Shelepin, Alexander Nikolaevich

Born in Voronezh , in the family of a railway employee Nikolai Georgievich Shelepin (1890-1968).

He graduated from high school with honors. Member of the Komsomol since March 1934, was immediately elected secretary of the Komsomol committee of the school. Since 1936 in Moscow. In 1936-1941 he studied at the Faculty of History of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History . N. G. Chernyshevsky (IFLI), a graduate of the Department of the Foundations of Marxism-Leninism . Since 1937, the secretary of the Komsomol committee of the institute.

In January – April 1940, he volunteered ^[2] in the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army for political work (deputy political officer of the squadron of the 157th regiment of the 24th Moscow Cavalry Division), a participant in the Soviet-Finnish war . During the fighting received frostbite of the legs.

Member of the CPSU (b) since 1940 .
Since 1940, at work in the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol: instructor, head of the military physical education department, secretary of the Civil Code. In the fall of 1941, he was engaged in the selection of volunteers for partisan detachments and sabotage behind enemy lines (among which was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya ). The story of Kosmodemyanskaya reached JV Stalin , which marked the beginning of Shelepin’s fast career.

In the October day
short and hazy,
in Moscow, surrounded by a German horseshoe,
Comrade Shelepin,
you were a communist
with all our harsh justice.

- Excerpt from the poem "Zoya" M. Aliger (September 1942)

Since May 1943, secretary, and since 1949, second secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee . In 1952 - 1958, the first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.

In 1957, he actively supported N. S. Khrushchev during the June Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee to expose the " anti-party group " of Malenkov , Kaganovich , Molotov and " Shepilov who joined them"; He led the preparation and conduct in Moscow of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students .

1958-1964

In April 1958 he was appointed head of the Department of Party Organizations of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the Union Republics.

From December 25, 1958 to November 14, 1961 - Chairman of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (KGB of the USSR). It should be noted that A. N. Shelepin refused to be appointed chairman of the KGB . His appointment was largely political. N. S. Khrushchev instructively explained that working in the KGB is the same party political work , but with specifics. The KGB needs a fresh person who would be intolerant of any abuses by the Chekists. In conclusion, A. N. Shelepin recalled, Nikita Sergeyevich suddenly said: “I have another request for you: do everything so that they do not overhear me” ^[3] .

He refused the general rank upon appointment. N. Khrushchev was put forward with the task of restructuring the work of the Committee in accordance with the decisions of the Twentieth Party Congress : accelerating de-Stalinization and eradicating violations of socialist legality. He carried out a large-scale reorganization of the Committee with a reduction in the working apparatus by several thousand people, while actively recruiting people from the Komsomol; thoroughly restructured the structure of the Committee, instead of target operational units, forming a single centralized governing body ^[4] .

Personally engaged in the business of the son of I.V. Stalin V.I. Stalin . Later, together with the USSR Prosecutor General, R. A. Rudenko initiated his early release from prison.

From the very beginning of its management of the structure, the KGB said:

This direction of the KGB’s work was made possible by reality, as Philipp Bobkov testifies: “From the end of 1959, the Committee’s structure was structured in such a way that it was removed from the internal problems of the KGB - under Khrushchev, all the structures involved in their study were liquidated” ^[5] . In another place, Bobkov notes: “In the early 1960s, when radical structural changes took place in the KGB ... Operational work was entirely transferred to the sphere of channels to combat the penetration of foreign intelligence into the country. From the control over the environment that these intelligence services intended to use to undermine the constitutional system of the country, the state security bodies were essentially removed " ^{[6] [7]} .

During the recall from China of the Soviet advisers to the KGB at the initiative of Shelepin, he remained the only Soviet agency to maintain ties with China.

He attempted to initiate the release from prison of N. I. Eitingon and P. A. Sudoplatov .

The liquidators of S. A. Bandera - B.N. Stashinsky and L.D. Trotsky - R. Merkader received awards from his hands.

From October 1961 to September 1967 - Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee , was elected at the organizational Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, which completed the work of the XXII Party Congress .

During the unrest in Novocherkassk in 1962 at the scene of events from June 1 (he arrived with A. P. Kirilenko ), he took part in the adoption of the “decision on the reprisal against the“ troublemakers ”” ^[8] .

From November 23, 1962 to December 9, 1965, he headed the Committee on Party and State Control under the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR , while being deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR . The committee was formed following the November (1962) plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee as a result of the merger of the State Control Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers and the Party Control Committee under the CPSU Central Committee .

1964-1967

He took an active part in the actions to remove N. S. Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Fyodor Burlatsky calls Shelepin the main organizer of the Khrushchev’s dismissal ^[9] , according to his statement: “The idea and plan of the overthrow of Khrushchev came from Alexander Shelepin and a group of his Komsomol friends” ^[10] .

