Who was the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. General Secretary Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (1894-1971) came from the poorest peasantry of the Kursk province. Like most poor children, he was forced to go to work at the age of 12. In 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party and took part in the Civil War. In the early 1920s, he worked in the mines and studied at the workers' department of the Donetsk Industrial Institute. Later he was engaged in economic and party work in Donbass and Kyiv. In the 1920s, the leader of the Communist Party in Ukraine was L. M. Kaganovich, and apparently Khrushchev made a favorable impression on him. Soon after Kaganovich left for Moscow, Khrushchev was sent to study at the Industrial Academy. Since January 1931 he was at party work in Moscow; in 1935-1938 he was the first secretary of the Moscow regional and city party committees - MK and MGK VKP (b). In January 1938, he was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In the same year he became a candidate, and in 1939 - a member of the Politburo.
During World War II, Khrushchev served as a political commissar of the highest rank (a member of the military councils of a number of fronts) and in 1943 received the rank of lieutenant general; led the partisan movement behind the front line. In the first post-war years, he headed the government in Ukraine, while Kaganovich headed the party leadership of the republic. In December 1947, Khrushchev again headed the Communist Party of Ukraine, becoming the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine; He held this post until he moved to Moscow in December 1949, where he became the first secretary of the Moscow Party Committee and secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Khrushchev initiated the consolidation of collective farms (kolkhozes). This campaign led to a decrease in the number of collective farms over several years from approximately 250 thousand to less than 100 thousand. In the early 1950s, he hatched even more radical plans. Khrushchev wanted to turn peasant villages into agricultural cities, so that collective farmers would live in the same houses as workers and would not have personal plots. Khrushchev's speech on this matter, published in Pravda, was refuted the next day in an editorial that emphasized the controversial nature of the proposals. And yet, in October 1952, Khrushchev was appointed one of the main speakers at the 19th Party Congress.
After the death of Stalin, when the Chairman of the Council of Ministers G.M. Malenkov left the post of Secretary of the Central Committee, Khrushchev became the “master” of the party apparatus, although until September 1953 he did not have the title of First Secretary. In the period from March to June 1953, L.P. Beria attempted to seize power. In order to eliminate Beria, Khrushchev entered into an alliance with Malenkov. In September 1953, he took the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
In the first years after Stalin's death, there was talk of "collective leadership", but soon after Beria's arrest in June 1953, a power struggle began between Malenkov and Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev won. At the beginning of 1954, he announced the start of a grandiose program for the development of virgin lands in order to increase grain production, and in October of the same year he headed the Soviet delegation to Beijing.
The reason for Malenkov's resignation from the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers in February 1955 was that Khrushchev managed to convince the Central Committee to support the course of preferential development of heavy industry, and therefore the production of weapons, and to abandon Malenkov's idea to give priority to the production of consumer goods. Khrushchev appointed N.A. Bulganin to the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers, securing for himself the position of the first figure in the state.
The most striking event in Khrushchev's career was the 20th Congress of the CPSU, held in 1956. In his report at the congress, he put forward the thesis that war between capitalism and communism is not “fatally inevitable.” At a closed meeting, Khrushchev condemned Stalin, accusing him of mass extermination of people and erroneous policies that almost ended in the liquidation of the USSR in the war with Nazi Germany. This report resulted in unrest in countries eastern bloc- Poland (October 1956) and Hungary (October and November 1956). These events undermined Khrushchev's position, especially after it became clear in December 1956 that the implementation of the five-year plan was being disrupted due to insufficient capital investment. However, at the beginning of 1957, Khrushchev managed to convince the Central Committee to accept a plan for reorganizing industrial management at the regional level. However, the persistence of a totalitarian regime in the country means suppression of dissent, shooting of workers’ demonstrations (Novocherkassk, 1962, etc.), arbitrariness against the intelligentsia, interference in the affairs of other states (armed intervention in Hungary, 1956, etc.), escalation of military confrontation with the West ( Berlin, 1961, and Caribbean, 1962, crises, etc.), as well as political projection (calls to “catch up and overtake America!”, promises to build communism by 1980) made his policy inconsistent.
