Chapter 407
While urgent consultations were taking place in the Kremlin, in the village of Volynskoye, near Moscow.
In the pouring rain, on the outskirts of this small village connected to the city by a road, a huge convoy consisting of 24 tanks and more than 150 trucks broke through the rain and appeared at the entrance of the village.
In a jeep in the middle of the convoy, Arseni was leaning back in his chair with a cigarette in his mouth and his eyes closed. When the car stopped, he slowly opened his eyes and looked outside the car with an expressionless face.
"Comrade commander, the troops are in place, please give orders!" Outside the car, a major rushed over in the rain, saluted towards the car, and then spoke loudly.
At this moment, a muffled thunder happened to roll by, covering up the major's voice, so that it could not be heard clearly in the carriage.
Arseni pushed open the car door and jumped under the car. The heavy rain instantly soaked him.
He dropped the wet cigarette in his hand at his feet, looked around, and said, "Call all the staff officers and commanders of the combat units here."
"Yes!" the major responded, turned and ran away.
The rain quickly formed a waterfall on the brim of Arseni's hat. He reached out and wiped his face, then looked up at the sky, turned around and took out a map made of waterproof cloth from the car.
In the rainstorm, more than a dozen figures quietly gathered around. Some of them turned on flashlights, and some helped him unfold the map. Arseni, with his hands free, looked around and said, "Commanders of all combat units, sign up!"
People in the crowd signed up one by one, their voices clear and crisp. After all, they were a guard troop, and their military discipline and military quality were not comparable to those of ordinary troops.
"Okay, everyone is here. Let me repeat it again," Arseni said after confirming the number of people, "The only mission we need to perform tonight is to surround this village. No one is allowed to enter or leave until the next order is received. Remember, no one is allowed to enter or leave. Anyone who wants to break through the blockade can be shot on the spot, no matter who it is. Do you understand?!"
"Got it!" the crowd responded loudly.
"Everyone, let me emphasize again that for everyone present here, the next few hours will be the most important turning point in life," Arseni continued, "As long as we successfully complete this mission, I can guarantee that each of you will have a bright future. If the mission fails, even if one person gets out of here, we will all lose our heads, and even our families will suffer the same fate as us, so cheer up and do your own thing."
"Yes!" Another unanimous response.
"Now I'll assign the tasks," Arseni said nothing more. He stretched out his hand and tapped the map, saying.
A moment later, the tanks and trucks parked on the road started moving again. At the same time, a large number of soldiers with various weapons and equipment began to set up blockades outside the village. In less than half an hour, this village hidden in the jungle was surrounded by a blockade consisting of a barbed wire fence and several tank fire points and machine gun fire points.
After the deployment was completed, Arseni returned to his command vehicle and picked up the walkie-talkie that was carried in the vehicle.
Beria and others blocked the Brizhny Villa, trying to conceal Comrade Stalin's situation from anyone. After Poskrebyshev noticed something was wrong, he thought of a solution, which was to mobilize troops to enter Moscow, break through the blockade of the Brizhny Villa, and rescue Comrade Stalin. So he found Yuri and hoped that Yuri would carry out this task.
But the reality is that Yuri was not interested in Comrade Stalin's life or death, so he did contact the army and transferred Arseny's troops from the far suburbs directly to the village of Volinskoye where the Brizhnya Villa was located. However, his order did not require Arseny to attack the villa, but to surround the entire village and strictly prohibit anyone from entering or leaving.
Beria and others did not want outsiders to know about Comrade Stalin's condition, thinking that this would be most beneficial to their seizure of power. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Including Yuri, all members of the current Presidium were not interested in Comrade Stalin's condition. What they needed was to make everyone ignorant of Comrade Stalin's condition, and then wait until the overall situation was stabilized, and then they would announce what happened in the Brizhnya Villa.
…
Kremlin, Building 14.
Volkov's car slowly stopped in front of the building. Seeing all kinds of vehicles parked in front of the building, Volkov, who had just got out of the car, took a special look at the license plate. After confirming the identity of the owner, he finally breathed a sigh of relief .
