Nikolai Anisimovich Shchelokov ( – 13 December 1984) was a Soviet statesman and army general who served sixteen years as

Minister of Internal Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

from 17 September 1966 to 17 December 1982. He was fired from all posts on corruption charges and committed suicide on 13 December 1984.

Early life and education

Shchelokov was born in Almazna, a large

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

village near

Luhansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the Cities in Ukraine, 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administra ...

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

region of

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, on 26 November 1910. His father was a mine worker, and Shchelokov himself began working in the mines when he was sixteen years old. He attended Dzerzhinsky Metallurgical Institute and received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

metallurgical engineering Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

in 1933.

Career

Communist Party

Shchelokov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1931. In 1938, he was appointed first secretary of its committee in the Krasnogvardeysky district of

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

petrovsk. From 1939 to 1941 he was the chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk City Soviet under

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

who was the first secretary of the

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in simultaneously southern, eastern and central Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetro ...

. Since then, Brezhnev and Shchelokov forged very strong ties and continued supporting each other in their political careers until Brezhnev's death.

World War II

At the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Shchelokov was promoted to the rank of commissar in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

while remaining the chairman of the City Soviet of Dnipropetrovsk. He served as a political commissar in the army from 1941 to 1946.

Brezhnev's clan

After the war, Shchelokov resumed to work as a politician in Ukraine from 1947 to 1951. He was part of the

Dnipropetrovsk Mafia The Dnipropetrovsk Mafia, also known as the Dnipropetrovsk clan (; ) or simply ''Dnipropetrovtsi'' (), is a group of Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians, and Ukrainian mafia, organised crime figures, and formerly Soviet politicians. While two separ ...

, consisting of several allies to Brezhnev, including

Andrei Kirilenko Andrei Gennadyevich Kirilenko (; born February 18, 1981), nicknamed AK-47, is a Russian basketball executive and former professional basketball player. At age fifteen, Kirilenko began playing professional basketball in the Russian Basketball ...

and

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky Volodymyr Vasyliovych Shcherbytsky (17 February 1918 – 16 February 1990) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party from 1972 to 1989. A close ally of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Sh ...

, when Brezhnev was head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast party committee, or obkom. Following the appointment of Brezhnev as the first secretary of the

Communist Party of Moldavia The Communist Party of Moldavia (, PCM, Moldovan Cyrillic: ; ) was the ruling and sole legal political party of the Moldavian SSR. It was one of the fifteen republic-level parties that formed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) until ...

, Shchelokov followed him, becoming second secretary and Brezhnev's de facto deputy in 1951, and he was also named first deputy premier of the

Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic or Moldavian SSR (, mo-Cyrl, Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ), also known as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, Moldovan SSR, Soviet Moldavia, Sovie ...

. In the same period, he became a member in the Supreme Soviet.

Chief of the Soviet Police (1966–1982)

Shchelokov was appointed by Brezhnev as minister of public order on 17 September 1966. On 25 November 1968, the Ministry of Public Order (MOOP) was renamed as

Ministry of Internal Affairs An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

(MVD) with the title of Shchelokov's office renamed accordingly. He was promoted to the rank of general on 12 September 1976, while serving as interior minister. He was also the Soviet Union's top police officer. One of Shchelokov's deputies at the ministry was Brezhnev's son-in-law, Yuri Churbanov.

Downfall

Five weeks after the death of Brezhnev, on 17 December 1982, Shchelokov was replaced as interior minister by KGB chairman

Vitaly Fedorchuk Vitaly Vasilyevich Fedorchuk (; ; 27 December 1918 – 29 February 2008) was a Soviet security and intelligence officer and politician who served as Chairman of the Committee for State Security of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1 ...

, a measure seen as influenced by

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...

, Fedorchuk's predecessor as head of the KGB and newly elected general secretary of the Communist Party as well as an opponent of the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia. Shchelokov's dismissal was due to corruption charges against him. After leaving office, Shchelokov began work as chief of a police unit at a gas pipeline construction site in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. On 15 June 1983, he was dismissed from the central committee of the Communist Party on allegations of corruption during his tenure, as part of Andropov's anti-corruption campaign. His son Igor was also removed from his post in the

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

shortly after. Later reports argued that his wife and son had also been involved in illegal acts of selling and buying foreign cars. It was further argued that Shchelokov spent huge amounts of state money to buy luxury items for personal use. On 6 November 1984, his military rank of army general was withdrawn by the state, and on 7 December he was expelled from the Communist Party. In 1988, author Raul M. Mir-Haidarov argued that Shchelokov had been the godfather of the Uzbek mob.

Death

Shchelokov committed suicide by gunshot to his head using his own hunting rifle from his collection of rarities at his suburban mansion in Serebryany Bor on 13 December 1984. He was buried on 15 December in Vagankovo cemetery in Moscow. His wife Svetlana predeceased him having committed suicide on 19 February 1983.

Honours and awards

Shchelokov was awarded the followings: the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

(three times), the

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner () was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of S ...

(twice), the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Second Class), the

Order of the Patriotic War The Order of the Patriotic War () is a Soviet Union, Soviet military Order (decoration), decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to Partisan (military), partisans for heroic deeds in the Easte ...

(First Class), the

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

, the

Order of the Red Star The Order of the Red Star () was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 1930 but its statute was only defined in decree of the Presidium of the ...

Hero of Socialist Labour The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an Title of honor, honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievem ...

and various medals. Shchelokov was stripped of all civilian awards and honors on 12 December 1984.

Soviet

* Badge "Honored Worker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs"

Foreign

Notes

References

External links