The Stalinist circle consisted of people who were inferior to the Secretary General both in intelligence and in volitional qualities. From time to time, when doubts arose about someone’s loyalty, the leader of the party and people checked it with rather cruel methods, for example, sent his wife to "ring the bowler hat" to the camps.
The Soviet state system had a strictly and clearly organized vertical structure, and at the very top of the pyramid, the supreme ruler, I.V. Stalin, who became a deity during his lifetime. Only a few people could challenge his decisions, and to earn his anger often meant signing a death sentence. Often, but not always.
One of the people who annoyed Stalin, but did not pay for it with his life, was Mehlis Lev Zakharovich. His biography as a politician was not perfect from the Bolshevik point of view. He was not a worker, an underground worker who was fighting the tsarist regime; he cannot be called either. The clerk, then the tutor, he, unlike many members of the Politburo, did not have prison experience. Membership in the Zionist party can hardly be called an active struggle against the autocracy; Poalei Zion could hardly lay claim to the leading force of the proletariat of Russia.
With the beginning of the First World War, the twenty-five-year-old Leo obediently goes to serve in the army and, having reached the rank of non-commissioned officer, meets the February Revolution. Then the October Revolution takes place. What is the Mehlis scorer doing at this time? At least the official biography is silent about this. Then - a swift career. Having entered the RCP (b) in 1918, he immediately begins to commissar, first at the brigade level, then at the division. It took Lev Zakharovich only two years to become the head of the political workers of the group of forces.
Since 1921, Mehlis - a companion of Stalin, and the most direct, he is an assistant to his secretary. Unencumbered by completely redundant university diplomas, he is well versed in the line of the party, which often hesitates in the turbulent twenties. This skill helps the editor in chief of Pravda.
Despite the impressive posts, the image of this leader does not cause much sympathy. There was a lot of ordinary party talker, capable of reasoning only in general terms, without going into specifics, and Stalin did not really like them. Why did he like the Mehlis so much? The biography of many collaborators repressed in the thirties was more heroic, and knowledge was deeper.
The answer to this question was given by the father of nations. He once spoke out that Lev Zakharovich is completely incapable of creating anything, he can only destroy. Obviously, such a narrow specialization affected the quality of his work: if he was entrusted, he would definitely do it.
The Army Commissioner of the first rank is the position in which Mehlis met 1941. His biography was replenished with a bright chapter, he began to deal with the causes of the military disasters of the Red Army in the initial period of the war. According to his long-standing habit, Lev Zakharovich is trying to take a favorable position for himself, criticizing the actions of the military leaders, scribbling denunciations at them and not being responsible for the result of military operations. During the failed actions of 1942 in the Crimea, Stalin sent him an unusually verbose telegram for him, in which he criticized this attitude to the assigned mission.
Dismissed, removed from the post of chief Glavpur and deputy minister of defense, it would seem that is all, the end. Why not shot Mehlis? The biography continued, his career was restored - by 1944 he was Colonel General. Probably, the organizational skills were still appreciated and could be useful in the future ...
About how Lev Zakharovich received a doctorate in economics, history is silent. He obviously became a doctor of political sciences quite deservedly.
The merciless struggle with enemies undermined the health of the faithful Leninist-Stalinist. In 1950, he could no longer carry out executioner functions and was sent to retire. February 18, 1953, just twenty days before the great leader, Mehlis ended his earthly journey. He was buried in the Kremlin wall.