[1] Intelligent, ambitious, and well-educated,[2][1] Shelepin was the leader of a hard-line faction within the Communist Party that played a decisive role in overthrowing Nikita Khrushchev in 1964.

Opposed to the policy of détente, he was eventually outmaneuvered by Leonid Brezhnev and gradually stripped of his power, thus failing in his ambition to lead the Soviet Union.

Indeed, Khrushchev personally liked Shelepin and, because of his rise through the Communist Youth League, saw him as an ally against the secret police and security agencies that had been all-powerful under Stalin.

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.

[5][6] 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.

Fidel Castro and Cuba strongly supported an aggressive policy of military assistance to national liberation movements with Che Guevara, in co-operation with Ben Bella of Algeria, also playing a leading role.

In his absence, the Politburo decided, after a discussion lasting ten minutes, to sack his ally, Semichastny, and appointed Yuri Andropov Chairman of the KGB.

[18] In July 1967, Shelepin was ousted from his position as a party secretary, and demoted to the chairmanship of All-Union Trade Union Council, though he survived as a full member of the Politburo.