Post-Stalin Career and Later Life
After Stalin's death in March 1953, the Soviet security services were reorganized again. In March 1953 MGB was merged into MVD and Beria became the Minister of Internal Affairs with Sergei Kruglov serving as his First Deputy. Both Kruglov and Ivan Serov played key roles in the June 1953 arrest of Beria, engineered by Nikita Khrushchev and Malenkov.
After Beria's arrest in June 1953, Kruglov became the Minister of Internal Affairs again, with Kruglov's long-term protégé Ivan Serov being appointed as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. Kruglov remained the Minister of Internal Affairs until 1956, although in 1954 MGB was again split away from MVD and renamed as KGB, with Ivan Serov becoming its head.
Kruglov was one of the few leaders of the Stalin-era security apparatus who lasted much beyond his death. Beria himself was executed in December 1953. Kruglov's long-term ally Viktor Abakumov was arrested in July 1951 in connection with the so-called Doctor's Plot; Abakumov was not released after Stalin's death and was executed in December 1954.
However, in February 1956 Khruschev fired Kruglov from the position of Minister of Internal Affairs, where Kruglov was replaced by a Khruschev loyalist, Nikolay Dudorov; prior to Kruglov's dismissal his ministry came under some official criticism and the star of Kruglov's former protégé and then KGB's head Ivan Serov was seen as rising and displacing Kruglov's influence in the Soviet hierarchy. After his departure from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kruglov was transferred to the post of Deputy Minister of Electric Power-Stations. In August 1957 Kruglov was demoted further to an even smaller administrative post. In 1958 Kruglov was sent into retirement as an invalid. In 1959 Kruglov was stripped of his general's pension and evicted from his elite apartment. In 1960 he was expelled from CPSU for complicity in the Stalin-era political repressions. Even after Khruschev's ousting in 1964, Kruglov's fortunes did not improve. Kruglov died in 1977 under unclear circumstances. Several sources state that Kruglov died due to accidentally being hit by a train. Other sources suggest suicide or a heart attack as the cause of his death.
Read more about this topic: Sergei Kruglov (politician)
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