Old Bolsheviks State Political Directorate Felix Dzerzhinsky Genrikh Yagoda Vyacheslav Menzhinsky dacha Svetlana Cheka Kremlin Bolshevik General Secretary Bolsheviks
As General Secretary, Stalin had a free hand in making appointments to his own staff, implanting his loyalists throughout the party and administration. Favouring new Communist Party members from proletarian backgrounds, to the "Old Bolsheviks" who tended to be middle class university graduates, he ensured he had loyalists dispersed across the country's regions. Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries, and the desire for promotion led many provincial figures to seek to impress Stalin and gain his favour. Stalin also developed close relations with the trio at the heart of the secret police (first the Cheka and then its replacement, the State Political Directorate): Felix Dzerzhinsky, Genrikh Yagoda, and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. In his private life, he divided his time between his Kremlin apartment and a dacha at Zubalova; his wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926.
