Word: shelepin
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Whether or not Shelepin conspired to grab the U.S.S.R.'s top job, he has long been a formidable and potentially troublesome contender for it. At 56, Shelepin is a mere stripling in the ruling Soviet gerontocracy. He was the youngest member in the Politburo, where the average age is 66, and probably the healthiest. Moreover, as George Washington University Kremlinologist Carl Linden sees it, his impatient approach probably clashed with that of his cautious elders. "While Brezhnev and the other old men wanted to pursue glacial tactics, Shelepin was an activist, always looking for opportunities to shake things...
...Mere Stripling. In Moscow, the consensus among foreign diplomats was that Shelepin's fall had not been caused by policy differences but by power politics. According to one scenario, Shelepin was caught organizing a faction that would have seized power when the ailing Brezhnev retired or died. Now Brezhnev can probably count on eight votes, including his own, on issues that come before the 15 remaining Politburo members. This might enable him to engineer an orderly transfer of power at the 25th Party Congress that is scheduled to begin next February. Current favorite to succeed him, at least...
...Shelepin's meteoric rise through the Communist Party apparatus under Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev showed him to be outstandingly adroit in cultivating useful political alliances and cutting through the ossified Soviet bureaucracy. He established a substantial power base as head of the Komsomol organization of young Communists and later as chief of the KGB, the Soviet secret police...
Some experts believe he helped Brezhnev engineer the conspiracy that ousted Khrushchev. At any rate, Shelepin was soon rewarded by a promotion to the Presidium (now the Politburo). Since 1965, however, while he remained a full Politburo member, he has always lurked in the antechambers of total power. His ambition and talent could hardly have pleased the Politburo majority...
...deadly blow to Shelepin's aspirations followed a disastrous trip to Britain earlier this month (TIME, April 14). The guest of the British Trades Union Congress, he was characterized by the press as a secret police assassin, pelted by demonstrators with bricks and umbrellas and snubbed by the Labor Government. Some observers speculated last week that Shelepin's enemies in the Kremlin might have deliberately thrust him into a situation that was bound to discredit him publicly. As one authoritative Western intelligence report has it, the Soviet leadership met in special session the very day Shelepin returned...