"Comrade Secretary, this is..." A voice suddenly sounded behind him, startling Volkov. He turned around abruptly and found that the person who was speaking was Feliubin, the secretary of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee, whom he had called over.
"Don't talk," Volkov scolded the other person irritably. He stood up straight, straightened his wet clothes, and said, "Come here."
I can keep silent, but I don't feel safe following you! Fei Liubin complained in his heart, but still followed Volkov to the front of the building.
On the steps in front of the building, Vlasik had changed into a crisp military uniform. He got himself a chair and sat at the entrance of the building in high spirits, with an air of one man blocking the way for ten thousand.
According to Volkov and the other man, they came here specially after receiving Yuri's call. The captain of the Kremlin guard immediately stood up from his chair, personally played the role of a duty guard, and took the two to the conference room.
In the meeting room, many members of the presidium were still checking for omissions and discussing every possible accident and how to deal with them.
Frankly speaking, everyone here has ambitions and wants to control greater power, and they will use any means to achieve this ambition. But deep down, they still don't want to disrupt the alliance. Therefore, no matter how they intrigue, they are now doing their best to prevent accidents from happening.
When Volkov and the other man were brought into the conference room, not only did they feel relieved when they saw this scene, but everyone present also felt relieved.
Volkov and Feliubin were very important to their plan because there was one very important thing they needed to do, which was to mobilize vehicles from the municipal public transport department to take all the party representatives into the Kremlin overnight.
No one else can do this kind of thing. Imagine if a member of the Politburo Standing Committee directly called the director of the Transportation Bureau and asked him to dispatch a car to me. How would the director react? Without a doubt, he would just curse, "You are crazy."
Similarly, if Yuri had only given Volkov and Feliubin an order to move vehicles to pick up the party delegates to the Kremlin, they would certainly not have carried out the order, because although Yuri was in a high position, he still did not have the authority. But now the situation is different, more than half of the entire Presidium is present, and any decision it makes is actually legally binding.
Although the discussion had not yet ended, the order to arrange vehicles to pick up the party delegates to enter the Kremlin was given first. Volkov and his companions had no resistance and called the head of the municipal public transportation department in the Kremlin, demanding that vehicles be arranged immediately to pick up all party delegates in the city and bring them to the Kremlin.
At this point, the basic work had actually been arranged and completed. When Yuri left the meeting room, several other members of the presidium were already considering how to respond to questions from foreign media and embassies. Since there was no head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs among the members of the presidium present, Mikoyan proposed that this work be handed over to Suslov, and this proposal was also approved by the vast majority of the members present.
It is obvious that this decision means that after the overall situation stabilizes, Suslov will have the opportunity to lead the huge department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is not only a compensation from several members of the Presidium to Comrade Suslov, but also contains the meaning of instigating him to challenge Khrushchev.
It has to be admitted that in the absence of Beria and Malenkov, and with Voroshilov, Molotov and Kaganovich kicked out of the Presidium, Khrushchev had an absolute advantage in both personal prestige and qualifications, not to mention the support of Yuri behind him.
The current members of the Presidium are all cadres who grew up under Comrade Stalin’s personal dominance. They have long been fed up with the kind of patriarchal one-man rule. Now that they have finally gotten rid of Comrade Stalin, how can they allow another "Stalin" to emerge?
Therefore, from this perspective, it is impossible for one party to dominate the Presidium in the post-Stalin era. In other words, this Presidium will be divided, and it will achieve a balance of power in a very delicate situation.
After coming out of the conference room, Yuri left Building 14 directly and drove out of the Kremlin. He accepted the assignment of the Presidium and went to Building 2 on Lubyanka Square to temporarily take over the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Security Committee.
Apart from the army, this is the only institution in Moscow that controls violent organizations. Moreover, these two departments are controlled by the so-called "Beria Gang", which is Beria's base camp. Ordinary people really can't deal with them.
Therefore, although Yuri had arranged for Shelepin to bring people there in advance, he still had to go there in person - he was the chairman of the Central Supervisory Committee and had binding force on the two departments in his position. Therefore, compared to breaking into the Kremlin, although this trip seemed dangerous, it was actually simpler.
