"And what do you think of the first secretary of the Belarusian party committee, Pantremond Kondratievich Ponomarenko?" Stalin asked Manturov.

"I think it is the most appropriate arrangement for Comrade Ponomarenko to take over the position of Comrade Andreyev, who is a fair, honest and responsible person whose understanding and consciousness of Marxism and Leninism are above many cadres.

Such cadres who are responsible and willing to serve the people should be placed in important positions within the party. His impartiality, integrity, and sense of responsibility enable him to monitor and investigate the disciplinary conduct of party cadres efficiently and impartially. ”

"Very well, I also think that Comrade Ponomarenko is the most suitable person to be promoted to the post of secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. When I met him in Minsk last year, I already had the idea of promoting him. "Stalin's impression of Ponomarenko was very good in itself, and after listening to such a high evaluation of Manturov, he was already determined to promote this person.

In July 1944, when Stalin traveled from Moscow to Berlin to attend the Potsdam Conference, he stayed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, for 14 hours.

When Stalin met Ponomarenko, then the first secretary of the Belarusian Party committee, he proposed that he go to Berlin with Stalin as a representative of the guerrilla war leader, but Ponomarenko, who had a strong sense of responsibility, replied: "I still have a lot of work to do here (in Belarus), but if I go to Berlin, I will only be able to sit in a corner of the room." ”

When Stalin heard this, he was greatly satisfied with the Belarusian leader of Ukrainian origin and said: "If you need it, I will reserve a place for you." ”

As a result, after Andreyev's dismissal, the first person that came to Stalin's mind to replace Andreyev was Ponomarenko.

Of course, Khrushchev was also one of the objects of his choice, after all, he was the secretary of the Ukrainian party committee, and his status was even higher than Ponomarenko.

However, in terms of political achievements and personal qualities, Khrushchev could not compare with Ponomarenko, a responsible red cadre who also led the guerrilla front during the Great Patriotic War, and it can be said that Ponomarenko deserved to be the secretary of the Central Committee.

Stalin thought for a moment and instructed Manturov: "I intend to make adjustments to the positions of Mikhail Andreyevich (Suslov) and Nikita Sergeyevich (Khrushchev), and you go back and study with the comrades of the Organization Department of the Central Committee a few positions that are more suitable for them, and find a few suitable candidates to replace them." ”

All this time, Manturov was looking for an opportunity to eliminate Khrushchev, but he did not expect that now Stalin would hand over the fate of Khrushchev to himself at this time.

However, this does not mean that he will be able to beat Khrushchev to the point of no turning over this time.

Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Ukrainian Party Committee in 1938 and operated for more than seven years in Ukraine, a republic of the Soviet Union second only to Russia.

During this time, he did not achieve much political success, and the drought in 1945 hit Ukraine's agricultural economy hard, causing Ukraine, a "big granary" that had always relied on agricultural production, to face the most severe economic crisis in a decade.

Compared to Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Novosibirsk region have seen a significant increase in agricultural production.

After Chernenko became the first secretary of the Kazakh Party Committee, he launched a large-scale reclamation campaign at the suggestion of Manturov, which greatly increased the area of arable land in Kazakhstan.

In order to prevent soil erosion and other undesirable phenomena caused by the Great Reclamation Campaign, Manturov also greeted the agricultural departments and research institutes of the Soviet Union, sent a large number of agricultural and environmental experts to Kazakhstan to conduct assessments, and formulated scientific and effective reclamation plans and planting plans, which not only increased Kazakhstan's grain production, but also improved the farmers' planting skills and knowledge level.

As for Novosibirsk, Manturov's agricultural policy has always been implemented, and the basic content is not much different from the Kazakh reclamation, and grain production has been steadily increasing, even approaching the level of a Belarusian republic.

Chernenko's outstanding performance in agriculture, combined with his ethnic Ukrainian status, made him the first candidate to succeed Khrushchev as the new party secretary of Ukraine, and no one could dispute this at all.

So how did Khrushchev arrange it? It's a really tricky question, and we can't let him take up some positions where he can play to his potential, and I can't demote him to too low a position.

Historically, Khrushchev has been mediocre as party secretary of Ukraine, and even lost Stalin's trust because of the drought of 1945.

But in 1947, Ukraine's big granary began to harvest, and for two consecutive years, the grain harvest exceeded the planned target, which brought him a good political achievement.

In order to realize his ideal of "eliminating the distinction between urban and rural", Khrushchev also tried to merge collective farms into agricultural cities, and in October 1949 he set up a model site as a gift for Stalin's 70th birthday.

As soon as Stalin was happy, he promoted Khrushchev to secretary of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in charge of ideology (ranked third), and from then on Khrushchev had the conditions to run for the next leader of the Soviet Union, and finally succeeded.

But in this plane, Khrushchev met such a formidable opponent as Manturov. Not only did he crush him in terms of political performance and status, but he also grasped the personnel power in the party and could influence Khrushchev's fate.

However, Manturov is not the general secretary now, and even if he becomes the general secretary, he will have to find a better reason to talk about the demotion of others, or even the rectification.

Khrushchev's poor performance in agriculture was a good reason, but the agricultural failure in 1945 was more due to natural disasters and had less to do with his ability to work or anything.

If this alone is not enough to demote a secretary of the Ukrainian party committee or a member of the Politburo to a village, district, or city level, even if he is made an ordinary state party secretary, it is already a considerable punishment.

In addition to this, Khrushchev had many shortcomings, including his bureaucratic performance and his pro-Trotsky and anti-Stalin rhetoric.

Originally, the fact that Khrushchev had been a Trotskyist was enough to arrest him, but he had already admitted his mistake in front of Stalin many years ago, and he was forgiven by Stalin. His frank style also made Stalin feel that he could be trusted, and no one could purge him on the charge of "colluding with the Trotskyists".

As for the manifestations of bureaucratization, this phenomenon was widespread among the vast majority of Soviet cadres, and Khrushchev's bureaucratization was not serious (at least on the surface) and it was difficult to use it to rectify others.