Chapter 355 Mafia

The crowd dispersed, and Andrei was still in a state of rest. He wanted to call Moscow right away and tell Andropov that there were still serfs in the Soviet land. This was an independent kingdom! However, Andrei held back. As the general secretary, Andropov was very busy. It was too late now. He decided to talk about it tomorrow.

Moreover, the situation here has become like this. If Andropov has not noticed it yet, it means that the KGB agency here has also been corrupted and is in cahoots with the local government to deceive its superiors and subordinates.

"General Andrei, we sisters have nowhere to go. We cannot stay here. Please let us go with you." The next morning, the weather had cleared up and Andrei was about to return to Tashkent. The two sisters came out of the next room and pleaded with Andrei.

Andrei was troubled about how to place the two sisters. He originally wanted to find the local KGB agency to help place them. At their age, they should continue to go to school. But last night he thought that the local KGB agency might not be reliable. It seemed that he had to take them away himself. He just didn't know if Ekaterina would be angry if she knew about it.

"Okay, you guys come with me to Tashkent first." Andrei said, "Are you willing to go to school?"

"General Andre, we can do any job, from washing clothes to cooking. Please don't drive us away." Sister Lilia had a pitiful expression.

Sister Lianna held her sister and said, "Okay, of course, we will do whatever the general tells us to do."

Last night, the canvas-covered GAZ-69 driven by his writer was finally repaired and drove here to pick up Andre. When Andre got in the car, the two sisters followed him into the back seat. When Valisi saw this, he could only sit in the front passenger seat.

After yesterday's experience, Andrei was particularly careful. The Mi-24 helicopter of Unit A was accompanying and protecting them in the air, as they were going back to Tashkent together anyway.

The car was bumping along, and the two sisters' bodies kept leaning against Andre, leaving Andre speechless. If he had known earlier, he would have left the car to the sisters and squeezed in the helicopter himself to go back.

"General, what you said last night about restoring order here is really great. Many people here can hardly survive. In the past, the forced collection of cotton alone made us miserable. Now, the forced collection of land is pushing us to death." Lianna said, blinking her long eyelashes, staring at Andre with her big eyes.

"By the way, what's the matter with this forced collection of cotton?" Andre asked. The land here is fertile and the cotton production is huge, but why is it being forcibly collected?

"I don't know. Anyway, if we didn't hand in enough cotton, the mafia would come and beat and scold us. I once saw my neighbor being beaten to a cripple." Lilia said with fear in her eyes.

Cotton case? Andrei suddenly remembered this word in his mind. Historically, Andropov vigorously punished corruption and bribery. One of the major cases was the Uzbek cotton case!

Cotton is the main cash crop of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Its planting area accounts for more than half of the country's farmland, and its output accounts for 2/3 of the total cotton output of the Soviet Union. In order to cater to some corrupt leaders in Moscow, Uzbek General Secretary Rashidov used cotton as capital to consolidate his power. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, during Rashidov's tenure, he set standards requiring Uzbekistan to hand over no less than 6 million tons of seed cotton to the state each year.

If it was just his request, it would be fine. But the problem was that the cadres at all levels in the whole republic falsely reported the cotton production, and the annual false report of cotton production reached 1 million tons! The state paid the full amount, and in this way, the "heroes" from all walks of life enriched their pockets. And Rashidov won the position of the 1st Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the medal, which won Brezhnev's favor.

But all this made the lower class people suffer! They couldn't grow so much cotton, but they had to hand it over to everyone. If they couldn't hand it over, they would be beaten! In the eyes of these people, the lower class people were like slaves!

And now, with Andropov's reforms, he is preparing to carry out reforms in land cultivation management, but these people have seized on even bigger loopholes and are frantically sucking the wealth of the country and the people!

Mafia! Such a dirty organization actually still exists in the Soviet land! The memories of later generations flooded into Andrei's brain like a tide.

During the Brezhnev era, the high-ranking Brezhnev created an unprecedented corrupt environment for Soviet cadres. He not only restored the privileges of senior cadres that had been abolished, but also created many new privileges. In the Uzbek Republic, this trend has spread to every corner of the country! Uzbek Secretary Rashidov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Khudaiberdiyev and other senior officials recruited many important officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and state and city leaders to form a huge corruption and theft group. This group was called the "Mafia"!

Their organizational network is similar to the Italian "Mafia". Their activities are omnipresent and their black hands have reached almost every corner of the republic. The means they use are assassination, intimidation, blockade and denunciation. They have turned Uzbekistan into their private territory. They are the landlords and the people below are slaves!

Later, when Andropov was determined to punish the Uzbek corruption investigation team, they were harassed and threatened everywhere when they entered the Soviet republic. The mafia even paid the murderer, offering a reward of 150,000 rubles for killing a member of the investigation team! Such a thing actually happened on Soviet soil! The members of this special investigation team established by Moscow came from all over the Soviet Union to avoid local pressure and influence. Moreover, during the entire investigation, the members of the investigation team were in danger and felt like they were facing a great enemy. They all wore bulletproof vests and were protected by armed police when entering and leaving. If the family members of the investigation team were exposed, they had to hide thousands of miles away to avoid retaliation from the "mafia" members.

These people are the cancer on the giant Soviet Union! Originally, Andrei came here only to deal with the Iranian and Afghan issues and continue to create a new situation for the Soviet Union. However, reality forced Andrei to violate the regulations that the army does not interfere in local affairs. He hates evil and hates corruption, especially this kind of corruption! Now that I have encountered it, I must solve it!

Wait! Those villagers who came to the base to volunteer last night? Andre suddenly broke out in a cold sweat behind him.

"Hurry, go to Imia Village!" Andre shouted.