens have jokes: the leader clips the dish I turn the table, the leader toasts me and I don't drink. Jokes aside, but in the Brezhnev era, there was really a very "short-sighted" real power figure in Soviet politics, and he was Alexander Nikolaevich Serepin, who controlled the KGB.
At a high-level meeting, when people were discussing how to further improve the ideological propaganda work, Comrade Serepin actually attacked on the spot the Soviet Union's behavior of praising the leaders in an overwhelming way, and even talked about the excitement of the rhetoric. Brezhnev is a scene man, although his face has been damaged, but after all, the other party is reasonable, it is not good to directly open up; those present are even more looking at each other, and they are all silent. At the critical moment, Suslov, who was still a veteran who was very serious and deeply aware of the great righteousness, stood up and broke the siege, explaining that this was just a "tradition" that had been continued before, and it was not a big deal. After coaxing for half a day, this matter finally turned over.
It is not difficult to imagine how deeply Xie Lieping has left a "impression" in the hearts of his predecessors, but in fact, this is by no means the first time he has been so "not long-sighted".
Compared with the famous and famous people in soviet politics of the same era, Serepin's origin is very "non-mainstream": he was born in the Soviet Communist Youth League and became famous very early, and at the age of twenty-three or four, he gained high-level favor. In 1941, Serepin was appointed secretary of the Communist Youth League committee in Moscow, and although he did not directly participate in the Great Patriotic War, he fully mobilized the Russian youth to defend the country during the war, propagated patriotic education, and showed quite outstanding organizational talent.
In addition, Stalin was a well-known leader, and he greatly admired Serepin's young, distinctive personality and outstanding ability. Thus, Serepin's career was like a green light, and by 1953, the moment of Stalin's death, he had a place in the decision-making hierarchy.
Three years later, the power struggle at the top entered a white-hot stage. Khrushchev, who gradually came to the fore, became the target of public criticism and was besieged by a group of powerful figures led by Malenkov and Molotov. At a critical juncture, Shelepin, who was not yet 40 years old at the time, dared to risk the world's great disobedience to publicly express his support for Khrushchev and asked the other party by name to explain his behavior. At this time, he was still too naïve, only seeing Khrushchev's idea of "smashing the cult of personality", firmly believing that Hirsch was just, but not seeing that the latter's deep purpose was to take the opportunity to build his own political foundation. But how can this group of big people who are accustomed to the wind and waves endure the finger-pointing of a young man? Marshal Voroshilov, who was highly respected, scolded angrily: "Why do we explain it to you a stinking hairy child?" You learn how to wear pants first! ”
I don't know whether it was simply a newborn calf who was not afraid of tigers, or out of clever political investment considerations, Khrushchev finally reversed the situation. He was extremely grateful for Serepin's righteous words before, and the new Soviet leader urgently needed to cultivate his own team, and the young and daring And like a blank piece of paper, Shelepin was just a perfect candidate. As a result, the latter was extremely rewarded: on December 25, 1958, Serepin, who had just turned 40, was appointed chairman of the National Security Council, a department known as the KGB.
From another point of view, Khrushchev had his own considerations.
First of all, often, 40 years old is not the mature age of a politician, perhaps Khrushchev believes that Serepin is a piece of jade, and there is still a lot of room for "transformation". Therefore, under ideal circumstances, Serepin could not only be developed into his confidant, but Khrushchev could also take the KGB into his hands and become a tool to consolidate his power. However, the thoughtful Khrushchev was mistaken: Serepin, although young, was more assertive than ordinary people; even if he was one of the leaders of the country, his temper and personality did not change at all.
We can see his precious character in two small things.
Soviet officials all had housing allotted, and naturally the higher the position, the more luxurious the house was assigned. When Shelepin walked into his apartment, he found that the house had been renovated and spent a lot of money at first glance. He was very dissatisfied with this, and immediately called the staff, got all the bills for the expenses, and then repaid all the decoration costs without fail. He had always hated the extravagant use of the state's money by public officials, and he also hated those who seized power. Another time, a reporter stabbed the honeycomb and blew out some of the "black material" of a high-ranking official, which triggered a lot of negative public opinion effects. Forced to deal with the official at the top and intending to "punish" the troubled journalist, Shelepin asked, "Who can deny these facts[referring to what the reporter broke the news]?" "Eventually saved the reporter.
