(b. 1918; 1994) Russian; chairman of the KGB 1958 – 61, member of the Politburo 1964 – 75 Shelepin graduated from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and obtained a higher degree from the Moscow Institute of History. While still a student he expressed his ambition to become a party boss. He started his political career in the Communist Youth League (Comsomol). He served in the Red Army during the Russo-Finnish War of 1939 to 1940. During the Second World War he helped organize the partisan movement in the Moscow region. In 1943 he rejoined the Comsomol, working at its All-Union Secretariat in Moscow, and became its head in 1952. After 1954 he mobilized thousands of young Communists in support of Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programme. In 1958 he served briefly as Central Committee secretary in charge of the Party Organs Department. In December 1958 he replaced Ivan Serov as chairman of the KGB. His career outside state security and his higher education distinguished him from his predecessors and his appointment was probably intended to improve the image of the KGB. In November 1961 he left the KGB whose work he continued to oversee as chairman of the new Committee of Party and State Control within the Central Committee. The new head of the KGB was his client, Vladimir Semichastny. Shelepin and Semichastny disliked their former patron Khrushchev's search for rapprochement with the West and participated in the plot which led to his fall in 1964. As a reward, Shelepin was made a full member of the Presidium (known as the Politburo after 1966). Shelepin soon aroused the suspicions of Leonid Brezhnev, the new party leader. Brezhnev disliked Shelepin's ambition and his control of the security apparatus. He possibly also found his belligerent attitude an impediment to good East-West relations. In 1967 Shelepin was removed from the secretariat of the Central Committee and demoted to head of the Soviet trade unions. He was removed from the Politburo in 1975.
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| Alexander Shelepin Алекса́ндр Шеле́пин |
|
|---|---|
| Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions | |
| In office 1967–1975 |
|
| Premier | Alexei Kosygin |
| Preceded by | Viktor Grishin |
| Succeeded by | Alexey Shibaev |
| Chairman of the Committee for State Security | |
| In office 25 December 1958 – 13 November 1961 |
|
| Premier | Nikita Khrushchev |
| Preceded by | Ivan Serov |
| Succeeded by | Vladimir Semichastny |
| Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers | |
| In office 19 May 1972 – 7 May 1973 |
|
| Premier | Alexei Kosygin |
| Preceded by | Mikhail Yefremov |
| Succeeded by | Zia Nureyev |
| First Secretary of the Komsomol | |
| In office 30 October 1952 – 28 March 1958 |
|
| CPSU leader | Joseph Stalin Nikita Khrushchev |
| Preceded by | Nikolai Mikhailov |
| Succeeded by | Vladimir Semichastny |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 18 August 1918 Voronezh, Russian Empire |
| Died | 24 October 1994 (aged 76) Moscow, Russian Federation |
| Citizenship | Soviet (until 1991) and Russian |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Political party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union |
Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Шеле́пин; 18 August 1918 - 24 October 1994) was a Soviet state security officer and party statesman. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its Politburo and was the head of the KGB from 25 December 1958 to 13 November 1961.
Shelepin was born in Voronezh. A history and literature major while studying at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature, Shelepin was a guerrilla leader during World War II, becoming a senior official of the Communist Youth League in 1943, and at the head of the successor organization, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, from 1952 to 1958. He accompanied Nikita Khrushchev on the Soviet leader's trip to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1954.
Shelepin then became the second head of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, which had been reorganized and reformed as the KGB after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev appointed Shelepin in part because of several major KGB defections in the 1950s during the tenure of Ivan Serov as head of the KGB. Shelepin attempted to return state security to its position of importance during the Stalinist era. He demoted or fired many KGB officers, replacing them with officials from Communist Party organizations, and, especially, from the Communist Youth League.
He left the KGB and was promoted to the Central Committee secretariat in November 1961, where it is believed he still exercised control over the KGB, which was taken over by his protégé Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny. Shelepin became a First Deputy Prime Minister in 1962. He was a principal player in the coup against Khrushchev in October 1964, obviously influencing the KGB to support the conspirators.
Shelepin probably expected to become First Secretary and de facto head of government when Khrushchev was overthrown. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn suggested that Shelepin had been the choice of the surviving Stalinists in the government, who asked what "had been the point of overthrowing Khrushchev if not to revert to Stalinism?"[citation needed]
Rather, Shelepin's reward was to be made a full member of the ruling Politburo in November 1964—by a significant margin its youngest member. But he still held ambitions of becoming the "first among equals". His colleagues on the Politburo watched him carefully, seeking to halt his ambitions. He survived in that body until 1975, when he rapidly fell from power.
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ivan Serov |
Head of Soviet Committee of State Security 1958 – 1961 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Semichastny |
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