In June 1957, the Presidium (formerly Politburo) of the CPSU Central Committee organized a conspiracy to remove Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Party. After his return from Finland, he was invited to a meeting of the Presidium, which, by seven votes to four, demanded his resignation. Khrushchev convened a Plenum of the Central Committee, which overturned the decision of the Presidium and dismissed the “anti-party group” of Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich. (At the end of 1957, Khrushchev dismissed Marshal G.K. Zhukov, who supported him in difficult times.) He strengthened the Presidium with his supporters, and in March 1958 he took the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, taking into his own hands all the main levers of power.
In 1957, after the successful testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile and the launch of the first satellites into orbit, Khrushchev issued a statement demanding that Western countries “end the Cold War.” His demands for a separate peace treaty with East Germany in November 1958, which would have included the renewal of the blockade of West Berlin, led to an international crisis. In September 1959, President D. Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the United States. After traveling around the country, Khrushchev negotiated with Eisenhower at Camp David. The international situation noticeably warmed up after Khrushchev agreed to push back the deadline for resolving the issue of Berlin, and Eisenhower agreed to convene a conference on top level, which would consider this issue. The summit meeting was scheduled for May 16, 1960. However, on May 1, 1960, a US U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in the airspace over Sverdlovsk, and the meeting was disrupted.
The “soft” policy towards the United States involved Khrushchev in a hidden, albeit harsh, ideological discussion with the Chinese communists, who condemned the negotiations with Eisenhower and did not recognize the version of “Leninism” proposed by Khrushchev. In June 1960, Khrushchev made a statement about the need " further development"Marxism-Leninism and taking into account changed historical conditions in the theory. In November 1960, after a three-week discussion, the congress of representatives of the communist and workers' parties adopted a compromise decision that allowed Khrushchev to conduct diplomatic negotiations on issues of disarmament and peaceful coexistence, while calling for an intensification of the fight against capitalism by any means except military means.
In September 1960, Khrushchev visited the United States for the second time as head of the Soviet delegation to the UN General Assembly. During the assembly, he was able to hold large-scale negotiations with the heads of government of a number of countries. His report to the Assembly called for general disarmament, the immediate elimination of colonialism and the admission of China to the UN. In June 1961, Khrushchev met with US President John Kennedy and again expressed his demands regarding Berlin. During the summer of 1961, the Soviet foreign policy became more and more stringent, and in September the USSR interrupted the three-year moratorium on testing nuclear weapons, carrying out a series of explosions.
In the fall of 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev attacked the communist leaders of Albania (who were not at the congress) for continuing to support the philosophy of “Stalinism.” By this he also meant the leaders of communist China. On October 14, 1964, by the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. He was replaced by L. I. Brezhnev, who became the First Secretary of the Communist Party, and A. N. Kosygin, who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
After 1964, Khrushchev, while retaining his seat on the Central Committee, was essentially in retirement. He formally dissociated himself from the two-volume work “Memoirs” published in the USA under his name (1971, 1974). Khrushchev died in Moscow on September 11, 1971.
Khrushchev is an extremely controversial figure in Soviet history. On the one hand, it belongs entirely to the Stalin era and is undoubtedly one of the purveyors of the policy of purges and mass repressions. On the other hand, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world was on the brink nuclear war and global catastrophe, Khrushchev managed to heed the voice of reason and stop the escalation of hostilities and prevent the outbreak of the Third World War. It is to Khrushchev that the post-war generation owes the beginning of the process of liberation from the deadening ideological schemes of “reconstruction” of society and the restoration of human rights on “one-sixth” of the Earth.
See also.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee - the highest position in the hierarchy of the Communist Party and, by and large, the leader Soviet Union. In the history of the party there were four more positions of the head of its central apparatus: Technical Secretary (1917-1918), Chairman of the Secretariat (1918-1919), Executive Secretary (1919-1922) and First Secretary (1953-1966).
