Shelepin attempted to return state security and intelligence to its position of importance during the Stalinist era . However , the people he favored were completely different than those preferred by his predecessors . With Khrushchev 's full backing , Shelepin recruited many young university graduates to the KGB ( especially favoring those with a background in law and the social sciences ) and he demoted or fired many career state security officers , replacing them with officials from Communist Party organizations , and , especially , from the Communist Youth League . As a result of Shelepin 's ambitious policy , the KGB became a substantially different organization from the Stalin-era security services , with a more sophisticated and intellectual approach , that would be further encouraged by future Chairman Yuri Andropov . Shelepin proposed and carried out the destruction of many documents related to the Katyn massacre of Polish officers to minimize the chance that the truth would be revealed . His 3 March 1959 note to Nikita Khrushchev , with information about the execution of 21,857 Poles and with the proposal to destroy their personal files , became one of the documents that were preserved and eventually made public
Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Alexander Shelepin