Chapter 1276 – Big Things Come One After Another

The meeting went on into the night, and Khrushchev’s firmness caused such a headache for all that it was decided to continue the discussion on the following day, and also to give Khrushchev a night to think it over.

By this time he was still First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, but in practice his contact with the outside world had been cut off.

His personal guard had also been removed, and his security was now in the hands of Colonel Cherkalov, head of the KGB’s Ninth Main Directorate, who was unquestioningly subservient to Semichasne.

If he wanted to, Khrushchev could have died of his illness unnoticed, but Semichassne was adamantly opposed to this. From the KGB’s point of view, this de facto coup, the KGB had cut off all the sources of information around Khrushchev, something all the members of the Central Presidium were aware of, and in the event of Khrushchev’s death in an unknown manner, the KGB, even if they had not done anything, would be questioned by others, and the KGB would have a lot to do with it, and the KGB would not be able to do anything. Semichasne informed Shelepin that doing so was definitely a hidden danger.

“Khrushchev’s holding out, in what way?” Semichasne inquired, naturally hoping that Khrushchev, after a night of calm, would figure out not to continue struggling.

“He wants to replicate the Molotov one, to hit the Central Presidium resolution with the Central Committee members’ resolution.” Sergey said with a serious face, “No, we must guard against this, there have been frequent movements of cadres in the past two years. There are indeed new faces that he has personally promoted, and there are quite a few of them. Unless we let the Central Committee members know that the tide has turned, otherwise the uninformed ones may really defend him.”

Shelepin could no longer sit still at the thought of this, and directly approached Brezhnev, making his fears known bluntly, “I wonder if we have the certainty of getting the majority of the comrades on our side now.”

“There shouldn’t be any problem!” Brezhnev is also worried about this point, in fact, he has no idea, Khrushchev has been the No. 1 person for more than ten years, defeated a variety of political opponents, there may be a lot of people to support him, but if this happens, they will be out of luck.

On the one hand, Khrushchev was adamant that he would not retire, and the KGB was adamant that they refused to send Khrushchev to Stalin, and following previous examples, a meeting of the Central Committee members seemed inevitable.

Brezhnev ferried back and forth, but happened to see Foltseva getting ready to leave work, and with a change of heart said, “Comrade Ekaterina, I have something I hope you can help with.”

At the time of Molotov’s outburst, Khrushchev was also at an absolute disadvantage at the level of the Central Presidium, and although they all resolutely defended Khrushchev at that time, but at that time everyone had a small number of people, and it was Foltseva who stood at the airport in Moscow for a day and a night and brought the Central Committee that had rushed in from all over the country together, and ultimately overthrew the resolution of the Central Presidium.

If Khrushchev was counting on such a flip-flop, Foltseva was the one most familiar with the process.

Learning of Brezhnev’s purpose, Forteva eyes flashed a trace of suspicion, this trace of suspicion was also captured by Brezhnev, opened the door to let Forteva put down her guard, “Ekaterina, let the country back on track is our common desire. You would like your son to serve the country in a stable society, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I wish.” Foltseva knew that this was Brezhnev’s promise, a promise that required her to do what she had done seven years earlier, to make the Central Committee members who had traveled from all over the world understand the formality, “All right, Ilyich, I’ll take care of this. As Shurik said, it’s the Ukrainian side that’s going to be the hardest to deal with, the last time he was able to get away with it in one piece was the full support of the Ukraine, and even if Cherest has made some preparations, it won’t eliminate the pitfalls.”

“Thank you, Comrade Ekaterina.” Brezhnev said with a sigh of relief, “You don’t have to attend tomorrow’s meeting, I hope it doesn’t have to come to that, but if it comes to that it will be hard on you.”

The night passed, Brezhnev shuffled off and headed straight to the Kremlin, this time the meeting was not attended by Foltseva, and in accordance with the negotiated procedure, Brezhnev spoke again, speaking from an emotional and public point of view, stating that this time it wasn’t because of a personal vendetta that he was taking action.

“You, Nikita Sergeyevich, are aware of my attitude towards you. Back then, at a time when you were in a difficult situation, I used to fight for you, for the Leninist line, honestly, courageously and with confidence. In fact, at that time I was suffering from a myocardial infarction, but even though I was seriously ill, I gained the strength to carry on the struggle for you.”

“Today, however, I can’t do anything against my conscience; I want to speak out in accordance with my convictions. If you, Nikita Sergeyevich, were not tainted with such bad habits as a love of dictating, self-deception, and the conviction that the individual is always right, and if you possessed a little humility, you would not allow the creation of a personal cult of yourself. You like to issue instructions to all men and on all subjects, yet it is well known that no man can accomplish such a task – the basis of all error is being laid here.”