The persons who filled the first two positions were mainly engaged in paper secretarial work. The position of Executive Secretary was introduced in 1919 to perform administrative activities. The post of General Secretary, established in 1922, was also created purely for administrative and personnel work within the party. However, the first Secretary General Joseph Stalin, using the principles of democratic centralism, managed to become not only the leader of the party, but the entire Soviet Union.
At the 17th Party Congress, Stalin was not formally re-elected to the post of General Secretary. However, his influence was already enough to maintain leadership in the party and the country as a whole. After Stalin's death in 1953, Georgy Malenkov was considered the most influential member of the Secretariat. After his appointment to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he left the Secretariat and Nikita Khrushchev, who was soon elected First Secretary of the Central Committee, took the leading positions in the party.
Not limitless rulers
In 1964, the opposition within the Politburo and the Central Committee removed Nikita Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary, electing Leonid Brezhnev in his place. Since 1966, the position of the party leader was again called the General Secretary. In Brezhnev's times, the power of the General Secretary was not unlimited, since members of the Politburo could limit his powers. The leadership of the country was carried out collectively.
Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko ruled the country according to the same principle as the late Brezhnev. Both were elected to the party's top post while their health was failing and served only a short time as secretary general. Until 1990, when the Communist Party's monopoly on power was eliminated, Mikhail Gorbachev led the state as General Secretary of the CPSU. Especially for him, in order to maintain leadership in the country, the post of President of the Soviet Union was established in the same year.
After the August 1991 putsch, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary. He was replaced by his deputy, Vladimir Ivashko, who worked as acting General Secretary for only five calendar days, until that moment Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspended the activities of the CPSU.
General secretaries of the USSR chronological orderGeneral secretaries of the USSR in chronological order. Today they are simply part of history, but once upon a time their faces were familiar to every single inhabitant of the vast country. Political system in the Soviet Union was such that citizens did not elect their leaders. The decision to appoint the next secretary general was made by the ruling elite. But, nevertheless, the people respected government leaders and, for the most part, took this state of affairs as a given.
Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin)
Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Stalin, was born on December 18, 1879 in the Georgian city of Gori. Became the first general secretary CPSU. He received this position in 1922, when Lenin was still alive, and until the latter’s death he played a minor role in government.
When Vladimir Ilyich died, a serious struggle began for the highest post. Many of Stalin's competitors had a much better chance of taking over, but thanks to tough, uncompromising actions, Joseph Vissarionovich managed to emerge victorious. Most of the other applicants were physically destroyed, and some left the country.
In just a few years of rule, Stalin took the entire country into a tight grip. By the beginning of the 30s, he finally established himself as the sole leader of the people. The dictator's policies went down in history:
· mass repressions;
· total dispossession;
· collectivization.
For this, Stalin was branded by his own followers during the “thaw”. But there is also something for which Joseph Vissarionovich, according to historians, is worthy of praise. This is, first of all, the rapid transformation of a collapsed country into an industrial and military giant, as well as the victory over fascism. It is quite possible that if it were not for the “cult of personality” so condemned by everyone, these achievements would have been unrealistic. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died on the fifth of March 1953.
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was born on April 15, 1894 in the Kursk province (Kalinovka village) into a simple working-class family. He took part in the Civil War, where he took the side of the Bolsheviks. Member of the CPSU since 1918. At the end of the 30s he was appointed secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Khrushchev headed the Soviet state shortly after Stalin's death. At first, he had to compete with Georgy Malenkov, who also aspired to the highest position and at that time was actually the leader of the country, presiding over the Council of Ministers. But in the end, the coveted chair still remained with Nikita Sergeevich.
When Khrushchev was secretary general, the Soviet country:
· launched the first man into space and developed this area in every possible way;
· was actively built up with five-story buildings, today called “Khrushchev”;
· planted the lion's share of the fields with corn, for which Nikita Sergeevich was even nicknamed “the corn farmer.”
This ruler went down in history primarily with his legendary speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956, where he condemned Stalin and his bloody policies. From that moment on, the so-called “thaw” began in the Soviet Union, when the grip of the state was loosened, cultural figures received some freedom, etc. All this lasted until Khrushchev was removed from his post on October 14, 1964.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born in the Dnepropetrovsk region (village of Kamenskoye) on December 19, 1906. His father was a metallurgist. Member of the CPSU since 1931. He took the main post of the country as a result of a conspiracy. It was Leonid Ilyich who led the group of members of the Central Committee that removed Khrushchev.
The Brezhnev era in the history of the Soviet state is characterized as stagnation. The latter manifested itself as follows:
· the country's development has stopped in almost all areas except military-industrial;
The USSR began to seriously lag behind Western countries;
· citizens again felt the grip of the state, repression and persecution of dissidents began.
Leonid Ilyich tried to improve relations with the United States, which had worsened during the time of Khrushchev, but he was not very successful. The arms race continued, and after the introduction Soviet troops In Afghanistan, it was impossible to even think about any reconciliation. Brezhnev held a high post until his death, which occurred on November 10, 1982.
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was born in the station town of Nagutskoye ( Stavropol region) June 15, 1914. His father was a railway worker. Member of the CPSU since 1939. Vel active work, which contributed to his rapid rise up the career ladder.
At the time of Brezhnev's death, Andropov headed the Committee state security. He was elected by his comrades to the highest post. The reign of this Secretary General covers a period of less than two years. For given time Yuri Vladimirovich managed to fight a little against corruption in power. But he didn’t do anything drastic. On February 9, 1984, Andropov died. The reason for this was a serious illness.
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was born in 1911 on September 24 in the Yenisei province (village of Bolshaya Tes). His parents were peasants. Member of the CPSU since 1931. Since 1966 - deputy of the Supreme Council. Appointed General Secretary of the CPSU on February 13, 1984.
Chernenko continued Andropov’s policy of identifying corrupt officials. He was in power for less than a year. The cause of his death on March 10, 1985 was also a serious illness.
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in the North Caucasus (the village of Privolnoye). His parents were peasants. Member of the CPSU since 1952. He proved himself to be an active public figure. He quickly moved up the party line.
He was appointed Secretary General on March 11, 1985. He entered history with the policy of “perestroika,” which included the introduction of glasnost, the development of democracy, and the provision of certain economic freedoms and other liberties to the population. Gorbachev's reforms led to mass unemployment, the liquidation of state-owned enterprises, and a total shortage of goods. This causes an ambiguous attitude towards the ruler from citizens former USSR, which collapsed precisely during the reign of Mikhail Sergeevich.
But in the West, Gorbachev is one of the most respected Russian politicians. He was even awarded Nobel Prize peace. Gorbachev was Secretary General until August 23, 1991, and headed the USSR until December 25 of the same year.
All deceased general secretaries of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are buried near the Kremlin wall. Their list was completed by Chernenko. Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev is still alive. In 2017, he turned 86 years old.
