"Arms race, ah......" Serov sighed behind the leader of Shelepin's entourage.

"Azerbaijani caviar is top notch in the world!" Serov said vaguely, for caviar Serov is to eat a fresh, never tried something always has an indescribable feeling for the first time, fortunately he has made up for the local knowledge in the past few days, otherwise it will be exposed.

"Yes, we may not be able to taste all the delicacies of the motherland in our lifetime!" Although Xie Leping is in a high position, he can't always eat such authentic caviar, so he naturally does not hesitate to praise him.

In general, for the reception of Sherepin and his party, Serov thinks that he is doing a very decent job, although he can't help but be a little deliberately careful, but this can't be blamed on him, everyone knows that Sherepin is notoriously strong and unreasonable, and Serov knows more about Sherepin's future trajectory than others, and he can't remain calm about this person who almost controlled the Soviet Union.

"To be honest, I like this lad!" For Sherepin, the entire Soviet Union has almost no secrets about him, and it is even easier to ask for Serov's information: "My parents died in the war, and I joined the Red Army at the age of eighteen, but after two months of enlistment, the war was over!" Then he went to work in the local area, he was very young, and judging from the experience of Azerbaijan this time, it was not bad, but none of this was important, the important thing was that I felt that he had talent, and he had talent! ”

Xie Lepin ended with a domineering sentence, not worried at all that his words would be listened to by those who had a heart.

Because the two people next to him, Nikolai Egorechev and Nikolai Meshatsev, were friends of Shelepin, and their relationship could even be traced back to World War II, and it was strengthened in the following days.

"So you found a few young cadres on this expedition? Nice catch? Yegorechev closed the book in his hand, said word by word, and said with the word young very seriously, "Alexander, this time is a bit abnormal, you better not be too high-profile." You don't have to be sharp all the time! ”

"Yegorechev is right!" Meshatsev nodded and said, "The KGB is investigating during this time, and I don't know how many people are unlucky!" ”

"A bunch of well-fed bastards who have nothing to do!" The contempt in Sherepin's mouth is obvious, "a bunch of unassertive tools, who do not know what is right and what is wrong, can only become a knife ......"

However, Sherepin still listened to the words of the two old friends, although the KGB is a knife, but no one knows who the person holding the knife is going to cut?

After Sherepin left, he also left a mission, for which Serov gladly accepted the order, the students of the National University of Petroleum may become an unexpected help in the future, in the memory of the previous life, the more the Soviet Union became more dependent on oil in the later period, so whether it is to take precautions or hitchhike, these young students who may work in the energy system in the future, Serov must also pay attention.

Since the 50s of the 20th century, Soviet oil and gas exports have been gradually increasing. Oil exports increased from 300,000 tons in 1950 to 17.83 million tons in 1960. The Soviet Union's massive oil exports coincided with a favorable time for the rise in world oil prices. Its exports of fuel and petroleum products increased from 170 million tons in 1970 to 447 million tons in 1988.

Of these, 205 million tons of oil and 88 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Oil became a bulk of Soviet exports. The Soviet Union accounted for about 10 per cent of the global crude oil market, or 12 per cent if all petroleum products were included.

The position of natural gas in the energy balance of the USSR was constantly rising. Before 1960, the Soviet Union accounted for about 8% of its total fuel extraction and consumption. This proportion reached 18%~19% in the 60s. By the end of the 80s, the Soviet unified gas supply system provided more than 40% of Soviet fuel consumption, ensuring most of the fuel consumption of the countries of Eastern Europe and many Western European countries.

If these people who served the Soviet energy industry could be controlled by Serov, it can be said that Serov would immediately become the number one person in the Soviet Union, and now, the second Baku is being developed, and the Tyumen oil field, known as the third Baku, has no shadow, and the students of the National Petroleum University in Baku are very important, and perhaps the students of these years will become a group of people who will master the energy lifeline of the Soviet Union in the future.

And in Moscow, everything seems to be the same as usual, and various departments and institutions are methodically and continuously. The Fourth Five-Year Plan was completed, and the results of the implementation of the Five-Year Plan for the restoration of the national economy of the USSR exceeded all expectations: in the shortest possible time, at the cost of incredible efforts, the USSR not only healed the severe wounds of the war and achieved the restoration of the national economy; And the economic power is much stronger than before the war. It has reached about 40 percent of the United States, which is the second largest in the world.