This time the conversation remained difficult; Khrushchev had run into a similar scenario seven years earlier, when the entire Central Presidium had started out with only Mikoyan on his side. After so many years as First Secretary, Khrushchev still did not respectfully submit in the face of his once low-browed minions, “Convince me according to the rules.”

“Fine.” Brezhnev opened his mouth to agree, which almost gave Khrushchev a surge of hope.

At the Moscow airport, Foltseva was somewhat in a trance; in 1957, when Marinkov, Kaganovich, and Molotov, in conjunction with some members of the Presidium, had tried to remove Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee by a simple vote, Foltseva, under the pretext of going to the bathroom, had run off and telephoned the leaders of the powerful departments and other members of the Central Committee in Moscow, appealing to them to come to the defense of Khrushchev, and in turn had persuaded Zhukov to side with her side.

Within two days she had airlifted one hundred and seven of the one hundred and thirty members of the Central Committee to Moscow, eventually turning the situation completely around.

It hadn’t occurred to her that after all these years she would have to do it all over again, this time with the opposite purpose, and for no reason at all she remembered the man’s cutting tone, “Be sure to take Brezhnev’s side, and don’t be deceived by his Mr. Nice Guy face.”

“Comrade Ekaterina.” To add weight to Foltseva, KGB Chairman Semichasne followed along this time, opening his mouth at this point because a special plane had already landed.

Following the faces stepping off the plane, Foltseva instantly recognized that it was the Ukrainian Central Committee members who had arrived first, “Let’s meet them together.”

With the Chairman of the KGB at her side, Foltseva was far more at ease than she had been seven years ago, and from this midday onwards, she was going to be receiving a steady stream of people receiving orders from Moscow to make informed choices throughout the day and night, overnight.

Foltseva remained focused on Ukraine, and as the sun rose for the third time on Khrushchev’s return to Moscow, First Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Council Serdyuk, Central Secretary Olekova, Ivashko, and First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Shainin, joined Foltseva at the Kremlin.

Foltseva met Brezhnev and said that everything was fine, and the meeting, which included one hundred and seventy members of the Central Committee, was officially opened, with Brezhnev presiding over the meeting, and an anonymous vote began with more than one hundred members of the Central Committee voicing their approval, and this time Khrushchev did not flip.

Because the vote was anonymous, Brezhnev did not say anything, except to express his pleasure at the maturity of all the Central Committee members, “For reasons of advanced age and deteriorating health, Comrade Khrushchev’s request that he be relieved of his duties as First Secretary, member of the Central Presidium, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR will be met.”

Suslov made a statement, elaborating on his views on collective leadership, “confirming that it is not expedient to concentrate the posts of First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in just one person.”

Mikoyan presided over the meeting to select a new First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and the group proposed Brezhnev as a candidate for First Secretary of the Central Committee and recommended the appointment of Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, one of the two First Vice-Chairmen in Khrushchev’s government.

Kommersant then published news of the Central Plenum and portraits of the country’s new leaders, and news of the change in Soviet leadership began to spread around the world.

“I wonder if this will affect, our negotiations with the Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union on the criteria for the introduction of movies.” Alan Wilson was in front of Prime Minister Aidan when the heavy news came in.

Cabinet Secretary General never Tarzan collapsed in front of the face does not change color, even if he knew that the Soviet Union appeared to be a huge change, but did not express too much concern.

He did not know anything else, anyway, Xie Leiping group of cadres aged around forty years old must have miscalculated, if not the KGB did not play a role, Khrushchev would not have stepped down. At this time Alan Wilson, based on historical analysis, did not know that the Culture Tsar also played an important role in this one.

“Allen, it seems like the Khrushchev matter is more important than the negotiations for the introduction of the movie.” Aiden couldn’t help but laugh bitterly, the direction of the Cabinet Secretary’s concern was really unusual.

“Khrushchev has already stepped down, but this negotiation has not yet succeeded, so it is still the latter that is more relevant to us.” Alan Wilson humbly answered Aiden’s question, “Of course, we’ll make some assessments right away, which may take a few days.”

As it turns out, either things calm down or big things come one after the other, a day later, on the afternoon of October 16th, the first atomic bomb developed by a major country exploded successfully in the northwest, making it the fifth country in the world to possess nuclear weapons after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. The nuclear club was filled with another member.

The news came that another Whitehall assessment plan had to be made, and Alan Wilson would certainly not be able to get off work on time for a few days, and all at once he began to remember the days when he had worked until two o’clock in the afternoon in Kuala Lumpur.