Soviets Fire Brezhnev’s Son-in-Law

The son-in-law of the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev has been removed from his job as first deputy interior minister, the ministry said today.

Diplomats who monitor internal politics said the dismissal was further evidence the Kremlin is maintaining a campaign against graft begun under late Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.

A spokesman at the ministry said Yuri Churbanov, 48, had been removed in December and replaced by senior Communist Party official Vasily Trushin.

Soviet sources said Churbanov, who is married to Brezhnev’s daughter Galina, had been given a minor job at the ministry, which controls the police as well as internal security troops.

General Stripped of Rank

Churbanov’s former minister, Nikolai Shcholokov, was stripped of his rank of general last November and, according to Soviet sources, committed suicide in December. Western correspondents have seen his grave.

The sources said Churbanov had, like Shcholokov, abused his position to shield important figures involved in a scandal which reached as far as Galina Brezhnev.

Galina’s name figured in a circus bribery scandal leaked to the Western press in February, 1982. The sources said Churbanov’s family link with Brezhnev could, however, have saved him from prosecution.

The diplomats said they first heard Churbanov was in disgrace late last year when they noticed Trushin was being referred to in the press as first deputy minister to Vitaly Fedorchuk, an Andropov appointee.

Dropped From Editorial Board

This was further confirmed when Churbanov was dropped from the editorial board of the Soviet legal journal, “Man and the Law,” they said.

The latest edition of an official government bulletin also reports that Churbanov, who was made a first deputy in 1980 under Brezhnev’s leadership, had been removed from a key ministerial committee on juvenile crime.

Brezhnev died in November, 1982, and within a month of Andropov’s succession, Shcholokov had been fired and replaced by Fedorchuk, one of his aides from his days as KGB chief.

The diplomats said it was clear the authorities are weeding out corruption at the ministry and that it had just been a matter of time before Churbanov was removed because of his close ties with Brezhnev’s family and Shcholokov.