Chapter 181
Chapter 181
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: After the Dictator's Death (2)
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“MGB!”
Just mentioning the State Security Ministry was enough to make everyone tremble in fear.
Following Stalin’s will, it was the executive organ that added perfectly healthy people to lists and threw them into the Gulag.
That was the MGB.
So it was only natural that Lavrenty Beria, the head of the MGB, had established himself as the real power behind the new regime.
Beria looked down on his fellow members of the Council of Ministers.
“In the paper I hold, all your weaknesses are laid bare.”
How could he see prey he could devour at a whim as equal colleagues?
Beria paid no attention to the high-ranking party members.
The only ones he was wary of were the prestigious military leaders who had saved the nation from crisis.
Only the military had the qualifications to be his rivals.
“We need to figure out how to deal with the army loitering around Moscow first.”
Under the pretext of maintaining order, Beria drove the military out of Moscow.
MGB forces filled the resulting vacuum.
Beria steadily climbed the stairs of power.
He had seized the capital, become first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, and planted eyes of surveillance in the military.
Now, if time passed and the people grew accustomed to him, the seat of supreme power was not just a dream.
Beria harbored grand ambitions as he manipulated Malenkov.
The spineless Malenkov was an excellent tool, moving exactly as Beria wished.
“If things keep going like this, it’ll all be wrapped up by year’s end.”
Just as Beria was thinking that, strange things began to happen.
“Deputy Chairman, sir. These kinds of letters keep arriving at the MGB minister’s office.”
They were suspicious letters with no sender.
He had his subordinates check the contents, and all they found was the phrase “from a friend far away,” along with some money enclosed.
A friend far away?
Beria sensed something odd here but didn’t order an investigation.
With the current political situation so hectic, he couldn’t spare manpower on such a trivial matter.
Beria let the issue slide like that, but the rumors soon spread like wildfire among the party cadres.
“They say Beria’s receiving money from abroad?”
“Who in the world sends money envelopes split up like that, in such numbers? This is proof Beria’s getting support from the West.”
The moment Khrushchev heard the rumor, he judged it would make a perfect pretext to oust Beria.
Khrushchev quietly met with an officer from Zhukov’s side and discussed the matter.
“A traitor to the homeland, aligned with the West? But will that hold as a pretext?”
“We were going to pin something on him anyway to get rid of the bastard. Tell Marshal Zhukov that’s all.”
Even in the original timeline, they had pinned collaboration with the West on him, so it was convenient for the coup plotters.
“Treason against the state. Yeah, that fits. The people will understand easily enough.”
The coup preparations proceeded smoothly.
Even the Soviet military generals, who usually didn’t get along, united to support the coup.
On the day of the coup, a Politburo meeting disguised as a Council of Ministers session was held in the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, generals who had scheduled visits to the Kremlin stopped by the restrooms.
No one dared search the generals’ uniforms, so Marshal Zhukov and Major General Kirill Moskalenko of the Moscow Defense Command entered with submachine guns hidden under their overcoats.
“Take one each.”
At the order, the officers waiting in the restroom each received a gun.
In a Western-style coup, they might have stormed in with troops and caused a ruckus, but Zhukov had no intention of staging such a crude affair.
He wanted to quietly seize the Kremlin, then have the party step in to deal with Beria and call it done.
That way, it would look proper and benefit the people.
While the Soviet officers waited in the restroom, the curtain rose on the Council of Ministers stage.
Khrushchev requested the floor from Malenkov, then suddenly attacked Beria.
“Comrade General Secretary. On behalf of the party members and people who could not attend this meeting, I impeach Comrade Beria. Not only has Comrade Beria abused his power to commit crimes, but he has also accepted support from the enemies of the federation and sabotaged Moscow. How can we call the federation a proper nation if we let such a scoundrel be? Treason against the state must pay the price.”
“Nikita, what nonsense is this? I didn’t do it. Georgy! Don’t listen to these guys!”
The Council of Ministers chamber descended into chaos in an instant.
Khrushchev reciting the charges, Beria countering.
Beria’s voice grew louder and louder.
Finally, after finishing his piece, Khrushchev bellowed.
“Georgy! Hit the button!”
Malenkov hesitated, then pressed the button.
“Georgy! You have to take my side! I appeal to our friendship—I’ve never committed treason! Believe me!”
Beria pleaded with Malenkov to protect him, but the general secretary ignored his friend’s desperate appeal.
“That fucking bastard.”
Beria jumped up from his seat and rushed to the window.
Then he shouted outside.
“Guards!”
The party members who saw this were shocked.