Photos of the secretaries general of the USSR in chronological order
StalinKhrushchev
Brezhnev
Andropov
Chernenko
Plan
Introduction
1 Joseph Stalin (April 1922 - March 1953)
1.1 The post of General Secretary and Stalin’s victory in the struggle for power (1922-1934)
1.2 Stalin - sovereign ruler of the USSR (1934-1951)
1.3 The last years of Stalin's reign (1951-1953)
1.4 Death of Stalin (5 March 1953)
1.5 March 5, 1953 - Stalin's associates dismiss the leader an hour before his death
2 The struggle for power after the death of Stalin (March 1953 - September 1953)
3 Nikita Khrushchev (September 1953 - October 1964)
3.1 Post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee
3.2 First attempt to remove Khrushchev from power (June 1957)
3.3 Khrushev's removal from power (October 1964)
4 Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)
5 Yuri Andropov (1982-1984)
6 Konstantin Chernenko (1984-1985)
7 Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
7.1 Gorbachev - General Secretary
7.2 Election of Gorbachev as Chairman of the USSR Supreme Council
7.3 Position of Deputy Secretary General
7.4 Ban of the CPSU and abolition of the post of Secretary General
8 List of General (First) Secretaries of the Party Central Committee - those who officially held such a position
ReferencesIntroduction
Party history
October Revolution
War communism
New Economic Policy
Stalinism
Khrushchev's thaw
The era of stagnation
PerestroikaThe General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (in informal use and everyday speech is often shortened to General Secretary) is the most significant and only non-collegial position in Central Committee Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The position was introduced as part of the Secretariat on April 3, 1922 at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), elected by the XI Congress of the RCP (b), when I. V. Stalin was approved in this capacity.
From 1934 to 1953, this position was not mentioned at the plenums of the Central Committee during the elections of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. From 1953 to 1966, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee was elected, and in 1966 the position of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee was again established.
The post of General Secretary and Stalin's victory in the struggle for power (1922-1934)
The proposal to establish this post and appoint Stalin to it was made based on Zinoviev’s idea by member of the Politburo of the Central Committee Lev Kamenev, in agreement with Lenin. Lenin was not afraid of any competition from the uncultured and politically small Stalin. But for the same reason, Zinoviev and Kamenev made him secretary general: they considered Stalin a politically insignificant person, saw in him a convenient assistant, but not a rival.
Initially, this position meant only the leadership of the party apparatus, while the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, formally remained the leader of the party and government. In addition, leadership in the party was considered inextricably linked to the merits of the theorist; therefore, following Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin were considered the most prominent “leaders”, while Stalin was seen to have neither theoretical merits nor special merits in the revolution.
Lenin highly valued Stalin's organizational skills, but Stalin's despotic behavior and his rudeness towards N. Krupskaya made Lenin repent of his appointment, and in his “Letter to the Congress” Lenin stated that Stalin was too rude and should be removed from the post of General Secretary. But due to illness, Lenin withdrew from political activity.
Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev organized a triumvirate based on opposition to Trotsky.
Before the start of the XIII Congress (held in May 1924), Lenin's widow Nadezhda Krupskaya handed over a “Letter to the Congress”. It was announced at a meeting of the Council of Elders. Stalin announced his resignation for the first time at this meeting. Kamenev proposed to resolve the issue by voting. The majority was in favor of leaving Stalin as General Secretary; only Trotsky's supporters voted against.
After Lenin's death, Leon Trotsky claimed the role of the first person in the party and state. But he lost to Stalin, who masterfully played the combination, winning over Kamenev and Zinoviev to his side. And Stalin’s real career begins only from the moment when Zinoviev and Kamenev, wanting to seize Lenin’s inheritance and organizing the struggle against Trotsky, chose Stalin as an ally who must be had in the party apparatus.
On December 27, 1926, Stalin submitted his resignation from the post of General Secretary: “I ask you to relieve me from the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. I declare that I can no longer work in this position, I am unable to work in this position any longer.” The resignation was not accepted.
It is interesting that Stalin never signed the full name of his position in official documents. He signed himself as "Secretary of the Central Committee" and was addressed as Secretary of the Central Committee. When the Encyclopedic Directory “Figures of the USSR and Revolutionary Movements of Russia” (prepared in 1925-1926) was published, Stalin was introduced there in the article “Stalin”: “since 1922, Stalin has been one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the party, in which position he remains now.” That is, not a word about the post of Secretary General. Since the author of the article was Stalin’s personal secretary Ivan Tovstukha, it means that this was Stalin’s desire.
By the end of the 1920s, Stalin had concentrated so much personal power in his hands that the position became associated with highest position in the party leadership, although the Charter of the CPSU (b) did not provide for its existence.
