The Supreme Soviet of the USSR – the bicameral Soviet parliament – was the highest legislative body in the Soviet Union. It was responsible for electing members of the Politburo (also known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966), which was invariably made up of the top members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).† The Politburo made all major policy decisions, which it then passed down through the Central Committee, the Supreme Soviet and the Party Congress. Its control extended from the party and into government because party personnel held all key government posts, thus ensuring that Politburo policy was implemented by all government organisations. In short, the Politburo was the most powerful body in the Soviet Union, with control over virtually all parliamentary and executive decisions.
Although Khrushchev had been the architect of Beria’s downfall, he was still relatively low in the Kremlin hierarchy: tenth out of the ten members of the Politburo and one of several secretaries of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. He was not rated as a strong contender to replace Premier Malenkov. No one, therefore, saw any danger in promoting him to First Secretary of the party in September 1953. They were mistaken. He stealthily and cleverly contrived to move power away from the Premier to his own post of First Secretary, with such success that by February 1954, it was Khrushchev who took the seat of honour at Politburo meetings instead of the weak Malenkov.
Khrushchev’s influence continued to increase. On 13 March 1954 the Politburo appointed his nominee as chairman of the KGB.‡ That nominee was Ivan Serov.
One of the earliest papers to land on Serov’s desk was the Russian translation of the minutes of the joint CIA–MI6 Berlin tunnel meeting that Blake had supplied to Kondrashev in London.
† For ease of reference and to reflect general practice, ‘Politburo’ is used throughout the book in preference to using its new name of ‘Presidium’.
‡ Khrushchev detached the MGB (Ministry for State Security) from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and renamed it the Committee for State Security (KGB).