In spring 1938, possibility because of Sholokhov's complaints, Stalin appears to have decided that Yevdokimov had ordered too many arrests. Mikhail Suslov, who would rise to be one of the most powerful leaders of the Soviet communist in the 1960s and 1970s, was posted to Rostov, initially as one of Yevdokimov's deputies. Yevdokimov's assistant, a career chekist named Pavel Manichkin, was arrested. On 4 May 1938, Yevdokimov was transferred to Moscow as Deputy People's Commissar for Water Transport, under Yezhov, who had been appointed People's Commissar, while temporarily retaining his post as head of the NKVD. In June, Suslov reported to a party conference in Rostov that "the practice of indiscriminate expelling from the party has ceased. An end has been put to impunity for a various number of slanderers. Gradually the general suspiciousness is breaking down."