When Brezhnev came to power, he needed a strong man who would have, so to speak, “keys” to the state security committee in order to assert his position as a person elected to lead the party and state. And a kind of tandem Brezhnev - Shelepin was formed. Brezhnev trusted Shelepin. But then, when he felt that Shelepin’s attitude was changing towards Brezhnev himself ...

- Former head of the department of the Central Committee of the CPSU L. Zamyatin

In March 1965, during a visit to the dinner of the Soviet delegation headed by him and N. N. Mesyatsov in Mongolia, N. Mesyatsev “spoke of Shelepin as the future Secretary General” at the dinner of Y. Tsedenbal .

For months, he really shouted: “Here is the future value!” - it was with me. Everyone sat drunk, perhaps the Soviet ambassador or intelligence officer informed his leadership ...

- A. I. Filatova , [1]

In 1966, he led the Soviet party and government delegation to Vietnam .

According to the memoirs of A. Mikoyan :

Quite unexpectedly for me, the Shelepin group in early 1967 turned to me with a proposal to take part in their struggle against the Brezhnev group ... <...> ... to be the first to act on the basis of my authority in the party, after which they all will act and remove Brezhnev from the post of First Secretary. <...> The matter ended up in the fact that MK Yegorychev , Shelepin’s associate, spoke at the Plenum of the Central Committee with harsh, but unfounded criticism of the Ministry of Defense and the Central Committee in the leadership of this ministry: Moscow, they say, is ill-prepared for a surprise attack from the United States. <...> Brezhnev understood this sortie as the beginning of an open struggle against him. After this, the Plenum Shelepin was transferred to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, and later removed from the leadership and retired. Yegorychev left as ambassador to Denmark, and Semichastny was sent to party work in the Sumy region in Ukraine ^[11] .

After 1967

In 1967-1975, the chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions .

“He is not iron ... terribly indignant at how poorly the people live. For a whole month, on his instructions, we prepared a note in the Politburo stating that we should make a bias on the production of consumer goods and begin technical re-equipment. But to no avail ” ^[12] . ( A.P. Biryukova )

On the question of A. I. Solzhenitsyn , discussed in 1974, he supported the arrest of the writer.

Dismissal and retirement

During a visit to the UK in 1975, he was met at the head of a trade union delegation by mass demonstrations of protest. The scandal was used as the basis for the withdrawal from the Politburo of the Central Committee.

As Professor D. A. Volkogonov noted, Shelepin was put in reproach, among other things, for what he began to show, according to L. I. Brezhnev, “false democracy ”: he went to rest not at a special delivery, but to a regular sanatorium and began to go to eat to the common dining room ^[13] .

In 1975-1984 he worked as deputy chairman of the USSR State Committee for Vocational Education .

Since 1984 - a personal pensioner of national importance.

He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (6th grade) ^[14] .

• Wife Vera Borisovna (1919-2005);
  • daughter ^{[ who? ]} ;
    • grandchildren:
      • Shelepin Nikolay Igorevich;
      • Shelepin Alexander Igorevich;
  • daughter ^{[ who? ]} ;
  • son: Shelepin Andrey Alexandrovich;
    • grandson: Shelepin Andrey Andreevich;

• 4 orders of Lenin (... 10/28/1948, ...)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor
• Order of the Patriotic War II degree (03/11/1985)
• Order of the Red Star (02.27.1942)
• Medal "For the Defense of Moscow"
• Medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" II degree
• Medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1945)
• Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1945)
• other medals

He was democratic in nature, by nature. He loved a joke, he loved a practical joke, he was generally a sweet and handsome guy.

- N. N. Mesyatsev )

• Evgeny Zharikov in the feature film " Gray Wolves ", 1993
• Igor Ivanov in the television series Brezhnev , 2005

• A street in the Comintern district of Voronezh is named after Alexander Shelepin ^[15] .
• d / f "Iron Shurik" ( RTR , 2013)
• Victor Suvorov . " Aquarium ".

• Biographies: [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] (unavailable link from 05-23-2013 [2277 days] - history , copy ) , Alexander Shelepin (unavailable link) to KTOTAM.RU
• F.E. Medvedev. Just Shelepin: A journalistic novel. Century XX. - M., 2003.
• L. M. Mlechin . Iron Shurik. - M., 2004. - ISBN 5-699-07638-7
• Zhirnov E. The party said: do not // Kommersant-Vlast , No. 40, 10/12/1999.
• Leonid Mlechin . “The KGB. Chairpersons of Security Agencies. Declassified Fates. Chapter 12 ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH SHELEPIN ” (neopr.) . rulibs.com (2006). - Chapter 12 about Alexander Shelepin from the book “KGB. Chairpersons of Security Agencies. Declassified Fates "..
• L. M. Mlechin. Shelepin. - M.: Young Guard, 2009. - (The life of wonderful people ).