Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Suslov | |
---|---|
Михаил Суслов | |
Alexei Kirichenko | |
Senior Secretary of Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | |
In office 31 August 1948 – 25 January 1982 | |
Preceded by | Andrei Zhdanov |
Succeeded by | Konstantin Chernenko (acting) |
First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee | |
In office 1939 – November 1944 | |
Preceded by | Dmitry Goncharov |
Succeeded by | Aleksandr Orlov |
Personal details | |
Born | Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov 21 November 1902 Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
Nationality | Soviet |
Political party | CPSU (1921–1982) |
Spouse |
Yelizaveta Alexandrovna
(died 1972) |
Children | 2 |
Residence | Hero of Socialist Labor (twice) |
Military service | |
Allegiance | Soviet Union |
Branch/service | Soviet partisans |
Years of service | 1941–1945 |
Battles/wars | |
Central institution membership
Other political offices held
| |
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (Russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 21 November [O.S. 8 November] 1902 – 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial chief ideologue of the party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and power separation within the Communist Party. His hardline attitude resisting change made him one of the foremost orthodox communist Soviet leaders.
Born in rural Russia in 1902, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1921 and studied economics for much of the 1920s. He left his job as a teacher in 1931 to pursue politics full-time, becoming one of the many Soviet politicians who took part in the mass repression begun by Joseph Stalin's regime. He was made First Secretary of Stavropol Krai administrative area in 1939. During World War II, Suslov headed the local Stavropol guerrilla movement.
After the war, Suslov became a member of the
Early years and career
Suslov was born in
In 1931, he abandoned teaching in favour of the party apparatus. He became an inspector on the Communist Party's
In 1933 and 1934, Suslov directed a commission charged with purging the party in the
From 1936 to 1937, Suslov studied at the Postgraduate Course of the Economic Institute of Red Professors. He gained a reputation as an unsociable, modest, and serious student who carefully studied and memorized the works and speeches of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin and became known for keeping a complete record of their statements on economic and political issues in boxes of cards and file cabinets in his tiny room in a communal apartment. Somehow, Stalin urgently needed Lenin's opinion on one narrow economic issue and dispatched his secretary Lev Mekhlis to locate the answer. Mekhlis, Suslov's classmate at the institute, approached him and instantly found the necessary quote. An amazed Stalin asked how he managed to find the quote so quickly, upon which Mekhlis introduced Stalin to Suslov.[4] Stalin immediately had Suslov promoted to a secretary of the Rostov Regional Committee in 1937.[5][6][2] Suslov has been linked to political repression in Rostov as part of the Great Purge in 1938,[7][8] however writer Roy Medvedev has questioned this, stating that "we have no evidence of his personal involvement in the repressive campaigns of 1937-1938, though they certainly paved the way for his rapid rise."[9] Suslov was made First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai Committee in 1939.[2]
Wartime activities (1941–1945)
On the
According to Soviet historiography, Suslov's years as a guerrilla fighter were highly successful; however, testimonies from participants differ from the official account. These participants claim that there were a number of organizational problems which reduced their effectiveness on the battlefield. Suslov also suffered badly from tuberculosis, which he had contracted in his youth, that was further exacerbated in the dense partisan forests and hampered his ability as an effective combatant. Fearing further relapses, for the rest of his life, he continued to wear galoshes on his shoes as well as a hat and raincoat at all times, even in the hot summer weather, which made him the subject of jokes among his colleagues in Brezhnev's Politburo.[10]
Suslov later purged the Baltic region in the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War.[11] From 1944 to 1946, he chaired the Central Committee Bureau for Lithuanian Affairs. Anti-Soviet samizdat literature from the height of his power in the 1970s would accuse him of being personally responsible for the deportation and killings of nationalist Lithuanians who became political opponents of the Soviets during the course of Soviet re-entry into the Baltic states on their drive to Berlin in 1944.[12]
Stalin's protégé
In 1946, Suslov was made a member of the Orgburo and immediately became the Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Central Committee. Within a year, Suslov was appointed Head of the Central Committee Department for Agitation and Propaganda. He also became a harsh critic of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the post-war years.[13] On 26 November 1946, Suslov sent a letter to Andrei Zhdanov, accusing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of spying. Suslov's letter, which was well-received among Soviet leadership, would serve as the basis for prosecution of the committee during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign.[14] After becoming head of the Agitprop, at the height of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, Suslov also purged Jews from media and public institutions.[15] In 1947, Suslov was transferred to Moscow and elected to the
In 1949, Suslov became a member, along with Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Lazar Kaganovich, of a commission created to investigate charges levied against Moscow's local Communist Party First Secretary, Georgy Popov.[17] Russian historian Roy Medvedev speculates in his book, Neizvestnyi Stalin, that Stalin had made Suslov his "secret heir".[8] Lavrentiy Beria, who hated Suslov, evidently felt so threatened by him that after his arrest, documents were found in Beria's safe labeling Suslov as the No. 1 person he wanted to "eliminate".[10]
In June 1950, Suslov was elected to the
Khrushchev era
Suslov recovered his authority in 1955 and was elected to a seat in the Presidium, bypassing the customary candidate membership.
