Nikolai Anissimowitsch Shcholokov

Nikolai Shchelokov ( Russian Николай Анисимович Щёлоков ; born November 13 ^{. Jul} / 26. November  1910 ^greg. In Almazna , Russian Empire ; † 13 December 1984 in Moscow ) was a Soviet general and politician .

biography

Shcholokov became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1931 and was a party functionary in the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast after working as an engineer between 1938 and 1941 . He then worked as a political officer in the Red Army until 1946 , before he worked for the local government in the Ukrainian SSR between 1947 and 1951 . From that time on he became a protégé of Leonid Brezhnev , then First Secretary of the Communist Party of Dnepropetrovsk .

Under the influence of his mentor Brezhnev, he followed him to the Moldavian SSR in 1951 and held numerous offices in administration and party leadership. First he was first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers between 1951 and 1962, and from 1957 to 1958 chairman of the Council for National Economy (Совет Народного Хозяйства, СНХ) of the Moldovan SSR. Subsequently, from 1962 to 1965 he was again chairman of the National Economic Council and in 1965 again for a short time first vice-prime minister of the Moldovan SSR. Most recently he was Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova from 1965 to 1966.

On November 17, 1966 he was appointed Minister for the Protection of Public Order with the rank of Lieutenant General and was thus a member of the Council of Ministers of the USSR . For the occupation of the ministry, there was previously a power struggle over Alexander Schelepin , Vladimir Semitschastny , the interior minister of the RSFSR Tikunow and the chairman of the youth association Komsomol Pavlov within the party and state leadership from which Shchelokov ultimately emerged as a compromise candidate because of his personal ties to Brezhnev. In 1967 he was promoted to colonel general . After restructuring and renaming the Ministry of Public Security, he became Minister of the Interior of the Soviet Union on November 25, 1968, and as such was appointed Army General in 1976. Contrary to some expectations, however, he did not become a member of the Politburo of the CPSU .

For his services he was awarded several times and received among other honors Hero of Socialist Labor , three Lenin Orders , two Red Banner , the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky , the Order of the Patriotic War , the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Red Banner of Work . In 1976 he was awarded the Gold Patriotic Order of Merit in the GDR .

A few weeks after Brezhnev's death on November 10, 1982, he was dismissed as Interior Minister on December 17, 1982 by his successor as General Secretary of the CPSU, Yuri Andropov , and replaced by the previous chairman of the KGB and Andropov confidante Vitaly Fedorchuk . The reason for this was that Andropov, as chairman of the KGB, had already started investigations against Shchelokov and the Interior Ministry on suspicion of corruption .

In June 1983 he also lost his position as a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU . After Andropov's death on February 9, 1984, the new General Secretary of the CPSU Konstantin Chernenko also stripped him of his rank as Army General.

His unexpected death on December 13, 1984 and the speedy burial on December 15, 1984 sparked speculation of suicide over a possible trial for corruption.

Web links

• rulers.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hardness versus lust . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1966, pp. 130-132 ( Online - Oct. 24, 1966 ).
2. ↑ The everyday life of Soviet celebrities. The sweet life of Moscow . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1971, p. 96-124 ( Online - May 24, 1971 ).
3. ↑ Moscow's Choice: Prosperity or Imperialism . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1976, pp. 174-178 ( Online - Oct. 11, 1976 ).
4. ↑ Heart and Brain . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 1971, p. 112-119 ( online - March 29, 1971 ).
5. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , August 27, 1976, p. 4