Shelepin's colleagues on the Politburo watched him carefully, seeking to halt his ambitions. So as to weaken his substantial power base, Shelepin was stripped of the Deputy Premiership at the end of 1965 and from 1965–1970 witnessed the systematic dismissal of his most powerful allies within the Party and Government. In May 1967, he lost all of his influence in the KGB, as Brezhnev replaced Semichastny with Yuri Andropov. Shelepin survived as a full member of the Politburo until 1975, when he rapidly fell from power, being successively demoted to a number of lower positions, until his retirement in 1984.