When Molotov was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in 1930, he asked to be relieved of his duties as Secretary of the Central Committee. Stalin agreed. And Lazar Kaganovich began to perform the duties of the second secretary of the Central Committee. He replaced Stalin in the Central Committee..
Stalin - sovereign ruler of the USSR (1934-1951)
According to R. Medvedev, in January 1934, at the XVII Congress, an illegal bloc was formed mainly from the secretaries of regional committees and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties, who, more than anyone else, felt and understood the error of Stalin’s policies. Proposals were put forward to move Stalin to the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars or Central Executive Committee, and to elect S.M. to the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. Kirov. A group of congress delegates talked with Kirov on this subject, but he resolutely refused, and without his consent the whole plan became unrealistic.
· Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich 1977: “ Kirov is a weak organizer. He's a good extra. And we treated him well. Stalin loved him. I say that he was Stalin's favorite. The fact that Khrushchev cast a shadow on Stalin, as if he killed Kirov, is vile ».
For all the importance of Leningrad and Leningrad region their leader Kirov was never the second person in the USSR. The position of the second most important person in the country was occupied by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Molotov. At the plenum after the congress, Kirov, like Stalin, was elected secretary of the Central Committee. 10 months later, Kirov died in the Smolny building from a shot by a former party worker. An attempt by opponents of the Stalinist regime to unite around Kirov during the 17th Party Congress led to the beginning of mass terror, which reached its climax in 1937-1938.
Since 1934, mention of the position of General Secretary has completely disappeared from documents. At the Plenums of the Central Committee, held after the XVII, XVIII and XIX Party Congresses, Stalin was elected Secretary of the Central Committee, actually performing the functions of the General Secretary of the Party Central Committee. After the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in 1934, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks elected the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, consisting of Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Kirov and Stalin. Stalin, as chairman of the meetings of the Politburo and the Secretariat, retained general leadership, that is, the right to approve one or another agenda and determine the degree of readiness of draft decisions submitted for consideration.
Stalin continued to sign his name in official documents as “Secretary of the Central Committee,” and continued to be addressed as Secretary of the Central Committee.
Subsequent updates to the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1939 and 1946. were also carried out with the election of formally equal secretaries of the Central Committee. The CPSU Charter, adopted at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, did not contain any mention of the existence of the position of “general secretary”.
In May 1941, in connection with the appointment of Stalin as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Politburo adopted a resolution in which Andrei Zhdanov was officially named Stalin's deputy in the party: “In view of the fact that comrade. Stalin, remaining at the insistence of the Politburo of the Central Committee as the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, will not be able to devote sufficient time to work on the Secretariat of the Central Committee, appoint Comrade. Zhdanova A.A. Deputy Comrade. Stalin on the Secretariat of the Central Committee."
The official status of deputy party leader was not awarded to Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich, who had previously actually performed this role.
The struggle among the country's leaders intensified as Stalin increasingly raised the question that in the event of his death he needed to select successors in the leadership of the party and government. Molotov recalled: “After the war, Stalin was about to retire and at the table said: “Let Vyacheslav work now. He's younger."
For a long time, Molotov was seen as a possible successor to Stalin, but later Stalin, who considered the first post in the USSR to be the head of government, in private conversations suggested that he saw his successor in state line Nikolai Voznesensky
Continuing to see Voznesensky as his successor in leadership of the government of the country, Stalin began to look for another candidate for the post of party leader. Mikoyan recalled: “I think it was 1948. Once Stalin pointed to 43-year-old Alexei Kuznetsov and said that future leaders should be young, and in general, such a person could someday become his successor in leadership of the party and the Central Committee.”
By this time, two dynamic rival groups had formed in the country's leadership. Then events took a tragic turn. In August 1948, the leader of the “Leningrad group” A.A. suddenly died. Zhdanov. Almost a year later in 1949, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov became key figures in the Leningrad Affair. They were sentenced to death penalty and they were shot on October 1, 1950.
