Nikolai Bulganin
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Nikolai Bulganin | |||||||||||||||
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Николай Булганин | |||||||||||||||
Nikolai Kuznetsov | |||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Georgy Zhukov | ||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||
Born | Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин) 11 June 1895 Russian Orthodox convert to Atheism | ||||||||||||||
Military service | |||||||||||||||
Allegiance | Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||
Branch/service | Red Army | ||||||||||||||
Years of service | 1941–1958 | ||||||||||||||
Rank | Marshal of the Soviet Union (1947–1958) | ||||||||||||||
Commands | Soviet Armed Forces | ||||||||||||||
Battles/wars | World War II | ||||||||||||||
Central institution membership
Other offices held
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Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (
Born in Nizhny Novgorod, Bulganin joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and became a member of the Soviet political police Cheka a year later. After the Russian Civil War, he held a number of administrative positions until 1931, when he became chairman of the Moscow City Soviet with the support of Lazar Kaganovich. A loyal Stalinist, Bulganin rose through the Soviet hierarchy in the middle of Stalin's purges, and in 1937 he was named premier of the Russian SFSR and a full member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. A year later he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and head of the Soviet State Bank. Although he was never a front-line commander, Bulganin held a number of important political posts in the Red Army during World War II, and served in Stalin's State Defense Committee. In 1947, he succeeded Stalin as Minister for the Armed Forces and was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. In early 1948, he became a full member of the Politburo.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Bulganin supported Nikita Khrushchev during his power struggle with Georgy Malenkov. In 1955, he replaced Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. Initially a close ally of Khrushchev, Bulganin came to doubt his policies and became associated with an opposition group led by Vyacheslav Molotov. The group's defeat led to the fall of Bulganin, and in 1958 he was dismissed as premier and expelled from the Politburo. Forced into retirement, Bulganin died in 1975 at the age of 79.
Early life and career
Bulganin was born in 1895 in
In 1934, the
World War II
During World War II, Bulganin played a leading role in the government and Red Army, although he was never a front-line commander. His first posting was as chief political commissar on the Western Front, which was commanded by Marshal Timoshenko. He held similar posts until July 1944, when he was appointed the Soviet representative on the Polish Committee of National Liberation. On 18 November 1944, he was given the rank of General, and three days later he replaced Marshal Voroshilov on the State Defence Committee. He was also appointed USSR Deputy Minister for Defence, the Minister being Joseph Stalin.
In March 1946, Bulganin became a candidate member of the
Personality
Bulganin reached the highest rank in the Red Army, despite only having served as political officer. His role was to ensure that none of the genuine wartime commanders, particularly Marshal Zhukov, became powerful enough to threaten Stalin. Pavel Sudoplatov, who participated in conferences in the Kremlin with him, wrote contemptuously about how Bulganin failed to understand elementary military concepts. Sudoplatov added:
Bulganin was notorious for avoiding decisions. Letters requesting urgent action remained unsigned for months. The entire secretariat of the Council of Ministers was furious with his style of work, especially when Stalin left him in charge while he vacationed in the Caucasus.... Bulganin's appearance was deceiving. Unlike Khrushchev or Beria, Bulganin was always smartly dressed and looked like an old nobleman, with well-groomed grey hair and goatee. Later I learnt he was a heavy drinker and an admirer of ballerinas and singers from the Bolshoi Theatre. He was a man without any political principles, only the obedient servant of any leader.[4]
In March 1949, Bulganin was replaced as Minister for Defence by a career soldier, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and then was responsible for the arms industry.
Conversely, a 1955 report from the US
Bulganin impressed those who had worked with him in the State Bank, including a famous expert on banking, with his high intelligence, mild manners, and capacity to learn in a very short time the most special and difficult of problems.[5]
Premiership
After Stalin's death in March 1953, Bulganin moved into sixth place in the Soviet leadership, when he was reappointed to the post of Defense Minister, but with Marshal Zhukov as his deputy. He was an ally of
During the
By 1957, however, Bulganin had come to share the doubts held about Khrushchev's policies by the opposition group (which Khrushchev and his supporters labelled the "Anti-Party Group") led by Vyacheslav Molotov. In June, when the dissenters tried to remove Khrushchev from power at a meeting of the Politburo, Bulganin vacillated between the two camps. When the dissenters were defeated and removed from power, Bulganin held on to his position for a while, but in March 1958, at a session of the Supreme Soviet, Khrushchev forced his resignation.[6] Bulganin was appointed Chairman of the Soviet State Bank, a job he had held two decades before, but in August was dispatched to Stavropol as Chairman of the Regional Economic Council, a token position, and on 12 November he was expelled from the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee. In September he was removed from the Central Committee and deprived of the title of Marshal, and in February 1960 he was retired on a pension.
Personal life and death
His wife was Elena Mikhailovna Korovina, an English teacher from a Moscow school. The couple had two children: son Leo and daughter Vera. Vera married the son of Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov.
Bulganin died on February 24, 1975, after a long illness at the age 79 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.
Honours and awards
Hero of Socialist Labour (10 June 1955) | |
Orders of Lenin , twice (1931, 1955)
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Order of the Red Banner (1943) | |
Order of Suvorov, 1st class (1945) and 2nd class (1943) | |
Order of Kutuzov, 1st class, twice (1943, 1944) | |
Order of the Red Star, twice (1935, 1953) | |
Order of the Republic (Tuvan People's Republic, 3 March 1942) | |
Grand Cross of the Virtuti Militari (Poland) |
Text and/or other creative content from this version of Nikolai Bulganin was copied or moved into Bulganin's Government with this edit on 15:29, 18 August 2023. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
See also
- Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War
- Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
- Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union
- Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
References
- ^ Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin (premier of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) – Encyclopædia Britannica:. Britannica.com. Retrieved on 2014-6-11.
- ^ XPOHOC
- ^ Николай Александрович Булганин председатель совета министров СССР с 1955 по 1958 годы. Россиа, моя история. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
- ISBN 0-7515-1240-0.
- ^ COMMENTS ON THE CHANGE IN SOVIET LEADERSHIP (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency. 1955-03-02. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-05-19.
- ^ ISBN 0195078500.
- ISBN 978-0-13-392282-0.
- ISBN 0271028610.
- ^ "7 Exchange of Letters- Bulganin- Ben-Gurion- 5 and 8 November 1956". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel).