WI: Shelepin ousts Brezhnev

In 1964 when Leonid Brezhnev ousted Nikita Khrushchev as leader of the USSR he was briefly opposed by a more hardline faction within the CPSU led by former KGB chief Alexander Shelepin. Brezhnev managed to outmaneuver Shelepin and remove him and his KGB allies from office in 1967. Let's say he and his supporters manage to preempt and oust Brezhnev in 1965 or 1966. How would the USSR turn out under his leadership?

From what I've read he wanted a return to Stalin's reign of terror to restore "order and discipline" within the USSR and crackdown on corruption, hence why some feared his bid for leadership. Sounds like he also opposed detente and wanted an aggressive foreign policy. Would he compromise with the liberal faction such as Kosygin or Podgorny on economics in order to retain his position? Any input is greatly appreciated!
 
I think the majority of the Politburo was more comfortable with Brezhnev than with Shelpein (who was not even a full member of the Politburo at the time of the coup). Moreover, Shelepin's role in the coup should not be exaggerated. He himself, his colleagues, and historians agree that it was Brezhnev who asked Shelepin to join the coup, not vice versa.

(1) Gemmady Voronov (Politburo member from 1961 to April 1973): "Mentioning Burlatskiy's writings about the mid 1960's, Voronov continued: “Some authors today write that the 'motor' behind the plot was Shelepin, along with Semichastnyy. This is not so. The 'senior comrades' of that time treated Shelepin, who did not seek power, and Semichastnyy condescendingly, as yesterday's Komsomols." In fact, according to Voronov, Brezhnev was the originator of the plot. Moreover, Brezhnev had long been involved in preparing a coup and had attempted to recruit many Central Committee members..."

(2) Petro Shelest (Politburo member from November 1964 to April 1973): "From beginning to end, said Shelest, the decisive roles in Khrushchev's removal belonged to Brezhnev and Podgornyy....in an interview in the September 10, 1989, issue of Moskovskiye Novosti, he assailed Burlatskiy's version (that Shelepin led the coup) as an “invention" and declared flatly that “Brezhnev and Podgornyy headed it."..."

(3) Shelepin himself: "On the overthrow, Shelepin declared that it was Brezhnev and Podgornyy who began talking to other top leaders about removing Khrushchev and that he (Shelepin) simply joined them. He denied Burlatskiy's stories of his plotting with other former Komsomol leaders against Khrushchev. Also indicating that Suslov played a minor role, he declared that Brezhnev and Podgornyy talked with Suslov last, "because they did not fully trust him" and that Brezhnev–"not Suslov, as some are writing—phoned Khrushchev to get him to return from vacation. Shelepin described in detail what individual Presidium members said during the showdown with Khrushchev and presented a stenogram of what Khrushchev said in response to the attacks at the Presidium meeting.”

https://books.google.com/books?id=aZXxIF3ynX0C&pg=RA1-PA111

Ilya Zemrsov in Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik writes:

"Furthermore, many of Brezhnev's proteges were elected to the Central Committee. The number grew from five in 1961 to sixteen in 1963. Their authority and connections proved a valuable contributing factor in the plot to overthrow Khrushchev.

"There is no doubt that the security services and the armed forces played an important role. That role, however, should not be exaggerated. It was not Shelepin who recruited Brezhnev to the coup, but vice versa. It was Brezhnev, who supervised both the armed forces anti KGB, who recruited Shelepin.

"The extent of Shelepin's participation in the upcoming coup was strictly overseen by Brezhnev. Shelepin was responsible for technical arrangements, such as bringing Central Committee members to Moscow for a special Plenum. Of course, Brezhnev did rely on Shelepin's connections within the KGB, which the latter had headed for a number of years, and on his closeness to the current KGB chairman V. E. Sernichastny. But Brezhnev was well aware that Shelepin's influence in the KGB was limited for a number of both external and internal reasons..." https://books.google.com/books?id=hgscfLr5dCsC&pg=PA70
 
Well, the Kosygin reforms might get nipped in the bud quicker and you could see a lack of economic growth in the late 1960s as the party reasserts control over the minute variables in the enterprises. The growth that the reforms had a part in bringing about , which did help put off the productivity and social crisis that would develop by the end of Brezhnev's time at the top, could have been reversed, but at the same time, perhaps Shelepin's hard line stances and ties to the security establishment rather than the regional party bureaucracies could have led to more discipline in the middle ranks of the administration and reversed the isolation of the growing nomenklatura, which might have a canceling effect on some of the issues that asserted themselves in the 1970s.

A compromise on economics is not really in the cards when you consider how Marxist thought actually worked, in which economics was completely inseparable from politics, and that dialectical materialism explained the course of history. This isn't to say that flexibility wasn't possible, but in order for Shelepin to do an anti-corruption crackdown and return to the days of Stalin's reign, absolute control over economic planning and decision making had to be part of that. Stalin himself was a bit flexible, and gave up on the idea of a money-free economy and labor market in 1931, but he never devolved power downwards in terms of economic decision making or incentives. The profit incentive went fundamentally against the idea of the party and the state being one, and Shelepin likely would have relied on anti-corruption purges and repression to increase productivity. This might have had mixed outcomes. Ironically, it was Chinese policy in 1979 that proved Kosygin right in terms of transforming its agricultural economy from one of utter destitution to a significantly better one by allowing for profit and incentives to exist locally, but Kosygin's reforms were abandoned shortly after they were instituted, and while there seems to be evidence of a positive impact, it is hard to definitively state that going down that path would have been possible if taken to further levels.

As for foreign policy, the most interesting flashpoint might be in a possible reunion with China, as on ideological levels, Shelepin would have been closer to Mao than Brezhnev or certainly Khruschev was. However, just as easily, the situation could have become more explosive, and the Cultural Revolution might have canceled chances of reconciliation as Russian attitudes to it, across the spectrum of the CPSU, was very negative, with it being seen as anarchic and foolish.

I'm sure something like the Brezhnev Doctrine would be around, but it might have gotten more aggressive in nature. For example, I don't think Ceausescu's heresies in Romania would have been tolerated. I also think that the party line would have been insisted upon in terms of covert attempts at subverting the west, which of course would have made such attempts much less successful.
 
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