Mikhail Suslov

Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 21 November 1902 – 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War.

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.

Suslov was born in Shakhovskoye, a rural locality in Pavlovsky District, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russian Empire on 21 November 1902.

Suslov began work in the local Komsomol organisation in Saratov in 1918, eventually becoming a member of the Poverty Relief Committee.

After working in the Komsomol for nearly three years, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (the Bolsheviks) in 1921.

After graduating from the rabfak, he studied economics at the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy between 1924 and 1928.

In the summer of 1928, after graduating from the Plekhanov institute, he became a graduate student (research fellow) in economics at the Institute of Red Professors, teaching at Moscow State University and at the Industrial Academy.

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.

In 1931, he abandoned teaching in favour of the party apparatus.

He became an inspector on the Communist Party's Party Control Commission and on the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate.

His main task there was to adjudicate large numbers of "personal cases", breaches of discipline, and appeals against expulsion from the party.

In 1933 and 1934, Suslov directed a commission charged with purging the party in the Ural and Chernigov provinces.

The purge was organised by Lazar Kaganovich, then Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission.

Author Yuri Druzhnikov contends that Suslov was involved with setting up several show trials, and contributed to the Party by expelling all members deviating from the Party line, meaning Trotskyists, Zinovievists, and other left-wing deviationists.

From 1936-1937, Suslov studied at the Postgraduate Course of the Economic Institute of Red Professors.

He gained a reputation as a 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.

Stalin immediately had Suslov promoted to Party Secretary of Rostov and carried out a purge of the city in 1938.

He was made First Secretary of Stavropol Krai administrative area in 1939.

During World War II, Suslov headed the local Stavropol guerrilla movement.

Impressed with his work, Suslov was made First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai's Communist Party in 1939.

On the Eastern Front in World War II, Suslov was a member of Military Council of the North Caucasian Front and led the Stavropol Krai Headquarters of the Partisan Divisions (the local guerrilla movement) after the Germans occupied the area.

Suslov spent much of his time mobilising workers to fight against the German invaders.

The guerrilla movement he led was operated by the regional party cells; Suslov for his part maintained close contact with the Red Army.

Suslov also supervised the deportations of Chechens and other Muslim minorities from the Caucasus during the war.

According to Soviet historiography, Suslov's years as a guerrilla fighter were highly successful; however, testimonies from participants differ from the official account.

After the war, Suslov became a member of the Organisational Bureau (Orgburo) of the Central Committee in 1946.

In June 1950, he was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

However, by the late 1950s, he had risen to become the leader of the party opposition to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

From 16 October 1952 onwards, he was a full member of the 19th Presidium of the CPSU.

In the ensuing shuffle of the Soviet leadership following Stalin's death, Suslov lost much of the recognition and influence he had previously earned.

When Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Suslov supported the establishment of a collective leadership.

He also supported inner-party democracy and opposed the reestablishment of the one-man rule as seen during the Stalin and Khrushchev eras.

During the Brezhnev era, Suslov was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and second-in-command.

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.

His death on 25 January 1982 is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary.