Alexander Nikolaevich Shelepin (1918–1994) went down in history as a person whom, after the resignation of N. S. Khrushchev, many considered the most realistic candidate for the post of leader of the CPSU and the Soviet state, believing that Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a temporary figure. It is now clear that if Shelepin had led the country, there most likely would not have been stagnation. Perhaps there would have been no perestroika, and therefore the USSR would not have collapsed. Shelepin won many political battles, but still lost one. Brezhnev and his entourage pushed Shelepin out of power. Historian and writer Leonid Mlechin tried to answer the question: why did Brezhnev, and not Shelepin, become the leader of the Soviet Union and held this post for eighteen years?