Looking at it now, Brezhnev's later years are like a "torture" that has been designed.
One day in early September 1982, the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs Zhang Nikolai Anisimovich Sholokov mysteriously walked into the room of the supreme leader.
Boss, someone is going to rebel!
Brezhnev quickly flipped through the report in front of him, and the evidence listed in it all pointed to one name, Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, who appeared to be secretly planning a "subversive campaign" to seize power, much to his horror.
After a moment of silence, he entrusted Sholokov with the task of investigating whether Andropov had evil intentions, and in addition, he made a point of emphasizing that the matter must be concluded within three days.
Compared with a case of such a standard, what is enough to do in three days? Xiaolokov was a smart man, and as a hardcore confidant of Brezhnev, he immediately understood the true intentions of the leadership.
I can rest assured that Brezhnev had full trust in his hardcore henchmen, but he could not imagine what terrible consequences this would incur for himself.
Half a month later, surrounded by a group of entourage, Brezhnev arrived in Azerbaijan to inspect the work, and the authorities organized a grand welcome party and broadcast the event live on national television.
As usual, he took the speech and recited it with emotion. However, it didn't take long for the venue to be enveloped in an eerie atmosphere: the audience would still applaud at the right time, but everyone in the audience was sitting on pins and needles, their faces full of embarrassment and confusion.
At this time, Brezhnev finally realized the problem: he read the speech for half an hour, and it had nothing to do with the event at all!
While waiting for the staff to change the speech, he played a round with a mocking tone and humor: "Comrades, it was just a small mistake, let's start all over again." ”
Although he said that, he vaguely felt that he was finished.
It all started 15 years ago.
I have always believed that a historical figure can leave his name in the annals of history, and there must be something special about him, and Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev is no exception.
Today, young people, who have only watched a few videos and read some scraps, mercilessly ridicule Brezhnev, laughing at him for leaving as many jokes as the medal on his chest, and treating him as a fool. But in fact, Brezhnev was not good at governing the country, but he was quite good at playing with power.
He is especially good at checks and balances, and he cultivates plank roads in the open and secretly dismantles the foundation of his political opponents, which has the meaning of killing people invisibly.
Let's take a very typical story.
The chairman of the KGB before Andropov was named Alexander Nikolayevich Sherepin. Relatively speaking, this person is not a famous person, but he has really left a strong mark in the actual measurement.
Sherepin became famous at a young age and was regarded as a political legacy of the Stalin era, and was personally raised and cultivated by Khrushchev, and once became a hot new generation of political stars in the Soviet Union, and he was extremely popular. In its heyday, almost all the young and aspiring politicians and thinkers of Soviet politics rallied around Sherepin, and they formed a large and close political offensive and defensive alliance.
Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, and these young people dare to fight with the "old people" in a real way, bluntly saying that "every department has our friends"; and as for Sherepin himself, he even questioned the decisions of the other party in an angry manner at important meetings, and ridiculed them for their corruption.
Even if it is excessive, the "old people" can only swallow their anger and play a round with a smile.
Feeling threatened like never before, Brezhnev took matters into his hands.
First, he single-handedly "ascended and secretly descended" to promote Sherepin to the nominal second-in-command, but in fact first separated him from his henchmen; and then made another move to "steal the beams and change the pillars" and split the original work of the "Soviet second-in-command" into two, handing over the appointment of cadres who touched real power to his own henchmen, and throwing to Sherepin the organizational work that did not matter the pain.
As a result, just 3 years later, Shelepin was completely stripped of power and kicked out of the inner circle of power in disgrace.
This is how Brezhnev was used, he was not as aggressive and fierce as Stalin, nor was he as hysterical and fiery as Khrushchev, but he was always able to quietly carry out his political intentions, at an extremely low cost and in a quiet manner.
Killing people without seeing blood, and surrendering without a fight, there is no higher level of power struggle than this.
After gradually consolidating his political foundation, he began to install his henchmen in key positions.
