Chapter 397
Minsk, heavy rain.
The dull rumbling thunder streaked across the surface of the slowly flowing Svisloch River. Raindrops as big as beans fell densely on the clear river surface, creating layer upon layer of ripples on this usually mirror-like river.
On Mayakovsky Street, which runs parallel to the river, a covered GAZ truck turned from the Minsk Ring Road. At the front of the truck, a soldier stood on each side of the driver's cabin. Neither soldier wore a raincoat, and they were driving with the truck in the rain, and their bodies were already soaked.
As the truck turned onto Mayakovsky Street, four more similar trucks drove in one after another. Behind these five trucks followed a military jeep.
The convoy drove north on Mayakovsky Avenue and finally stopped in front of a building with blue-uniformed soldiers guarding the entrance.
Seeing several trucks parked in front of the building, the two soldiers in charge of guarding had taken off the guns on their shoulders, but when they saw groups of soldiers jumping down from the trucks, they suddenly felt at a loss.
However, these soldiers who jumped off the military trucks obviously had no intention of rushing into the building, but their subsequent series of actions made people feel even more disturbing.
These soldiers suddenly appeared in front of the building, carried roadblocks from the last truck in the rain, set up a blockade in front of the entire building, and surrounded the four-story building.
After the soldiers finished their work and the isolation belt was established, a captain slowly got off the military jeep that was at the end. The captain also did not wear a raincoat or hold an umbrella. He braved the pouring rain and walked to the front of the isolation belt. He passed through the passage that only allowed one person to pass through, walked straight to the steps of the building, stood face to face in front of a guard, and threw a wet, dripping envelope in his hand into the guard's arms. Then, he turned around without saying a word and returned to the jeep slowly, just like when he came.
At the same time, only two kilometers away was the Belarusian Soviet Building, the October Hall.
Nikolai Semyonovich Patolichev stood on the podium in front of the rostrum, and banged the podium in front of him with his big, sinewy hand. His forehead, which was too broad because of his slicked-back hair, was covered with a layer of greasy sweat, but his generous speech still showed high morale.
"That's it!"
“Absolutely!”
"agree!"
…
As Patolichev spoke, cheers from delegates could be heard from time to time in the crowded conference hall. The warm atmosphere seemed to raise the temperature of the entire venue a bit.
As the current first secretary of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, Patolichev delivered a speech declaring war on "anti-party groups and Zionists lurking in the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs" more than ten minutes ago. According to him, a large-scale Zionist gang has long been lurking in the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs. These people, with the power of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the support of the Western hostile allies, have launched a series of rampant sabotage activities against the Soviet regime and the Bolshevik Party in Belarus. Now, the Moscow Central Committee and the Central Supervisory Committee have obtained evidence of their crimes, and in order to cooperate with the work of the Central Committee and the Supervisory Committee, every loyal Bolshevik member should bravely stand up and expose and report this despicable "anti-party group".
The participants of this meeting included a large number of party representatives and local secretaries of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. The meeting was held in the name of a briefing for the 19th Congress of the CPSU. However, under the guidance of Patolichev and others, the meeting obviously went off topic and turned into a criticism meeting, and the target of the criticism was the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Over the past long period of time, as movements under various banners spread throughout the Soviet Union, Belarus naturally could not remain immune. To be honest, with all kinds of reports and anonymous letters being taken seriously by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, no one present at the meeting today could sleep well, and almost everyone had to worry about the next day's life the night before.
Now, under the guidance of the First Secretary of the Republic, this fire has finally burned to the arrogant Ministry of Internal Affairs.
On the rostrum, Yuri, wearing a Lenin suit, sat on the far right of the second row. This position was not conspicuous, but he was very conspicuous. No one, whether sitting on the rostrum or in the meeting hall, did not know him.
Although Yuri has been doing administrative work over the years and is very low-key, rarely appearing on TV, radio or newspapers, don't think that he has no influence in the local areas of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, due to his personal experience, he has enough influence in the local areas.
