Chapter 396
"We must take action immediately." The spacious office was filled with smoke, and the light blue mist floated above the roof, making the entire office look like a fairyland.
Shelepin, who was urgently called back, sat on the sofa opposite the desk. He frowned and fiercely extinguished the half-smoked cigarette in his hand. He said, "Now is not the time to be cautious. This time, Abakumov's goal is very clear. Maybe he is crazy, but I think the biggest possibility is that he has received some news. No matter which possibility is true, we must act faster."
"Even if we take action, we need a complete plan," said a tall, thin man with a long face sitting on Shelepin's left. He was wearing a gray suit and had a serious expression on his fair face. "I think the first thing we need to do is to take Comrade Arseni back from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As the captain of the secretary's guard, any testimony he provides may be detrimental to us."
This person is Nikolai Alexandrovich Mikhailov, a current member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a member of the Central Organization Bureau. He is Yuri's deputy in the Central Secretariat and someone he trusts the most.
"It's not very difficult to get Comrade Arseni out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs," Shelepin frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "We can let Cheptsov do it. We just need to fabricate a letter of denunciation to give him a reason to intervene."
Alexander Alexandrovich Cheptsov is the current judge of the Supreme Military Court of the USSR. According to the Soviet principle of giving priority to the trial of "treason" cases, the Supreme Military Court has the highest priority in handling treason criminals in the military system - because in any similar case, the Supreme Military Court has the strictest penalties.
What Shelepin meant was to prepare a letter of complaint, reporting that Arseny had committed treason, so that the Supreme Military Court could directly intervene in the investigation of Arseny on the grounds of reviewing the case. In principle, the Ministry of Internal Affairs needed to hand the person over to them.
Behind the desk, You Li sat in the office chair as sullen as water, remaining silent.
On the desk in front of him was a document, which contained the reason why Arseni was taken away by the Ministry of Internal Affairs: his new fiancée, a woman named Natalia Fadeeva, was a Jew and a very active Zionist. The Ministry of Internal Affairs believed that Arseni used his power to help this woman.
As Yuri's former captain of the guard , Arseni had learned Yuri's private life thoroughly, and was even better than him. This guy had a lot of mistresses, and as a result, he got himself into trouble.
Of course, Yuri knew very well that even if Arseny did not have such a Jewish girlfriend, he would still be in trouble. Since the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted to make trouble for him, they would have plenty of excuses and reasons. If he didn't have problems in this aspect, he would have problems in other aspects.
Listening to the suggestions of Shelepin and Mikhailov, Yuri was also thinking about how to deal with the next things.
To be honest, Yuri was not really worried about Abakumov. In his eyes, that guy was just a clown, a fool who was unaware of the knife pointed at his neck. What he was really worried about was whether there was someone else behind Abakumov. The person who could instruct Abakumov and make him bite him like a mad dog must be no small figure.
If the person hiding behind Abakumov really exists, then what is his purpose? The situation is delicate now, and it is foreseeable that the mentality of the big guys is definitely to keep things to themselves. This guy hiding behind chose to tease me at this time. Is he really trying to knock me down and press me into the mud? Or is he forcing me to make some moves to induce a chain reaction and fish in troubled waters?
The answers to these questions are still unknown, but Yuri has no better choice now. As Shelepin said, he must take decisive action. As for these questions, it doesn't matter. Once Abakumov is dealt with, all the answers can be obtained from him.
Since the decision has been made to take action, it is better to act quickly. Yuri accepted Shelepin's proposal and called Cheptsov directly. Without any politeness, he asked Cheptsov to take Arseny away from the detention center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in accordance with the principle of executing Article 58 of the penalty.
If they followed Shelepin's suggestion, they should first write a letter of complaint and send it to the Supreme Military Court, and then go to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to report the person. However, Yuri was too lazy to go through so much trouble. He just wanted to throw everything to Cheptsov because he believed that this old villain with a keen sense of smell knew what choice should be made.
Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code is about the characterization and punishment of counter-revolutionary crimes. For this article, the Supreme Military Court Tribunal was granted the highest power of trial and examination, and all institutions and departments must cooperate.
Why was Yuri so sure that Cheptsov would cooperate with him? The reason was simple, because this guy was now in trouble.
Cheptsov was a typical fence-sitter. At the beginning, the person he defected to was Ulrich, yes, the Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich who sent Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Yezhov and others to the execution ground, and personally shot Tukhachevsky.
As a result, two years ago, this man defected to Zhdanov, whose power was growing day by day, and then betrayed Ulrich, whom he had promoted and valued. The letter of complaint reporting Ulrich's corruption and bribery was written by this guy himself, which led to Ulrich being dismissed from his post and demoted to become a teacher. The letter of complaint is now in the archives , and Yuri has seen it.
Cheptsov joined Zhdanov, and then succeeded Ulrich, who was dismissed, and became the chief judge of the Supreme Military Court. At first, he thought he had found a big man, and that he would be promoted and make money in the future. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. Less than five months after he joined Zhdanov, Zhdanov died. After that, the Leningrad faction was liquidated, and officials of all sizes were exiled or shot. The reason why this guy was able to escape was that he had not been with the party for long and was not familiar with anyone, so he was ignored.
In order to get Cheptsov to work hard on this matter, Yuri was too lazy to say anything more to him. He just made a phone call and arranged for someone to prepare an application for the Ministry of Internal Affairs to review him, and send the evidence of his collusion with the Leningrad faction together, and get Abakumov's signature on the application. It is estimated that this guy will be more active than anyone else, and he will want to shoot Abakumov himself.
I called Cheptsov, and the old sly fellow said nothing was a problem on the phone. He just said that he would strictly implement the decision made by the Central Supervisory Committee, and his official tone really sounded like it was the case.
After hanging up the phone, Yuri took the letterhead of the Supervisory Committee on the table, wrote a note, handed it to Shelepin, and said, "Go and copy the documents No. 23097 and No. 23098 in the archives, and send them to Cheptsov later. Tell him that if Arseni does not leave the Ministry of Internal Affairs before tomorrow morning, I will ask him to come here to explain the issues involved in the documents."
Shelepin stood up and took the approval note issued by Yuri. Without this approval note, he could not enter the archives.
"Comrade Mikhailov," Yuri turned his eyes to Mikhailov and said, "You go and contact Comrade Oglizov and tell him that the Supervisory Committee has decided to take measures against Abakumov. If he wants to do something, now is the time."
Mikhailov nodded and accepted the task.
Sergei Ivanovich Oglizov, the First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, should be considered Abakumov's deputy. However, this guy is a bit strange. He was born in the military and was later transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Comrade Stalin once approached him and hoped that he would take up the post of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this guy hated the mess in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Not only did he refuse the appointment, he also asked to be transferred back to the army on the pretext that he was not familiar with the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As a result, Comrade Stalin got annoyed and not only did he not transfer him back to the army, but also gave him the position of the First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - if you don't want to be the first one, then let you be the deputy, anyway, you won't be allowed to return to the army.
In the past two years, Yuri has received six letters of denunciation, all of which reported Abakumov's corrupt lifestyle and bribery. Although these letters were anonymous, after investigation, the whistleblower was found. Yes, it was Oglizov, this weirdo.
"I will go to Minsk for inspection tomorrow," Yuri said after explaining the two things, putting away the pen in his hand, "and review the cases handled by the Minsk working group. Comrade Shelepin, although time is a bit tight, the work agreed upon before must be effective by now."
"I will arrange it properly," Shelepin said with a smile, "Although it is very rushed, we can still gather several hundred letters of denunciation."
Abakumov's starting point for handling cases was letters of denunciation, so if we want to deal with him now, the best starting point is naturally letters of denunciation. Yuri believes that even if no means are used, as long as the news that the Central Supervisory Committee is preparing to take action against this guy spreads, letters of denunciation can be counted by the number of trainloads.