In the mid-60s of the 20th century, Brezhnev made two extremely crucial appointments one after another: in 1966, the authorities announced the restoration of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, with Nikolai Anisimovich Sholokov as minister, and in 1967, Andropov was appointed chairman of the KGB.
It is worth noting that although Andropov, who advocated reform, later stood on the opposite side of Brezhnev, Andropov was very loyal to the Soviet Union before the Soviet Union abandoned the "reform of the new economic system" in the 70s of the 20th century. After being appointed chairman of the KGB, he more than once publicly stated: "...... Caring for the top leaders is my top priority. ”
And Brezhnev also liked to regard Andropov as a confidant, and gave a very high evaluation: modest, shrewd and capable, no threat to the supreme power.
And another capable general, Xiaolokov, is the core backbone of the "Dnipropetrovsk Gang", a political organization of the General Assembly. Although Sholokov was eventually defeated by Andropov, and lost so badly that he was beaten to the ground, Sholokov was also a powerful character.
After becoming Minister of Internal Affairs, he took advantage of his position to reap the benefits of his department: raising the average salary of the Soviet police force, changing new uniforms, updating various equipment - these are problems that have been delayed for many years without results, and he can solve them in three or two clicks.
In a very short period of time, Xiaolokov rebuilt the Ministry of Internal Affairs into a large-scale powerful department, which not only created an extremely glorious positive image in the eyes of the people, but also made the whole department grateful to him.
Guess what Lokov did with this pouring wealth? He said very sincerely and humbly that he didn't have much credit, everything was paid for by Mr. Bo, and if you want to thank him, thank him for the old man.
This hand borrowed flowers to offer Buddha not only solved the problem, let the subordinates get benefits, let the leaders earn face, please up and down, and kill multiple birds with one stone.
Throughout his career, Brezhnev made many efforts to make himself look tough and make the Soviet Union tough, but he was still very "cowardly" in nature. He holds the highest power but only seeks comfort for himself, and as long as life is not comfortable enough, he immediately thinks of retreating.
In 1974, after suffering two strokes in a row and his physical condition deteriorated sharply, he offered to ask his colleagues to hire another master, and in 1979, he simply confessed to his personal doctor: I was too tired to do it!
It's just that vested interests are reluctant to give up the political hotbed, and who knows if the successor will be another "Khrushchev"? As a result, Brezhnev was forcibly retained.
Judging from his various performances in the later period, we can even think that Mr. Bo, who realized that there was no hope of withdrawing, was just a different way of providing for the elderly.
From the end of the 70s of the 20 th century, when enterprises often failed to pay wages, the workers still commuted to and from work on time, but they only grinded foreign workers and did not produce. When asked, the workers replied confidently: "Since the leader pretended to pay us wages, then we had to pretend to go to work." ”
Some people are happy and some are worried, and Andropov is very anxious about this situation, and he is extremely disappointed in the self-depravity of the decision-making level. It was at this stage that his disagreements with the "Dniepr gang" became more and more apparent.
It's also strange to say: he and Xiaolokov were both confidants of the supreme leader, and they should have stood on the same front, and their relationship with each other was like a pair of mortal enemies. In fact, it is not difficult to understand this: when the country has problems, Andropov wants to insist on reforms to completely eradicate the ills, while Xiaolokov obeys the leadership and does his best to maintain the dignity of the leadership.
A typical example of this is that in 1973, Andropov received a secret report that there was a frighteningly large economic criminal syndicate in the Republic of Kazakhstan, which relied on the supply of raw materials, processing and production, illegal sales and other means to make profits. After investigation, the KGB found that there were hundreds of officials involved in the case, and almost all of the top levels of the local government were contaminated.
This case is the famous "leather draft" in the history of the Soviet Union. Someone duly asked a question: What kind of person has such great energy that can allow such a huge corrupt syndicate to operate "healthily" under the noses of the people for so many years? It soon became popular among the people that the "protective umbrella" that provided shelter for the criminal syndicate was none other than Minister of Internal Affairs Sholokov.
