Chapter 328
There are conflicts between the Executive Bureau of the Disarmament Working Committee and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. You must know that the Prison Administration Bureau under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Now, this part of the management power has been transferred to the Executive Bureau. It is impossible to say that Comrade Beria has no dissatisfaction with this.
The reason why Yuri specifically proposed to give up some of the work of the Prison Administration was to reflect on Comrade Beria and give him some trouble. He was not interested in a face-to-face conflict with Comrade Beria, but this was not because he was afraid of him.
After two days of reflection, Yuri figured out one thing: there was no need for him to live such a depressed and timid life.
Perhaps the existence of Comrade Stalin is a kind of pressure for every Soviet official. No one can guarantee that he will be safe today and tomorrow. But from another perspective, in the core of power in Moscow, and even on the periphery of the core of power, Yuri feels that his existence is safer.
The reason for this is that Comrade had a strong desire for control and could not tolerate others doing small things under his nose. He could launch a campaign to attack a certain person or a group of people, but he would not allow others to form cliques and exclude dissidents. To a certain extent, he even looked down on those who liked to tell tales and attack others. This is enough to take Mehlis as an example.
Furthermore, judging from everything that happened today, Yuri believed that Comrade Stalin was not without guard against Beria. This could be seen from the fact that he arranged for people to investigate the Minsk incident but did not leave the matter to Beria.
This discovery gave Yuri great confidence. He believed that as long as he remained on the periphery of the core of power and could hang around in front of Comrade Stalin all day long, and could deliver the work results that Comrade Stalin liked to see on schedule, even if Comrade Beria disliked him and reported him to the police, Comrade Stalin would not touch him.
Comrade Stalin likes people who can do things, accomplish things and do things well. Of course, if such people can keep a low profile and have some harmless flaws, he would probably like them even more.
Therefore, all the fundamental problems have returned to the starting point, the most basic starting point: people must be useful in the eyes of others. People who are stupid and incompetent and only know how to flatter others all day long have no value in this world and in Moscow.
After leaving Comrade Stalin's office, Yuri did not make any stops in the Kremlin and drove directly back to the Disarmament Working Committee. He seemed to have put Igor's problem behind him and once again devoted all his energy to his work.
He used the rest of the morning to learn about the material allocation issues for the construction of the Palace of the Soviets, and also learned about the research and development progress of special cranes and drilling equipment.
In the afternoon, he convened several key leading comrades involved in the construction of the Soviet Palace and held a working meeting. They passed a resolution to form a "Soviet Palace Construction Project Supervision Working Group", with Yuri appointing himself as the group leader.
At the work meeting, Yuri reiterated the importance of this project construction and required the working group members to strictly implement the part of the work they were responsible for, make strict work plans, verify the implementation of the work in stages, and report on the progress of the work every three days.
Yuri's order was that he would check the progress of work in all aspects every once in a while, and anyone who failed to complete the task on time, regardless of the reason, would be given administrative sanctions such as demotion or even dismissal.
In the past, Yuri's leadership style was relatively mild. He rarely issued orders that ignored the actual conditions and only cared about the results. Of course, he would not use threats such as dismissal or demotion to promote the work. But now the situation is different. Under strong mental pressure, he has also begun to turn his mild working style into a simple and rough working style that focuses on political achievements. This is caused by reality. People have to bow to reality most of the time.
When the work meeting was over, it was already past the time to get off work and the sky was getting slightly dark. Yuri stayed in the office for a while, mainly because Kryuchkov had gone to pick up Anteliya after get off work, and he had to wait for the car to come back.
Just as Yuri was patiently waiting for the special car to return, in Comrade Stalin's office in the Kremlin, Vlasik, dressed in the uniform of a colonel of the Internal Guard, knocked on the door of the office. In his hand was a document, which was the result of nearly a day's work.
Having been with Comrade Stalin for so many years, Vlasik had long been familiar with the leader's working style. It was best to let him know what he wanted to know as soon as possible, and before his patience ran out, otherwise the consequences would be very serious.
