Alexander Shcherbakov: biography of Stalin's nominee

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:54

Shcherbakov Alexander Sergeevich - a well-known party leader of the Soviet era, Colonel-General, a man of great authority and the most executive assistant to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

Having boundless faith in the greatness of his leader, Shcherbakov was ready to break into a cake, following any of his instructions. Yes, and Stalin easily and without delay signed the materials, if they were agreed or endorsed by him.

Alexander Shcherbakov: biography. Childhood and youth

Shcherbakov comes from Ruza (Moscow province). He was born on October 10, 1901 in a family of ordinary workers, who moved to Rybinsk a few years after his birth. Alexander received his education already there.

He started working early: from the age of 11 he was engaged in delivering the press, a year later he went as an apprentice to a printing house, later he got a job as an employee on the railway. He joined the Red Guard when he was 16 years old, and a year later he made an important decision for himself - he joined the Communist Party.

From that time on, in just two decades, Alexander, as it turned out, a figure completely adequate to the Stalinist regime, made a dizzying career. Shcherbakov came into the leader's field of vision by managing cultural and educational work in the apparatus of the Central Committee. He quickly gained confidence in Stalin, although everyone knows how circumspect the general secretary was, especially in relation to new faces.

Incredible career takeoff

In 1934, while working in the Central Committee, Alexander Shcherbakov was simultaneously appointed first secretary of the Writers' Union, headed by Maxim Gorky. But it was Alexander Sergeevich who made decisions on political, administrative, and economic issues.

Seeing that such a faithful assistant managed to restore order in the Writers' Union, Stalin sent him to Leningrad in 1936 as the second secretary of the regional party committee. After 2 years, Shcherbakov remains in the same position, but already in the East Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It was there that he showed himself to be an ardent supporter of Stalin's policy and carried out a global purge, arresting almost all heads and deputies of regional departments, secretaries of regional committees, heads of economic organizations, directors of enterprises. According to Shcherbakov, these individuals did not inspire confidence: the party leadership was in enemy hands. It was in this way - on someone else's blood - that careers were made at that time, a vivid example is Alexander Shcherbakov.

Moscow. New Appointments

Next, after working for a short timein the Donetsk regional committee of the party, in 1938 Shcherbakov moved to Moscow, where he was appointed first secretary of the MK and MGK of the CPSU (b). Stalin thought about this appointment for a long time and made a positive decision, with only one nuance: he assigned to Alexander Sergeevich for the purpose of control as the second secretary of the Muscovite Popov. Shcherbakov understood the true role of the overseer commissar who was with him and constantly clashed with him.

In 1941, a new appointment - Secretary of the Central Committee and candidate member of the Politburo. At the same time, Shcherbakov took a leading position in the Soviet Information Bureau. When the enemy stood at the gates of the capital (in the autumn of 1941), Alexander Sergeevich, unlike many, did not succumb to panic, did not lose his head. He went on the radio, ardently urging residents to defend their city to the last breath. And then, having removed from their posts the first secretaries Korostylev A. and Dashko I., he expelled them from the party. Other employees of the city committee also fell under the tribunal, who in a panic left secret documents with important information at the Kursk railway station, as well as a group of directors of the capital's factories who tried to illegally leave the capital in trucks with stolen material assets.

Practically the owner of the capital

In the hands of Shcherbakov - secretary of the Central Committee, practically the owner of the capital of Russian cities, head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, head of the Soviet Information Bureau - enormous power was concentrated. But never, under any circumstances, did he forget that there was power over him morestrong.

Trying in every possible way to please Stalin, in order to increase his own authority, Shcherbakov, bypassing the General Staff (through his own channels), sought to obtain important operational information and report it first. At the same time, Alexander Sergeevich, being an office worker, never went to the front.

Shcherbakov's anti-Semitic campaign

The surge of anti-Semitism observed in those years was controlled to some extent by Shcherbakov. It was not without his participation that memorandums about the presence at the head of the institutions of Russian art of the majority of persons of non-Russian nationality, namely, Jews, appeared. And this led to a significant minority of Russian people. In particular, they talked about the Bolshoi Theatre, departments of central newspapers, the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories. The purge of cultural institutions from Jews began at the very height of the war, when the enemy was at the gates of Stalingrad. At first, this campaign was carried out quietly, rather cautiously. Gradually gaining momentum, it radically broke the fate of many Jews.

Alexander Shcherbakov died of a heart attack on May 10, 1945. His ashes rest in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. The surname of the right hand of the leader is the city of youth - Rybinsk.