"(They) caused considerable harm to both organisational and ideological party work. They belittled the role of the masses and the role of the Party, disparaged collective leadership, undermined inner-party democracy, suppressed the activeness of party members, their initiative and enterprise, led to lack of control, irresponsibility, and even arbitrariness in the work of individuals, prevented the development of criticism and self-criticism, and gave rise to one-sided and at times mistaken decisions."
— Suslov, 20th Party Congress
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Suslov, along with Anastas Mikoyan, operated in close proximity to Budapest in order to direct the activities of the Soviet troops and to lend assistance to the new Hungarian leadership. Suslov and Mikoyan attended the Politburo meeting of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party which elected János Kádár to the office of General Secretary. In a telegram to the Soviet leadership, Suslov and Mikoyan acknowledged that the situation had become more dire, but both were content with the dismissal of Ernő Gerő as General Secretary and the choice of Kádár as his successor.[20]
The
In June 1957, Suslov backed Khrushchev during his struggle with the
The following October Suslov accused
In a speech on 22 January 1958, Khrushchev officially proposed to dissolve the
Suslov, who supported Stalin's economic policy, regarded Khrushchev's proposal as unacceptable on ideological grounds. In an election speech to the Supreme Soviet in March 1958, Suslov refused to recognise the ideological significance of Khrushchev's reform, preferring instead to focus on the reform's practical benefits in improving productivity. Unlike other Party leaders, Suslov avoided mentioning Khrushchev as the MTS reform's initiator.[25]
The
"Marx and Lenin teach us that communism doesn't appear suddenly, but comes into existence, matures, develops, passes in its development through definite stages or phases.... The new period in the development of Soviet society will be marked by the gradual drawing together of two forms of socialist property – state and kolkhoz... The process of these social changes will be long, and understandably, cannot end in the course of a seven-year period."
— Suslov, 21st Party Congress
Suslov was becoming progressively more critical of Khrushchev's policies,
Suslov visited the United Kingdom in 1959 as a parliamentarian for the Supreme Soviet. The visit was a success, and Hugh Gaitskell, the Leader of the Labour Party, travelled to the Soviet Union later that year as a guest.[31]
Suslov was highly critical of Maoist China, as he led the
[...] the entire range of the CPC leadership's theoretical and political views are in many ways a rehash of Trotskyism [...] an examination of the sources of the present anti-Leninist dissentive policy of the CPC leadership leads up to the conclusion that the world communist movement faces a tangible danger of petty‐bourgeois nationalist deviation that disguises itself with "Left" phrase-mongering.
— Suslov, Struggle of the CPSU for unity of the international communist movement[34]
In the years following the failure of the Anti-Party Group, Suslov became the leader of the faction in the Central Committee opposed to Khrushchev's leadership, known as the "Moscow faction".[35] Khrushchev was able to hold on to power by conceding to various opposition demands in times of crisis, such as during the 1960 U-2 incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the aftermath of the U-2 Crisis Suslov was able to remove, and replace, several of Khrushchev's appointees in the Politburo with new anti-Khrushchev members. Khrushchev's position was greatly weakened further after the failure of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Suslov's power greatly increased.