Of course, Vlasik also understood one thing, that is, when Comrade Stalin arranged for him to do some investigations, he had already made a qualitative assessment of the things to be investigated, so it was best to let him get the results he wanted without deviating too much from the actual situation. Otherwise, although he would not blame the investigators for not doing things well, he would not give them a good face either.
Therefore, when investigating today's "Igor case", Vlasik also spent some time thinking about it. He could guess what kind of investigation results Comrade Stalin wanted to see. Therefore, although the final investigation results generally followed the premise of seeking truth from facts, some parts were also modified.
Hearing Comrade Stalin's slightly hoarse and heavy voice coming from the office, Vlasik straightened his military uniform, then reached out and pushed open the door of the office, walked in quickly, saluted and said: "Comrade Stalin, the investigation results you requested have been delivered."
Stalin sat behind his desk. The desk lamp was covered by a lampshade, so the light could only reach his chest. His face was hidden in the shadow, and only the flickering light from his pipe could be seen.
Without receiving a reply from Stalin, Vlasik walked straight over, opened the folder and placed it flat on the desk.
"Are the investigation results credible?" Stalin finally spoke. He took the pipe in his hand and looked from behind his glasses, focusing on Vlasik's face.
"It should be very reliable," Vlasik said without being too confident, because that would be stupid. In the face of such a problem, the best way is to put all the responsibility and "credit" on the investigators. If something goes wrong in the end, the main responsibility is the investigators, but if nothing goes wrong, he will always have a share of the credit.
Vlasik leaned forward and flipped the cover of the document. On the first page was a list of names: "This is the list of people responsible for investigating this matter. They are the people I arranged in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs."
Comrade Stalin was obviously very satisfied with this answer. He nodded, pushed his eyes upwards on his nose, and lowered his head to look at the documents.
He didn't even look at the list on the first page. He just flipped over and started reading from the second page.
Time passed minute by minute, and Stalin read very seriously, almost line by line.
"So, there is no actual evidence that Igor is colluding with spies?" After reading a few pages, Stalin asked without raising his head.
"The reports I received undoubtedly confirm this," Vlasic said. The emphasis of this sentence is on "the reports I received." Yes, it is the reports submitted by his subordinates. As for the specific facts, he is not clear.
"So many people in Minsk do know about this?" Stalin continued, "including those who have nothing to do with it?"
"It is said that many people know about it," Vlasik said calmly. The emphasis of this sentence is on "it is said". He did not know the truth.
"Is the information about this informant, Lev Vasilyevich Dolgov, true?" Stalin flipped through a few more pages and asked again.
"It should be true," Vlasik nodded and said, "I checked the list of executed persons during the Battle of Stalingrad kept by the General Political Department and found the name of Sergeant Yakov Vasilyevich Dolgov. There were 143 deserters shot with him. The order to execute was made by the Military Committee of the 62nd Army, and General Vasily Ivanovich and General Yuri Arkhipovich signed it as the commander and deputy commander of the army."
"So, what about the investigators in Igor's case?" Stalin had already turned to the last page. He looked up, took off his glasses, picked up his pipe again, took a deep breath, looked at Vlasik, and said in a deep voice, "Such a serious problem, why didn't they investigate it thoroughly? Didn't they consider that there might be something wrong with the informant?"
Vlasik did not speak. He knew that Comrade Stalin had already made a concrete judgment in his mind and what he needed now was not advice but orders.
The tobacco in Stalin's pipe had burned out. He opened the drawer and took out a tobacco bag from it, saying, "I suspect that saboteurs have infiltrated our People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. These enemies and those who are dissatisfied with the Soviet regime, like Lev Vasilyev Dolgov, are eroding our regime. They are plotting a conspiracy, but unfortunately, Lavrenti is obviously not aware of this serious problem. He has been lax and neglected the supervision of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, so that our People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs has become a dagger used by the enemy to stab comrades, a dirty dagger."
Having said that, he put his pipe back on the table, opened the drawer again, took out the document that Yuri had handed in that morning, put it in the materials submitted by Vlasik, and then handed them to Vlasik, saying, "Send these to Lavrenti and tell him my opinion."
