For Manturov, it was not too difficult to gain the support of the Politburo.

Since the death of Kalinin (former Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet), the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee has been reduced from 12 to 11 members, and this singular number has been maintained for a long time to ensure that there is no equal number of votes in all votes.

In the Politburo, there are already three people from the "Siberian faction" alone, including Manturov himself, Andreyev, chairman of the Central Supervisory Commission, and Pantremon Ponomarenko, secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU and former first secretary of the Belarusian party committee, who replaced Khrushchev.

However, these three votes are of course not enough, and at least six more votes are needed for Manturov's aid plan to be approved by the Politburo meeting, so Manturov will have to get at least three more votes.

At that time, in addition to the three members of the "Siberian faction", there were also Stalin, Beria, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Voznesensky and Zhdanov in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and a total of 11 people from the Siberian faction.

Prior to this, Voznesensky had already made clear his opposition to the Soviet aid program, and his "boss", the "Leningrad faction", the second secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Zhdanov, was most likely to vote against it. It is basically impossible for these two men to be on Manturov's side, and they simply cannot win their support.

Molotov and Voroshilov are different, and these two men are already almost certain to be on Manturov's side.

Although Voroshilov is not very strong in his political position, because he is Manturov's father-in-law, his vote will almost certainly go to Manturov.

As for Molotov, he, like Manturov, was actually one of the main initiators of this aid program. If there were no surprises, he would have voted in favor.

However, there are so many variables in the Kremlin's power arena that it is still unknown whether Molotov will change his position, but fortunately such a possibility is very small, at least for now, Molotov's side of Manturov is the best choice for his personal political interests.

But even if Manturov had the support of Molotov and Voroshilov, one more vote would be needed to get a majority of the Politburo resolution and his bill passed.

So who is this vote on? In fact, among the remaining Politburo members, there is really no one who can be relied on.

Forget about Zhdanov and Voznesensky, both of them can be considered political enemies of Manturov, and it is impossible to expect them to side with Manturov.

Needless to say, Beria's character and discipline are notoriously poor in the entire Politburo, and he is not quite on the right path with Manturov, so the chances of him voting against him are still relatively high.

As for Mikoyan and Kaganovich, these two men, although they have a good relationship with Manturov, are not people who can be relied upon.

Ever since Mikoyan entered the core of the CPSU, his style of being good at speculation has been widely known to the top level of the CPSU. All this time, he did not actually participate in any political struggle, neither between Kaganovich and Yezhov before, nor between the Siberians and Leningrads now.

Judging by Mikoyan's style for so many years, he probably either abstained or found a reason to be absent from the meeting this time, because he did not want to offend Manturov, nor Zhdanov and Voznesensky, so he did not want to cast a crucial vote in any vote involving the wrestling between the two factions, unless Stalin told him to do so.

And what about Stalin? What will he choose? It's really hard to say.

For Stalin, he would support any policy that would benefit the state and strengthen the Soviet Union's grip on other socialist regimes. But he was more concerned about the political situation in the Soviet Union than in terms of national interests.

But whatever Stalin thought, Manturov had to get his support beforehand. First, Stalin was the supreme leader of the country, and entrusting him with important matters was a sign of respect and loyalty to him.

Second, if Stalin had voted against it at the Politburo meeting, no matter how strong the relationship between Voroshilov, Molotov, Ponomarenko and Andreyev had with Manturov, they would probably vote against or abstain from voting because of Stalin's relationship, leaving him without sufficient support.

Under such circumstances, Manturov had to call Molotov and go to the Kremlin to talk to Stalin about their thoughts.

"I have read all your plans, and whether it is from the perspective of the national interests of the Soviet Union or the spirit and morality of internationalism, we must provide assistance to other socialist countries and establish a system of mutual economic assistance." Hearing Stalin's words, both Manturov and Molotov's hearts settled.

"But the question is," Stalin continued, "how much resources should we devote to aid, and how should the proportion of aid to individual socialist countries be determined?" ”

"Comrade Stalin," Manturov said, "I believe that the distribution of this aid program should be based on the economic situation of each country. Countries with worse economic conditions tend to need more resources for development, so countries with poorer economic conditions, such as Greece and Bulgaria, should receive more assistance.

For countries with poor industrial bases (such as Greece and Bulgaria), we should provide them with more industrial equipment and industrial technology for their industrialization, and in addition to this, we should also provide them with some agricultural production machinery to help them realize agricultural mechanization, so as to increase the food production of these countries and help farmers increase their income.

As for countries with a strong industrial base (such as Germany, Northern Italy and Czechoslovakia), their demand for industrial equipment is not large, and we only need to provide them with industrial raw materials such as oil and iron ore to help them develop. ”

Stalin nodded and said, "What should be done with the defeated countries such as Germany, Northern Italy and Romania in the aid package?" ”

In the aid package, the position of these defeated countries is very awkward. On the one hand, they would pay huge war reparations to the Soviet Union and other victorious socialist powers, and on the other hand, they would accept Soviet aid, which was really just an equivalent bargain.

But does this mean that Germany and Northern Italy will not benefit from this aid package? Not necessarily.

"Comrade Stalin, as I said earlier, it is enough for such socialist countries as Germany and Northern Italy to have a strong industrial base, and we only need to supply them with some industrial raw materials. As long as they obtain enough raw materials for industrial production, their industrial production capacity will also be enhanced to a certain extent.

When the industrial production capacity of these defeated countries has developed to a certain extent, they will be able to raise more funds and industrial products to repay us as war reparations.

As for Romania and other defeated countries with poor industrial production capacity, we should also provide them with industrial products and industrial production equipment to help them industrialize, but at the same time, they also need to provide us with funds and raw materials as compensation for the war. ”