The Soviet Union's Fifth Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy stipulates that by 1955 the level of industrial production will increase by about 70 percent over 1950, the production of means of production will increase by about 80 percent, and the production of consumer goods will increase by about 60 percent. It seems that everything is going in a good direction, in fact, the entire USSR at this time will also think so, except for Serov.

At 6:30 p.m. on March 1, 1953, Stalin suffered a stroke and fell. When he was finally found, he was sitting in a blanket in pajama pants and a vest snoring. Stalin's aides initially thought he was just drunk, but then found out that he might have fallen into a coma.

The Soviet Union declared eight days of silence in the country, and all departments, departments, and factories ceased to work. The retired officers put on their original uniforms, as if they were facing a great enemy and returned to the period of the Great Patriotic War. Stalin lay in the columned halls of the House of Trade Unions, kilometers long in processions winding through the streets of Moscow, people moving slowly towards Pushkin Street, troops and trucks barely maintaining order.

The United States saw Stalin's death as a rare opportunity. After more than a month of in-depth discussions and repeated revisions, the US government finalized a psychological strategic plan to use such tools as Radio Free Europe to wage propaganda warfare against the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other countries. Idesenhower made a speech in which he declared that "an era has ended with the death of Joseph Stalin" and that the United States was ready to work for peace with all nations that were sincerely committed to it. He asked rhetorically: "What is the USSR ready to do?" "On June 1, 1953, when there was a commotion in Czechoslovakia against the currency reform, Radio Free Europe immediately stressed that the Soviet regime was weakened after Stalin's death and encouraged the Czech army to be loyal to the people rather than to the Prague government.

Thousands of miles away in China, from March 7 to 9, the whole country flown at half-mast to mourn; All industrial and mining enterprises, military units, organs, schools, and people's organizations throughout the country shall suspend banquets and entertainment activities.

Stalin's sudden death was a blow to China, which was in a difficult standoff between China and North Korea and the United States over the armistice, and the attitude of the Soviet Union was crucial. In August 1952, the United States agreed to repatriate 83,000 prisoners of war, including 76,000 Korean prisoners of war and only 6,400 Chinese prisoners of war, less than one-third of China's total prisoners of war. Kim Il Sung deliberately made concessions, and the Chinese side insisted that the United States repatriate all prisoners of war. Stalin gave support to the Chinese side, making it clear: "We must be tough on the United States." The Chinese comrades must understand that if the United States does not lose this war, then China will never be able to recover Taiwan. Immediately after Stalin's death, the Soviet government sent a letter to the leaders of China and North Korea, proposing that in the interests of China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, it should show an "initiative spirit" in stopping the war. In the end, China received only 7,110 prisoners of war, and 14,000 volunteer prisoners of war were "refused to be repatriated". The Chinese leaders all regretted it very much, and they believed that if they fought for a while longer, they could try to end the war on more favorable terms. U.S. Army Gen. Clark acknowledged that by July 1953, "the Volunteer Army had greatly improved its logistical, air and firepower situation."

On March 9, it was still winter in Moscow, with scattered snowflakes. At 8 o'clock, the Chinese premier went to the trade union building to protect the soul, and the rest of the Chinese delegation went to Red Square at 9 o'clock to attend the funeral. It can be seen that the Chinese premier was at the forefront of the funeral procession, alongside Beria, Malenkov and Khrushchev.

On the first day after Stalin's departure, the damp cold wind pierced the skin. Life in the city came to a standstill. Concerts, theatrical performances and conferences have been cancelled throughout the country, not only in Moscow. Yesterday's colorful advertising columns and newspaper reading columns were snow-white: at night they were all covered with large sheets of white paper. The nation's mourning is not fake, not because of an order, but real. It seems that the whole country is forever in grief and cannot extricate itself.

The same is true of Baku, thousands of miles away, Serov swears that he never knew that there could be so many people in the Soviet Union, less than a decade before a world war. Newspapers everywhere reported the news of Stalin's death on all pages, and the whole of Baku seemed to fall into an eternal silence in an instant, and the people were like walking dead. In Georgia, not far from Azerbaijan, newspapers published that thousands of people from Stalin's hometown had already left for Moscow.

Who would have known that decades later, Georgians would almost hate Stalin to the core, they would not even know that Stalin was a Georgian, and not a Russian. Of course, even if they knew, they would choose to forget. 、

It seemed that everything had come to a standstill, everything was going on around Stalin, all sorts of commemorative activities were going on, and at first Serov tried to be as cold as possible, but gradually this atmosphere immediately infected him, as if he had been assimilated.

The leader of steel is gone, and the steel of the leader will always defend the people