Chapter 317
A four-story , was vacated in November. It used to be the headquarters of the Moscow Water Supply Company, but is now occupied by the Disarmament Working Committee.
At this time, Comintern Street was being rebuilt. According to the plan of the Moscow Municipal Government, the road would be widened and the buildings on both sides of the street would be renovated. The old and dilapidated buildings would be demolished and replaced with new buildings that would reflect the new look of the Union of Soviet Socialist States.
Also according to the plan of the Moscow Municipal Government, the renovated Communist International Street will be renamed, but the specific name has not yet been finalized.
In Yuri's previous life, the street was renovated and completed in July 1946. At that time, in order to commemorate the recently deceased Comrade Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, the street was renamed "Kalinin Street". It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that it was renamed Vozdvizhenka Street.
The entire four-story building was built during the old Russian period. Its architectural feature is its grandeur. All the rooms are very spacious and have very high ceilings. However, in order to accommodate the entire department's huge disarmament committee, the interior of the entire building was redecorated and rooms that were too large were separated one by one. Only the fourth floor, which is the top floor, was not renovated and still uses the original architectural layout.
In addition, two elevators were installed in the building, one directly leading to the fourth floor and the other leading to the second and third floors.
Yuri's office is on the east side of the fourth floor. It is a large room with an area of nearly 200 square meters. In addition to this large room, there is also a connected lounge with an area of 40 square meters, which is reserved for him to rest.
The entire fourth floor, in addition to his office, also has a large conference room and several other offices, which are prepared for the directors of several major branches under the Executive Bureau.
Of course, apart from the larger area, the decoration and furnishings of the office were not luxurious at all. After all, the Soviet Union was in financial difficulty at that time. Moreover, Comrade Stalin repeatedly talked about frugality at various meetings and asked the Central Supervisory Committee led by Comrade Andrei Andreevich Andreev to intensify the investigation and punishment of violations of rules and disciplines within the Bolshevik Party. In this political atmosphere, few people dared to seek special treatment.
However, "few" does not mean none. After all, there will always be people who are apolitical at any time.
Since the all-alliance meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in November, various working groups of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection have been stationed in various industries and government agencies at all levels, and have successively discovered many problems. In the two departments in charge of Yuri alone, namely the General Armament Department and the Executive Bureau of the Disarmament Working Committee, the 48 working groups dispatched by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection have discovered more than 120 disciplinary cases of varying sizes, involving more than 470 people.
The worst thing is that there was also a case of defection involved: the defection of Major General Vasily Mikhailovich Severdov, the first deputy minister of the Armaments Department. In the past two years, this person had embezzled nearly 40,000 rubles of public funds, and when he realized that something was wrong, he fled to Switzerland while conducting research in Germany, and then went to the UK via Switzerland.
The defection of Severov made Comrade Stalin furious, and made Comrade Beria and Yuri very passive. Of course, in comparison, Yuri was slightly better, after all, he only bore a leadership responsibility and was not a direct leader. But Comrade Beria was different, as his mistake was a real one at work.
Fortunately, although Comrade Stalin was annoyed, he did not take his anger out on others. Both of them wrote a self-examination and left it at that. However, compared with Yuri's self-examination in the General Armament Department, Comrade Beria's subsequent actions were much more cruel. Saivedov's wife, a son and a daughter, along with his parents, brothers and sisters, were all sent to Siberia, and it is estimated that they will never come back in this life.
In addition, all those who had close contacts with Severdov, including his classmates and colleagues, were subject to strict scrutiny, and those in important positions were all transferred. It can be said that the entire General Armament Department was implicated, and those who were in leadership positions and had work dealings with Severdov were inevitably panicked, like frightened birds.
Today's General Armaments Department is like a quagmire. Not only has the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection stationed three working groups in this department, but the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs also arranges people to come here from time to time, taking this person away today and that person away tomorrow. The entire department is dead silent.
As a part-time minister, Yuri was powerless in the face of such a situation. It cannot be said that he was powerless, but he knew it was inappropriate for him to step forward. After all, people's hearts are separated from their stomachs. He could not come forward to guarantee anyone, otherwise, if the person he guaranteed became the second Severdov in the future, he would be in trouble.