A campaign to oust Khrushchev from office was initiated in 1964. Although leader of the opposition, Suslov had fallen seriously ill during his trip to the People's Republic of China the previous year; instead, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin led the opposition.[36]
Brezhnev era
Collective leadership
In October 1964, Khrushchev was ousted. Suslov played a crucial role in the event.
Suslov was, alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, one of the most influential Soviet politicians of the 1960s following the ousting of Khrushchev. Having led the opposition against Khrushchev for years, Suslov had acquired and wielded great power within the Central Committee when Brezhnev rose to power. However, Suslov was never interested in becoming the leader of the Soviet Union, and was content to remain the man behind the scenes.[37] During most of his term, Suslov was one of four people who had both a seat in the Secretariat and the Politburo; the three others were Brezhnev, Andrei Kirilenko and Fyodor Kulakov.[38]
A collective leadership was founded immediately after the ousting of Khrushchev, consisting of Brezhnev as First Secretary, Kosygin as head of government, and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny) as head of state, who formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika). From the beginning, Suslov was a vocal critic of one-man rule such as that seen under Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev.
While he condemned Stalin's one-man rule, he equally criticised the individualistic assertiveness of Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy. A strong supporter of democratic centralism, Suslov prevented Brezhnev from taking over Kosygin's post as head of government in 1970.[39] Kirilenko, Brezhnev, and Suslov were members of an unofficial Troika within the Communist Party leadership.[40] Suslov was ranked fourth in the Politburo hierarchy behind Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin, ahead of Kirilenko.[41]
Throughout the Brezhnev era, Suslov became increasingly hardline. Suslov was opposed to any sort of anti-Soviet policies attempted by the Eastern Bloc leaders, but voted against Soviet military intervention in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1968 during the Prague Spring. Suslov was regarded, according to Christian Schmidt-Häuer, as the "pope" for "Orthodox communists" in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout his political career, Suslov became increasingly concerned that the Soviet Union's leading role in the communist movement would be compromised. Häuer, in his book Gorbachev: The Path to Power, argues that Suslov "was a Russian nationalist" who believed "Russia was the centre of the universe".[42]
It was during the Brezhnev era that Suslov was given the unofficial title "Chief Ideologue of the Communist Party". Suslov spent much time in memorializing the legacies of
There still existed, on the other hand, a tight ideological control over literature. This included not only literature critical of Soviet rule, but according to Robert Service, much of Lenin's work: an unpublicised ban on the sale of Lenin's Collected Works existed from the late 1970s onwards, although no such decree has been uncovered.[45]
Later life and death
At the beginning of the 1980s, the political and economic turmoil in the
On 28 August, the Commission considered Soviet military intervention to stabilize the region.[46] Wojciech Jaruzelski, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, was able to persuade the Commission that a Soviet military intervention would only aggravate the situation. Suslov agreed with Jaruzelski's argument, stating that "if troops are introduced, that will mean a catastrophe. I think that we all share the unanimous opinion here that there can be no discussion of any introduction of troops".[47] Suslov was able to persuade Jaruzelski and the Polish leadership to establish martial law in Poland.[48]
In January 1982, Yuri Andropov revealed to Suslov that Semyon Tsvigun, the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB, had shielded Galina and Yuri, Brezhnev's children, from corruption investigations. When these facts were revealed to him, Suslov challenged Tsvigun to make a statement on the matter. Suslov even threatened Tsvigun with expulsion from the Communist Party, but Tsvigun died on 19 January 1982 before he could challenge Suslov's statement.
Two days later, Suslov had a coronary thrombosis, and died on 25 January of arteriosclerosis and diabetes at 16:05.[49] His death is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Brezhnev, in which Andropov, who assumed Suslov's post as the Party's Second Secretary, sidelined Kirilenko and Chernenko during the last days of Brezhnev's rule.[42]
Suslov was buried on 29 January at the
Recognition
Suslov was awarded several decorations and medals during his life; among them were two
- Soviet Union
Hero of Socialist Labor , twice (20 November 1962, 20 November 1972)
| |
Order of Lenin, five times (16 March 1940, 20 November 1952, 20 November 1962, 2 December 1971, 20 November 1972) | |
Order of the October Revolution (18 November 1977) | |
Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (24 March 1945) | |
Medal "To a Partisan of the Patriotic War", 1st class (1943) | |
Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" (1944) | |
Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945) | |
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945) | |
Badge "50 Years in the CPSU" (1981) |
- Foreign
Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria) | |
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria) | |
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia) | |
Order of Karl Marx (East Germany) | |
Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia) | |
Gold Star Order (Vietnam) |
Personal life
Suslov married Yelizaveta Alexandrovna (1903–1972), who worked as the Director of the Moscow Institute for Stomatology. In her life, she badly suffered from internal diseases, especially diabetes in a severe form, but ignored her physician's recommendations.
