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than political ideas, and has no qualms about sacrificing the latter to
the former. His tactic is quite simple: once he has vanquished a
political opponent personally, he yields to him ideologically, making a
compromise with that opponent's political leanings. For example,
after removing the most zealous Stalinists from the Politburo, Brezhnev
himself brought the ship of state back to the Stalinist course. Thu.s, the
six counterrevolutions carried out by Brezhnev during his rule (ap–
proximately one every two years) were at the same time a rebirth of the
regime-its internal transformation.
By the eighties, of those members of the old Politburo who in the
"Little October" of 1964 overthrew Khrushchev, only two remained
along with Brezhnev: Suslov and Kirilenko. Of the six who were
expelled, four-Shelepin , Shelest, Polyansky, and Podgorny-were
hawks. To them should be added others who were removed from their
posts and who, although not members of the Politburo, were nonethe–
less influential political bigwigs: Sergei Pavlov, the Komsomol chief
and Vasily Tolstikov, the Leningrad Party boss and an alternate
member of the Politburo, for example.
Alexander Shelepin was called "Iron Shurik" ("Shurik" being a
diminutive of "Alexander"). He tried to extend to the whole country
the methods used by the KGB, which he had once headed up, invoking
the necessity for discipline and a strong regime. He himself called his
movement the "Workers' Opposition." What he wanted, and fought
for, was a retreat from the bureaucratic dictatorship and a return to a
dictatorship of the proletariat and pure socialism. And he was ready to
lead a crusade against the pro-Western Jews and intellectuals-turned–
bourgeois. His fall was as meteoric as his rise to power: he went from
First Secretary of the Komsomol to Chairman of the KGB to Secretary
of the Central Committee (combined with membership in the Presid-
~I
ium) to Trade Union Chairman. The last named was merely a nominal
post; but he could not hang onto it, and he fell into oblivion . His
ambition was boundless; his character was truly iron-like; and he had
almost total control over the KGB and key Party posts as well. Getting
rid of him was Brezhnev's greatest achievement.
Dealing with the others was easier. Shelepin 's protege, Sergei
Pavlov, when head of the Komsomol, tried to transform it into
something like the
Hitlerjugend.
But with no Hitler around, this
meant he was overreaching his real authority to a dangerous extent.
His usual response to official criticism was that the Komsomol was the
Party's guard dog and should run on ahead of its master. He was
removed from his post when he tried to introduce special uniforms for