In fact, Sholokov's behavior in the investigation of this case was indeed deliberate, and in order to obstruct the investigation, he even did not hesitate to instruct his subordinates to clash with KGB investigators. Eventually, some of the main culprits in the case were executed, while others were saved, most of whom were officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Although this incident gave the public a glimpse of the energy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - "someone from above" can really do whatever he wants, it also brought Sholokov a great sense of crisis. He knew in his heart that he was limited to "someone above", and if he didn't talk about this, he wouldn't be able to play Andropov at all.
And so it turned out: just a month after Brezhnev's death, Sholokov lost his post for corruption.
In the years that followed, the two fought openly and secretly, and Xiaolokov and the Ministry of Internal Affairs won more and less, and his sense of crisis deepened.
In the 80s, Brezhnev's body was visibly worse day by day, and he had to take a handful of sleeping pills before going to bed every day to barely fall asleep.
Birth, old age, sickness and death are inevitable, and the living are more anxious than the dying. Xiaolokov knew that if he could not bring down his opponent in the last days of President Bo, then he would be a complete failure.
On September 10, 1982, Sholokov handed Brezhnev a sincere copy of "black material". As he expected, Brezhnev, who came to power in a coup d'état, would not tolerate history repeating itself, and immediately gave him the power of life and death.
Returning to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sholokov immediately dispatched troops and sent three groups of men to the Central Building, Lubyanka Square, and Andropov's mansion. He hoped to capture Andropov by striking first, and then quickly dismantle the latter's forces.
However, unexpectedly, the KGB installed an "inside line" in the Ministry of Internal Affairs early in the morning, and reported the plan to Andropov one step earlier. The KGB ambushed a large number of men on the way, and after a fierce exchange of fire, the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were completely annihilated.
Regardless of whether Andropov had any objections before, when things got to this point, others had stretched out their knives in front of them, so how could there be any reason to continue to pretend to be stupid?
With his temper, it is impossible to act as if nothing has happened, this thing is not over.
After that, all the guards around Brezhnev were replaced by KGB men, who completely cut him off from the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the grounds of "ensuring the safety of the supreme leader."
Half a month later, in front of millions of Soviet people watching live television, Brezhnev made a fool of himself in public in a very low-level and stupid way - he could make a mistake in the draft of a speech at a state event, which is probably the only absurd thing in history. Obviously, the Soviet authorities will not make a big deal about this matter, but the cause and effect of this are self-evident.
Brezhnev's "torture" was much more than that: on November 7, 1982, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the "October Revolution Day" in the Soviet Union, the authorities held a grand celebration as usual. At that time, Mr. Bo was terminally ill and was unconscious for almost half of the day.
He wanted not to attend the celebration, but Andropov insisted that he show his face, at least in front of the people, in a healthy and upright posture, which would be in the good interest of the country.
Hearing this, Brezhnev thought that he only needed to stand for a few minutes, wave his hand to the people, and be done, but he did not expect that this station would be several hours. At the age of 76, he has to endure various illnesses while keeping straight in front of the camera, constantly waving in response to the cheers of the people and the salute of the parade procession.
It is said that the winter was surprisingly cold, and the temperature was so low that even young people could not bear it. That night, he was also forced to attend a banquet and maintained an energetic posture throughout the whole time. It is difficult not to wonder whether this highly targeted arrangement was deliberate.
Three days later, this "torture" finally came to an end.
In his later years, Brezhnev often needed sleeping pills to sleep, and the staff around him could not figure out when he would wake up, and rarely disturbed him to rest.
On November 10, 1982, the guards did not see the supreme leader wake up, knocked on the door and did not respond, vaguely feeling that something was wrong. Pushing the door to take a look, I found that Mr. Bo was not breathing.
The guards were horrified, and while calling for paramedics to rush to the rescue, they first gave Brezhnev a heart-to-heart resuscitation. But 10 minutes later, when the doctor arrived, he just took a look and his face was like ashes.
It's cold, and it's hopeless.