As for the work of the Central Supervisory Committee, he could not stop it. Not only could he not stop it, but he had to cooperate with the investigation himself. However, he did not have many problems. His entire personal property was only more than 40,000 rubles, which was all his salary income in the past few years. The source of every penny was clear. Now the house he lived in, the car he used when going out, including the furniture at home, and even a specific carpet , all belonged to the state and were public assets. The real problems that could be found were those in his private life. What really needed to be confessed were two houses in Moscow that were registered as his residence but were occupied by two other women. On this issue, Yuri confessed thoroughly, and he was not worried that the people of the Supervisory Committee would make a fuss about it. After all, even Comrade Stalin knew about it.
What Yuri didn't know was that this large-scale inspection campaign carried out by the Central Control Committee across the Soviet Union was the only one in the Soviet Union's post-war history. From this time to the end of Comrade Stalin's rule, the Khrushchev era, the Brezhnev era, and until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Central Control Committee was basically an institution in name only. More often than not, it was just a tool for political struggle.
As the end of 1944 came, the General Armament Department, which was in a precarious situation, was under investigation by two powerful departments, but it could not relax its work at all. In addition to supporting the upcoming offensive against the Japanese mainland in the Far East, they were also responsible for the distribution of winter clothing and bedding to all units of the Soviet armed forces, and the ordering of spring and autumn military uniforms for the coming spring would also be carried out one after another. In addition, the Executive Bureau of the Disarmament Working Committee was also doing corresponding work.
Thus, within both departments, the involves the vital interests of millions of people.
In addition, the same work also involves the production arrangements of nearly 100 enterprises across the Soviet Union, which requires dealing with several departments.
In general, this work alone is like a huge spider web, covering the entire Soviet Union. This spider web is a huge bureaucratic operation system. As the person in charge, Yuri will not manage the specific operation of the spider web, nor will he manage the work of a specific link, but he must ensure that the entire system can operate smoothly. The workload of this work is not large, but the responsibility is heavy.
This year's winter seems to be a mild one. Since the first snow in November, there have been three snowfalls until early December. Although each snowfall was heavy, no snow remained on the streets of Moscow.
Judging from the information reported by Ukraine, the weather there seems to be even warmer, and the temperature remains above zero most of the time.
Everyone knows that this kind of weather is not a good condition. An overly warm winter means that the eggs of pests and diseases hidden in the fields will not be killed by the cold winter, which will directly affect the harvest of the second year.
As the first secretary of Ukraine, Khrushchev was obviously aware of this problem. Therefore, at the Central Working Conference just held in November, he pointed out that the current agricultural policies implemented in Ukraine violated the principle of material incentives and reduced farmers' enthusiasm for production. Therefore, he proposed that the burden on farmers should be further reduced, unnecessary state intervention should be eliminated, and farmers' enthusiasm should be stimulated.
Later, at the agricultural work conference of the Soviet republics in early December, he further proposed that the price of agricultural products that collective farms were obliged to sell to the state was not only lower than the actual market price, but even lower than the production cost. Therefore, he suggested abolishing the compulsory sale system of agricultural products and adopting an agricultural product procurement system to stimulate farmers' production enthusiasm.
As expected, Khrushchev's statement was not only criticized at the Central Working Conference, but his further advocacy at the subsequent Agricultural Work Conference also angered Comrade Stalin, who was focusing all his energy on industrial recovery. As a result, in the work adjustment in mid-December, he was removed from the post of First Secretary of Ukraine and transferred to Moscow to serve as First Secretary of the Moscow Provincial Party Committee. At the same time, he succeeded Sherbakov, whose health condition was becoming increasingly serious, and concurrently served as First Secretary of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee.
As for the candidate to succeed Khrushchev as First Secretary of Ukraine, it was confirmed to be Comrade Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, who followed Comrade Stalin's lead.
To be honest, Yuri had to admit that Comrade Khrushchev was very cunning in this matter. He simply put the blame on Kaganovich, but the latter was so excited.
