Nikolai Podgorny

Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny (18 February 1903 – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977.

Podgorny was born to a Ukrainian working-class family in the city of Karlovka in 18 February 1903.

Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny was born on 18 February 1903 in Karlovka, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), to a Ukrainian working-class family.

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Podgorny became one of the founders of the Karlovka branch of the Komsomol, and served as a Secretary of the Komsomol from 1921 to 1923.

Podgorny started work at the age of 17 as a student at the mechanical workshops in Karlovka.

He later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kiev Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931.

In 1926, Podgorny graduated from a local workers' school.

In 1930, Podgorny became a member of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and climbed up the Soviet hierarchy after years of service to the country's centrally planned economy.

In 1930, Podgorny became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the ruling party of the Soviet Union.

In 1931, Podgorny graduated from the Kiev Technological Institute of Food Industry and started working in the sugar industry.

Podgorny was promoted to deputy chief engineer of Vinnytsia in 1937 and was promoted in 1939 as the chief engineer of the Kamenetz-Podolsk Oblast sugar trusts.

By the end of 1939, Podgorny had become Deputy People's Commissar for Food Industry of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR).

The next year, Podgorny was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Food Industry of the Soviet Union.

Podgorny became the Director of the Moscow Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1942 during World War II.

After the liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany, Podgorny reestablished Soviet control over Ukraine on the orders of the Ukrainian SSR and the Soviet Government.

In the post-war years, Podgorny regained his old office of Deputy People's Commissar for Food Industry of the Ukrainian SSR, but was later appointed in 1946 as a Permanent Representative to the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR.

In April 1950, he was made First Secretary of the Kharkiv Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU).

By 1953, Podgorny became Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1953 before later serving as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1957 to 1963.

In 1953, Podgorny was elevated to Second Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPU.

From 1957 to 1963, Podgorny was First Secretary of the CC of the CPU, effectively the most powerful position in Ukraine.

In this role, Podgorny worked on reorganising and modernising the Ukrainian economy, which had been destroyed during the war years.

He worked to increase the rate of industrial and agricultural production and to improve people's welfare.

He paid particular attention to improving party organisation and educating new cadres.

In 1960, Podgorny became a member of the Politburo (Political Bureau), the highest policy-making authority in the Soviet Union.

As a protégé and close companion of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, he travelled with him to the United Nations headquarters in 1960.

Podgorny acted as a Soviet emissary to Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Canada, and Yugoslavia.

Podgorny's beliefs were strongly influenced by Khrushchev, and under Leonid Brezhnev's rule, Podgorny was one of the most liberal members within the Soviet leadership, even more liberal than Premier Alexei Kosygin.

Podgorny briefly fell out of Khruschev's favor in 1961 when he blamed bad corn yields in the Ukrainian SSR on "bad weather", while Khrushchev claimed the crops had been "stolen" and "pilfered".

However, in 1962, Podgorny reported to Khrushchev that agricultural output had again increased: Under Podgorny's leadership, the Ukrainian SSR had doubled Ukraine's supply of grain to the state from the previous year.

Because of his handling of agriculture, First World commentators saw Podgorny as one of Khrushchev's many potential heirs.

According to historian Ilya Zemtsov, the author of Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik: The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika, Brezhnev began starting a conspiracy against Khrushchev when he found out that he had chosen Podgorny, and not himself, as his potential successor.

By 1963, Podgorny had risen to prominence within the Soviet hierarchy as a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

In October 1964, Podgorny participated in a coup replacing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Thereafter, as a member of the collective leadership, Podgorny formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika) alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.

During the 1964 ouster to remove Khrushchev as First Secretary and Premier, Podgorny and Brezhnev appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behaviour.

On 6 December 1965, he replaced Anastas Mikoyan as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

After Kosygin's standing was damaged in the wake of the Prague Spring crisis in 1968, Podgorny emerged as the second-most powerful figure in the country behind Brezhnev.

Thereafter, his influence over policy declined as Brezhnev consolidated his control over the regime.

By June 1977, he was removed as Chairman of the Presidium as well as a member of the Politburo.

Upon his removal from the Soviet leadership, Podgorny was forced to resign from active politics and sidelined in Soviet affairs until his death in 1983.