Take Belarus for example. There are many people, including Patolichev, who have close relations with him and have had interactions with him. After all personally commanded the Belarusian Campaign and was responsible for the post-war military demobilization and reconstruction of Belarus.
As for Patolichev himself, he has a deeper relationship with Yuri. Although there is a gap in age between the two, their fathers were former comrades-in-arms. Because of this connection, the two have actually been in the same camp for a long time. If it weren't for Patolichev's business in Belarus, Yuri would not have chosen this place as the starting point of the action.
Yuri arrived in Minsk from Moscow the day before yesterday and immediately took action. He first disbanded nine working groups mainly composed of personnel from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the name of the Central Supervisory Committee and confiscated all the case materials in their hands. Then, yesterday, he reorganized 14 investigation teams mainly composed of the Organization and Supervision Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Central Supervisory Committee of Belarus, and students of the Minsk Ministry of Internal Affairs Higher Correspondence Course to review all cases examined and handled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the past two years.
In the past two years, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has tried and investigated a lot of cases, all kinds of cases with various names. Most of these cases were handled very roughly, and some case materials were even inconsistent. As for the evidence, it was even more difficult to talk about. In summary, if not 100%, at least more than 80% of the cases had problems.
Among these cases, some are based on hearsay, some are for personal revenge, some are for false accusations, and some are purely for the investigators to satisfy their own selfish desires. These things simply cannot withstand investigation, and problems will be found once they are investigated.
Of course, such problematic cases can be regarded as an expansion of struggle at certain times. Yes, the reason why the cases were handled so roughly was that they would rather kill the wrong person than let him go. But the problem is that the same thing, in another specific period, would be anti-Party and anti-Soviet. The reason why the Ministry of Internal Affairs harmed so many people and created so many false and wrongful cases was to create contradictions between the people and the Soviet regime and to undermine the stability of the Soviet regime from within.
It is not difficult to put a label on someone. The key point is to find the right timing.
Abakumov's problem was that, despite his great power and close proximity to Comrade Stalin, he could not find his place in the entire Moscow core circle. In the eyes of Comrade Stalin, this guy was just a handy tool, and in the circle centered on Comrade Stalin, this guy was a toad with a poisonous back, and everyone kept a distance from him.
Therefore, for Abakumov, an information asymmetry situation emerged. He did not know what the current situation in the core circle of power was like, did not know Comrade Stalin's true thoughts, and did not know that the situation of power confrontation had actually emerged. Therefore, he was still trying to do the job he had done before, struggling desperately, and naturally believed that Comrade Stalin wanted him to continue doing so.
But in fact, Comrade Stalin's focus has shifted, and the focus of those around him in the first tier of power has also shifted. For everyone, the most important thing now is the upcoming "19th National Congress". At this time, in order to gain the support of a large number of party representatives, Abakumov's bloody knife should be destroyed and discarded.
From another perspective, Abakumov's political sense was too dull. If he could look back a little, and look back a dozen years ago, he would get a revelation from Comrade Yezhov, or in other words, see his own destiny from Yezhov.
More than a decade ago, Comrade Yezhov was just a bloody knife, and a very useful one at that. Finally, on the eve of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, he was removed from all his posts and thrown into prison.
Although Yuri did not dare to say how sharp his political sense was, he was very sure of one thing, that is, he was not wrong on this issue. Now, there were many people who wanted Abakumov to die, even in the core of power in Moscow.
Comrade Stalin wanted him to die, just like he did to Yezhov. He needed a scapegoat. At the same time, while sending Abakumov to the execution ground, he might also be able to catch Comrade Beria's fault, thus killing two birds with one stone.
Comrade Beria also wanted Abakumov to die, because he did not want to be the second Yezhov. Only by putting certain problems on the head of this scapegoat would he not have to worry about people who were hostile to him jumping out to deal with him when the 19th National Congress was held.
