Alexander Scherbakov: biography of Stalin's nominee

Shcherbakov Alexander Sergeevich - a famous party figure of Soviet times, colonel-general, a man of great authority and the most executive assistant of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

Having an unlimited faith in the greatness of his leader, Shcherbakov was ready to break into a cake, carrying out any of his orders. 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). Was born on October 10, 1901 in the family of ordinary workers, who several years after his birth moved to Rybinsk. Alexander received education already there.

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

Since that time, in just two decades, Alexander, as it turned out, was completely adequate to the Stalinist regime, he made a dizzying career. In the field of vision of the leader Shcherbakov got, managing in the apparatus of the Central Committee cultural and educational work. He soon came to trust in Stalin, although everyone knows how much the secretary-general was cautious, especially in relation to new faces.

Incredible career takeoff

In 1934, 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, economic issues.

Seeing that in the Writers' Union so faithful aide managed to restore order, Stalin in 1936 sent him to Leningrad 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 CPSU (B.). It was there that he showed himself to be an ardent supporter of Stalin's policy and conducted a global purge, arresting almost all the leaders and deputies of the regional departments, secretaries of regional committees, heads of economic organizations, directors of enterprises. In Shcherbakov's opinion, these individuals were not credible: the party leadership was in enemy hands. In this way - on someone else's blood - at that time career was made, a vivid example - Alexander Shcherbakov.

Moscow. New appointments

Then, after working briefly in the Donetsk regional committee of the party, in 1938 Shcherbakov moved to Moscow, where he was appointed first secretary of the Moscow Committee and the Moscow City Council of the CPSU (b). Stalin pondered this appointment for a long time and made a positive decision, with only one nuance: he assigned Alexander Sergeevich for control as the second secretary of Muscovite Popov. Shcherbakov understood the true role of the overseer commissioner who was with him and constantly clashed with him.

In 1941, a new appointment - Secretary of the Central Committee and a 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 fall of 1941), Alexander Sergeevich, unlike many, did not succumb to panic, did not lose his head. He spoke in the air, urging residents to defend their city to their last breath. And then, having removed from his posts the first secretaries of Korostylev A. and Dashko I., he excluded them from the party. Other workers of the city committee also fell under the tribunal, leaving in secret in the Kursk railway station secret documents with important information, as well as a group of directors of the capital's factories, who illegally tried to leave the capital with stolen property.

Almost the owner of the capital

In the hands of Shcherbakov, the secretary of the Central Committee, practically the owner of the capital of Russian cities, the head of the Main Political Administration of the Red Army, the head of the Soviet Information Bureau, a huge power was concentrated. But never, under any circumstances, he did not forget that over him there is a stronger power.

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

The anti-Semitic campaign of Shcherbakov

The surge of anti-Semitism observed in those years was to some extent controlled by Shcherbakov. Not without his participation, reports on the presence of most non-Russian people at the head of Russian art institutions, namely Jews, appeared. And this caused a significant minority of Russian people. In particular, the speech was conducted about the Bolshoi Theater, the departments of the central newspapers, the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatoires. Cleaning of cultural institutions from the Jews was begun at the height of the war, when the enemy was at the gates of Stalingrad. At first, this campaign was conducted without noise, quite cautiously. Gradually gaining momentum, she 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 leader is the city of youth - Rybinsk.