All rulers of Russia Mikhail Ivanovich VostryshevFIRST SECRETARY OF THE CPSU Central Committee NIKITA SERGEEVICH KHRUSHCHEV (1894–1971)
FIRST SECRETARY OF THE CPSU Central Committee
NIKITA SERGEEVICH KHRUSHCHEV
The son of poor peasants Sergei Nikanorovich and Ksenia Ivanovna Khrushchev. Born on April 3/15, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, Dmitrievsky district, Kursk province.
Nikita received primary education at the parochial school in the village of Yuzovka, where the family moved. Since 1908, he worked as a mechanic, boiler cleaner, and shepherd. In the years Civil War fought on the side of the Bolsheviks. In 1918 he joined the RSDLP(b).
In the early 1920s, he worked in the mines and studied at the workers' department of the Donetsk Industrial Institute. Since 1924, he was engaged in economic and party work in the Donbass and Kyiv.
In the 1920s, the leader of the Communist Party in Ukraine was L.M. Kaganovich, and, apparently, Khrushchev made a favorable impression on him. Soon after Kaganovich left for Moscow, Khrushchev was sent to study at the Industrial Academy named after I.V. Stalin, where he completed two courses in 1929–1931.
From January 1931 he was at party work in Moscow, in 1932–1934 he was the second secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU(b), in 1934–1938 he was the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU(b), in 1935–1938 he was the first secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
In January 1938, Nikita Sergeevich was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. In the same year he became a candidate, and in 1939 - a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. He was the first person in Ukraine until 1949.
Long live the socialist revolution! Artist Vladimir Serov. 1951
In Great Patriotic War Khrushchev was a member of the Military Councils of a number of fronts, and in 1943 he received the rank of lieutenant general; led the partisan movement behind the front line.
In 1949–1953, Nikita Sergeevich was the first secretary of the Moscow city and regional committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
After the death of Stalin, when the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers G.M. Malenkov left the post of Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev became the head of the country's highest party apparatus, although until September 1953 he did not have the title of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Between March and June 1953, L.P. Beria attempted to seize power. In order to eliminate him, Khrushchev entered into an alliance with Malenkov. In September 1953, he took the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
In the first years after Stalin's death, there was talk of "collective leadership", but soon after the arrest of Beria in June 1953, a struggle for power began between Malenkov and Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev won.
At the beginning of 1954, Nikita Sergeevich announced the start of a grandiose program for the development of virgin lands in order to increase grain production.
The reason for Malenkov's resignation from the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in February 1955 was that Khrushchev managed to convince members of the CPSU Central Committee to support the course of preferential development of heavy industry, and, consequently, the production of weapons, and to abandon Malenkov's idea to give priority to the production of consumer goods.
Khrushchev appointed N.A. to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Bulganin, securing the position of the first person in the state.
The most striking event in Khrushchev's career was the 20th Congress of the CPSU, held in 1956. In his report to the congress, he put forward the thesis that war between capitalism and communism is not “fatally inevitable.” At a closed meeting, Khrushchev condemned Stalin, accusing him of mass extermination of people and erroneous policies that almost ended with the liquidation of the USSR in the war with Nazi Germany. This report resulted in unrest in the Eastern bloc countries of Poland (October 1956) and Hungary (October and November 1956).
N.S. Khrushchev in Stavropol. Artist G.I. Kuznetsov
In June 1957, the Presidium (formerly Politburo) of the CPSU Central Committee organized a conspiracy to remove Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. After his return from a trip to Finland, he was invited to a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which, by seven votes to four, demanded his resignation. Khrushchev convened a Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, which canceled this, and dismissed the “anti-party group” of Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich.
At the end of 1957, Khrushchev dismissed Marshal G.K., who supported him in difficult times. Zhukova. Nikita Sergeevich strengthened the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee with his supporters, and in March 1958 he took the second post - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, uniting in himself the highest party and executive power.
Soon a joke appeared:
“Why did Khrushchev take the positions of First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR?
“I realized that you can’t live on one salary.”
