On January 1, 1945, when the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force, Novikov, was enjoying a "reunion dinner" at home, a phone call suddenly came. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Novikov answered the phone and said to the person on the other end of the phone: "Comrade Stalin, what instructions do you have?" ”

"Comrade Novikov, what do you think about the award of the title of General Vasily?" On the other end of the phone, Stalin was sitting at his desk. He held the phone in one hand and flipped through the biographical information of Marshal Novikov in the other, and seemed interested in the person on the other end of the phone.

The "Vasily" that Stalin referred to was none other than his most beloved son, Vasily Josevich Stalin (Dzhugashvili).

Vasily was undoubtedly the fastest-promoted pilot in the Soviet Air Force, he was already the commander of the 32nd Air Regiment at the age of 22, and by the beginning of 1944, at the age of 23, he became the commander of the 286th Fighter Aviation Division, with the rank of colonel, one of the youngest division commanders in the Soviet Union.

After becoming a division commander, Vasily did not live up to the expectations of his father and his superiors, and his aviation division played no small role in the campaign to liberate Germany, destroying more than 600 German aircraft, blowing up more than 1,000 German military vehicles and a number of German ammunition depots, command posts, radar stations and other facilities, causing thousands of direct casualties to the enemy.

However, Vasily was still too young after all, and a number of high-ranking Air Force personnel, including Marshal Novikov, did not support awarding him the rank of major general. But he was, after all, Stalin's son, so there were also quite a few people who expressed support in order to curry favor with him and Stalin.

Novikov also did not support the award of Vasily the rank of Major General, but he also did not dare to speak ill of Vasily in front of Stalin, but this does not mean that he did not dare to express his true opinion.

He very tactfully said on the phone that Vasily was too young and lacked sufficient academic qualifications (he dropped out of the special flight school in the summer), and thought that before making Vasily a general, it would be better to let him go to the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy to study and study the knowledge of the tactics and strategy of the Air Force.

When Stalin heard this, he was greatly displeased. He didn't like Novikov very much in the first place, and this time he opposed his opinion and did not let his son become a general, which made him even more annoyed.

After that, Novikov called Zhukov to discuss the granting of the rank of Major General Vasily.

Zhukov was a soldier with little political wisdom, but as a member of the Soviet military, he also saw through some of the rules at the top.

In his view, it is not a good thing to go against Stalin's will in anything, especially when it comes to Stalin's vital interests, it is all the more necessary to follow the will of the supreme leadership.

But Novikov apparently did not see this clearly, and he said something "stupid" on the phone, questioning the decision of the supreme leader, going against the will of the supreme leader, which would only lead to disastrous consequences for him.

In this regard, Zhukov could only say to Novikov on the phone: "What else can you do? That's an order! After the arrest of Sergei Aleksandrovich (Hudyakov), didn't Vladimir Fedorovich (Manturov) tell you not to do stupid things, not to say stupid things? ”

Hearing this, Novikov began to worry about his fate, but he insisted that his decision was the right one, and believed that Stalin would let him go for the sake of his "single-mindedness".

But it turned out that he was wrong, and instead of taking Novikov's advice, Stalin began to target him and plot against him.

By March 1945, with the strong support of his father, Vasily was successfully awarded the rank of major general and became a commander of the air force, while the hapless Novikov was relieved of his post as commander-in-chief of the air force for "committing a major mistake".

Subsequently, Stalin set up an investigative (provocative) commission headed by Deputy Minister of Defense, General Bulganin, to investigate the mistakes made by Novikov and his "cronies" during their tenure, and on the basis of these mistakes, they played on the topic, and infinitely expanded these things (that is, made a big fuss) to the point of conviction, after which there was a reason to arrest the target and send them to the gulag, or even shoot them directly.

After investigation (provocation), the committee found that Novikov had suppressed the initiative and creativity of the junior officers during his tenure, because Novikov had drafted an order prohibiting the Air Force repair shop from changing the structure of the aircraft at will, and all requests for attempts to change the structure of the aircraft in the course of repairing the aircraft were rejected by Novikov.

This seemingly unremarkable order was actually rendered by the committee as an act of "suppressing the initiative and creative spirit of junior officers", because it limited their opportunities and space to change or design the structure of the aircraft, made them "stick to the rules" and did not have the opportunity to improve the structure of the aircraft during maintenance, and curbed the creative spirit of the junior officers.

When the commission read out this conclusion, the commander of the Air Army, Colonel-General Sergei Ignatievich Rudenko (later Air Marshal), could not help but insist: "Airplanes are not horse-drawn carts, and if everyone had the right to change the structure of the aircraft, wouldn't all the pilots fall to their deaths!" ”

After the meeting, Bulganin and Zhukov talked to Rudenko and kindly reminded him: "This is not the place for you to express your opinion. ”

Manturov soon learned of the results of the investigation through his own channels, and he found that the course of the case was almost exactly the same as the historical Novikov case, and even the charges and the dates of arrest of the various people involved had not changed much.

It can be seen that this case and the historical Novikov case are most likely the work of the same person. The ostensible cause of the incident was that Stalin's son Vasily complained to his father that the quality of Soviet combat aircraft was inferior to that of the United States, and the fuse was the arrest of Hudyakov and the "storm over Vasily's promotion to major general."

If the historical trajectory continues, Novikov, as well as the Minister of Aviation Industry Alexei Ivanovich Shahulin, the Air Force Military Commissar Air Force General Shmanov, the Deputy Commander of the Air Force, the Air Force Deputy Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General Seleznev, the Director of the Air Force Equipment Procurement Directorate, Lieutenant General Seleznev, the Chief of the Cadre Bureau of the Central Committee, Budnikov, and Grigoryyan will all be arrested.

After Novikov was arrested, General Abakumov, the leader of the counterintelligence agency in charge of interrogation, would use torture to extract confessions, induce confessions, use narcotics and other means to cause Novikov to have a nervous breakdown, and finally admit all the charges, and would follow Abakumov's prompts to write written materials that were detrimental to Malenkov and Zhukov.

Afterwards, Malenkov will be relegated to Uzbekistan for the construction of the dam because of this case, and Zhukov will also have to face a series of troubles.

If this is the case, it will not be a bad thing for Manturov, as long as Malenkov is demoted, Mantulov, as head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee and secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, will be able to take over all the personnel power of Malenkov and become the cadre with the highest personnel power in the party other than Stalin.

But if this case is not against Malenkov, but against Manturov, then I am afraid the result will be the opposite.