In his attitude toward Khrushchev, Serepin also upheld his own judgment. At first, the two worked together quite tacitly, and Khrushchev asked Shelepin to suppress the excessive power of some functional departments, who led by example, starting with the KGB under his control, re-enacting the rules and regulations, requiring its staff not to wear epaulettes to show off their identities; and simply pushing off the rank of general, which was very embarrassing to the military. There is no doubt that such "dirty work" is the easiest to offend people, and Xie Lieping has made many enemies because of this, but he does not care and insists on doing what he thinks is right. While prohibiting state violent organs from committing crimes, he also used his authority to actively suppress unjust, false and wrongly decided cases of rebellion and deal with the backlog of cases. This made the Khrushchev era one of the most relaxed and enlightened periods of Soviet politics, praised as "the prisons of Lubyanka empty".
All in all, Shelepin himself provoked a commotion and won a good reputation for his boss, which leader does not like such a subordinate? In turn, Khrushchev gave Serepin greater power, who was once regarded as the de facto "second-in-command" in Soviet politics. However, there was soon a rift between the two.
It turned out that with the gradual consolidation of his position of power, Khrushchev had a tendency to "turn dragon slayers into evil dragons", and he had some arbitrary meanings in policy, and his attitude towards his colleagues became worse, and he called his subordinates as servants. Serepin tried to identify and solve the problem, but Khrushchev scoffed at it. After several times, he was very disappointed in his superiors, and soon secretly defected and joined the camp of plotting to bring down Hissch. In October 1964, Khrushchev was tragically suspended while on vacation and had to agree to "early retirement". It is worth mentioning that on the day of leaving office, all the members of the high-level team lined up to shake hands with him one by one to say goodbye. When it was Sereze's turn, Khrushchev took his hand and whispered, "They will do the same to you, maybe even worse..."
At first glance, this sounds like a helpless angry words, who expected to turn a word into a slur in the future.
After two tense political eras of Stalin and Khrushchev, people urgently needed to ease the current suppressed tension, and Brezhnev also consciously created a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere. During this period, the phenomenon of official corruption increased, and a considerable number of high-level members coveted pleasures, which everyone knew but tacitly understood. However, Shelepin still did not change his conscientious work attitude. He was unwilling to join the bandwagon and frequently attacked all kinds of corruption and dereliction of duty, which made everyone very embarrassed. Once, when Brezhnev was surprised to find that Serepin was always out alone, he was very surprised and asked him why he did not enjoy the security services of the country's leaders. Serepin asked on the spot: "Do people like us still need protection?" Blasio was speechless.
In general, during the Soviet period, the "old people" regarded politics as a game, which made the flesh-and-blood "young people" very dissatisfied. More and more young officials spontaneously gathered around Shelepin in the hope of changing the status quo under his leadership; this made Shelepin's voice very loud, and the big men regarded him as a bone in his throat and gritted his teeth in hatred. At this point, Serepin's political career has undoubtedly entered the "countdown".
Brezhnev's level of governance of the country is debatable, but his power skills are undoubtedly at the top of history. Quietly, he installed many cronies in the KGB and restored the separation of powers between the Ministry of The Interior and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In three or two strokes, the young KGB chairman was hollowed out. Later, Xie Lieping was transferred to the light industry, food and other state departments, although there was not much change in the administrative level, but most of these positions did not have real power. His good political years were spent on these "empty jobs" until his retirement in 1984.
Serepin's career is a typical story of the "death of an idealist": with a simple patriotic enthusiasm, he only wants to serve the country dutifully, but he did not realize the complexity and danger of the political arena too early and promoted too quickly, and mistakenly thought that only noble qualities and a single drive could change everything. As everyone knows, in that position, compared to ability, human affection may be the foundation of settling down. At the same time, Serepin's story largely reflects a pessimistic reality in the short history of the Soviet Union: in the absence of ideal circumstances, some valuable advantages may become the most fatal flaws.
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