Khrushchev initiated the consolidation of collective farms (kolkhozes). This campaign led to a decrease in the number of collective farms over several years. He wanted to turn peasant villages into agricultural cities, so that collective farmers would live in the same houses as workers and would not have personal plots. Having little understanding of agriculture, Nikita Sergeevich carried out radical reforms in the countryside, which ultimately led to a food crisis.
Historian S.S. Dmitriev writes in his diary on April 10, 1957: “The leader’s next speech is full of nonsense and vulgarity, contains an apology for Lysenko and rude, unconvincing attacks against those who dare to doubt the usefulness of the organo-mineral fertilizer mixtures proposed by Lysenko. Thus, again, direct interference of the party in science with the help of administrative shouts.”
In 1957, after the successful testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile and the launch of the first Earth satellites into orbit, Khrushchev issued a statement demanding that Western countries “end the Cold War.” His demands for a separate peace treaty with East Germany in November 1958, which would have included a renewed blockade of West Berlin, led to an international crisis.
On the initiative of Nikita Sergeevich, on April 23, 1959, a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the elimination of excesses in decoration, equipment and interior decoration” was adopted public buildings" All over the country they began to build inexpensive block houses, which led to a sharp deterioration in their appearance, but it provided housing for millions of Soviet people, many of whom had previously lived in wooden barracks or overcrowded communal apartments.
On September 15-27, 1959, Khrushchev's first trip to the United States took place. He was accompanied by more than a hundred people, including his wife, son Sergei, daughters Yulia and Rada. Throughout all these days, the front pages of central Soviet newspapers were entirely devoted to this visit; photographs of Khrushchev were published daily, something that had previously been avoided.
The international situation warmed up noticeably after Khrushchev agreed to push back the deadline for resolving the Berlin issue, and Eisenhower agreed to convene a high-level conference that would consider this issue. The summit meeting was scheduled for May 16, 1960 in Moscow. However, on May 1, 1960, a US U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in the airspace over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), and the meeting was disrupted.
In September-October 1960, Khrushchev visited the United States as head of the Soviet delegation to the UN General Assembly. During the Assembly, he was able to negotiate with the heads of government of a number of countries. His report to the Assembly contained calls for general disarmament, the immediate elimination of colonialism and the admission of China to the UN.
In June 1961, Khrushchev met with US President John Kennedy and again expressed his demands regarding Berlin. Throughout the summer of 1961, Soviet foreign policy became increasingly harsh, and in September the USSR ended a three-year moratorium on nuclear weapons testing with a series of explosions.
At the end of 1959, Khrushchev made a delusional proposal in the next twenty years, by 1980, to build a communist society in the USSR and become the first economic power in the world. On October 30, 1961, at the XXII Party Congress, the CPSU Program was adopted, which allocated 20 years for building a communist society. The Soviet people experienced for themselves what came out of this dream.
On March 5–9, 1962, the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee took place in the Grand Kremlin Palace. The next proposals of Khrushchev, outlined in his report, on the tasks of the party to improve leadership were discussed agriculture. Khrushchev insisted that instead of grasses, which restored soil fertility, it was necessary to sow corn. Which is what they began to do.
A joke appeared:
“The son of the collective farm chairman asks his father:
- Dad, what is corn? You only talk about her...
- Oh, son, corn is a terrible thing. If you don’t remove it, they will remove you.”
During the “Khrushchev Thaw,” when censorship concessions were made for literary and artistic figures, many talented writers, artists, composers, theater and film workers successfully worked in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev looked closely at many of them: he helped some, he poisoned others.
On October 14, 1964, by the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. He was replaced by L.I. Brezhnev, who became the First Secretary of the Communist Party, and A.N. Kosygin, who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
Nikita Sergeevich died after a heart attack in the Kremlin hospital on September 11, 1971 and was buried on September 13 at the Novodevichy cemetery.
N.S. Khrushchev and F. Castro in a birch grove. Artist Marat Samsonov. 1960s
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