If Beria called in MGB forces, it was over.
At that moment, Soviet army officers who had answered Malenkov’s summons rushed into the meeting room.
“Uh-oh.”
The MGB agents guarding the corridor saw the armed Soviet officers and fled in panic.
They couldn’t possibly fight back, with the hero of the Great Patriotic War, Marshal Zhukov, at the forefront.
“Comrade Khrushchev, where’s Beria?”
The moment Zhukov burst into the meeting room, he asked Khrushchev.
When Khrushchev gestured with his eyes, Zhukov brutally beat Beria, who was yelling at the window.
Zhukov shouted at the sprawled Beria.
“Beria, you are under arrest.”
Beria was immediately seized by the generals.
Moskalenko removed Beria’s belt and tried to disarm him, but he carried no special weapons on him.
“This is a dream.”
Beria had never imagined such a thing could happen in the Kremlin, dominated by the MGB, but this was reality.
Outside the Kremlin as well, Soviet units summoned by Zhukov arrived one after another, disarming the MGB forces.
“The Red Army has arrived. Now scram back to your nests.”
Beria was adept at palace intrigue but no match for the Soviet military when it came to mobilizing troops.
Khrushchev once again recited Beria’s crimes.
“I demand a formal trial. Not this rushed procedure!”
“A formal trial? You think you qualify for that? Shameless to the end.”
No one had any intention of hearing Beria’s defense.
Letting him go here could spark a civil war.
No fool willing to risk that could have risen to the top of the Communist Party.
“Transport this bastard carefully.”
Beria was taken straight to prison.
Beria’s ousting ended just like that, in a flash.
Of course, this wasn’t the end of his punishment.
The party members had no intention of letting Beria, who had acted as a human butcher killing people for years, live.
Khrushchev conveyed the party’s thinking and asked the generals’ opinions.
“Does the military have any different views on Beria’s disposition? If Comrade Zhukov has thoughts, speak up.”
“The military follows the party’s leadership.”
Zhukov adopted a humble posture toward the party members.
This operation was a coup, but ultimately just surgery to remove Beria alone.
Misreading the situation and overstepping could earn him a beating from the party members.
Zhukov had tasted the bitter side of politics enough times to have that much sense.
“And Comrade Moskalenko, any opinions?”
“I agree with Comrade Zhukov.”
Moskalenko played it safe too.
In such a period of power shifts, the best policy was to say as little as possible.
“Then let’s conclude this matter here.”
As Khrushchev was wrapping up the coup, Zhukov suddenly remembered something and asked.
“By the way, what about Comrade Stalin’s blood relatives?”
Everyone’s faces grew complicated at his words.
The iron-fisted dictator Stalin.
His relatives, backed by his lingering aura, were honestly burdensome to touch carelessly.
But leaving them be was also a burden.
This time alone, Vasily had foolishly sided with Beria without knowing his place.
The party members didn’t want a repeat.
“For Vasily, I’d like to just strip his rank and pension him off. Honestly, sending that hopeless drunk abroad would just give us headaches.”
“Then what about Svetlana?”
“How about sending her to neutral Austria, comrades?”
Stalin’s daughter Svetlana didn’t seem like much of a threat if sent abroad.
She wasn’t a man, just a girl.
Khrushchev readily agreed.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
Unlike with Stalin himself, no one harbored blood grudges against his children.
Everyone agreed that was a fair disposition.
The Soviet coup concluded that way.
Only Beria had changed; nearly everyone else kept their positions.
But the power dynamics had completely shifted.
The power vacuum left by the fallen strongman Beria was filled by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who had joined hands with the military.
There were no major changes in visible titles, but the real power holder in the Soviet Union had utterly changed.
The West failed to read this accurately, but Korea was different.
“As expected, Khrushchev won.”
Pyongyang ignored Malenkov and went straight to Khrushchev.
“Comrade Khrushchev. A telegram from Pyongyang has arrived for you.”
“Not for Comrade Malenkov, but for me?”
Khrushchev was taken aback by the fact that Pyongyang had completely seen through the shadowy power struggle after the dictator’s death.
“Their intelligence is this sharp?”
Even America was still grasping the situation, yet Korea had pinpointed the real power holder and reached out directly to him.
It wasn’t vague talk either.
“From now on, we in Pyongyang hope to be good partners with the General Secretary. With the Soviet Union and the DPRK joining hands, what is there to fear from the West?”
Korea was clearly viewing him as the power holder after Stalin.
“I’d better deal with the Koreans cautiously.”
Khrushchev raised his wariness toward Korea another notch.