Yelizaveta and Suslov had two children, Revoly (born 1929), named after the
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Суслов, Михаил Андреевич [Suslov, Mikhail Andreyevich] (in Russian). WarHeroes.ru. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
- ^ a b c d e Law 1975, p. 224.
- ISBN 978-1-56000-283-3.
- ^ Thelman, Joseph (December 2012). "The Man in Galoshes". Jew Observer. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
- ^ "Mikhail Andreevich Suslov". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 42.
- ^ a b c Montefiore 2005, p. 642n.
- ISBN 978-0-385-18388-8.
- ^ a b Skvortsova, Elena (7 December 2021). "Unknown history. The "Gray Eminence" of the Soviet system Mikhail Suslov". sobesednik. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 560n.
- ISSN 0024-5089. Archived from the originalon 17 December 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2006.
- ISBN 978-3-7186-5739-1.
- ^ Pain, Emil (29 April 2020). "Antisemitism Deferred". MBK News. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
- ^ Mlechin, Leonid (7 July 2019). ""You Give us Little Hawks, Give us Little Hawks!": Why Identifying Jews Became the Most Important Problem in the Post-War USSR". Novaya Gazeta. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 62.
- ^ a b Brown 2009, p. 218.
- ^ Law 1975, pp. 224–225.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 84.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 282.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 283.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 285.
- ^ a b Brown 2009, p. 246.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 247.
- ^ Petroff 1988, pp. 111–112.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 115.
- ^ a b Law 1975, p. 225.
- ^ Law 1975, p. 209.
- ISBN 978-0-271-02861-3.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 117.
- ^
Oudenaren, John Van (1991). Détente in Europe: The Soviet Union and the West since 1953. ISBN 978-0-8223-1141-6.
- ^
Feldman, Ofer; Valenty, Linda O. (2001). Profiling Political Leaders: Cross-cultural Studies of Personality and Behavior. ISBN 978-0-275-97036-9.
- ISBN 978-0-521-83719-4.
- ^ T͡SK KPSS (1964). Struggle of the CPSU for unity of the International Communist movement (PDF). Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House. pp. 84, 95.
- ^ Law 1975, p. 160.
- ^ Law 1975, p. 210.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 402.
- ^ Law 1975, p. 231.
- ^ Schmidt-Häuer 1986, p. 77.
- ISBN 978-0-8179-8921-7.
- ^ "170. Memorandum From the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon". history.state.gov. 10 April 1971. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
- ^ a b Schmidt-Häuer 1986, p. 78.
- ^ Service 2009, p. 418.
- ^ Service 2009, pp. 418–419.
- ^ Service 2009, p. 419.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 430.
- ^ Brown 2009, p. 435.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 197.
- ^ Schmidt-Häuer 1986, p. 73.
- ^ Schmidt-Häuer 1986, p. 74.
- ISBN 978-5-94850-408-7.
- ^ Petroff 1988, p. 73.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-224-07879-5.
- Law, David A. (1975). Russian Civilization. New York: Ardent Media. ISBN 978-0-8422-0529-0.
- Petroff, Serge (1988). The Red Eminence: A Biography of Mikhail A. Suslov. Cliffton, NJ: Kingston Press. ISBN 978-0-940670-13-6.
- Schmidt-Häuer, Christian (1986). Gorbachev: The Path to Power. London: ISBN 978-1-85043-015-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4000-7678-9.
- ISBN 978-0-14-103797-4.
External links
- Selected Writings and Speeches published in 1980 by Pergamon Press.