Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet politician. In addition to serving as the Central Committee's longtime Secretary of Ideology, he held office as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965 until his death in 1982.

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 Organisational Bureau (Orgburo) of the Central Committee in 1946. In June 1950, he was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. 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. However, by the late 1950s, he had risen to become the leader of the party opposition to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

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. Under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, Suslov was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and second-in-command. He ultimately died in office on 25 January 1982.

Early years and career

Suslov was born in Shakhovskoye, Khvalynsky Uyezd, Saratov Governorate (today, 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,

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. and contributed to the Party by expelling all members deviating from the Party line, meaning Trotskyists, Zinovievists, and other left-wing deviationists. Stalin immediately had Suslov promoted to a secretary of the Rostov Regional Committee in 1937. Suslov has been linked to political repression in Rostov as part of the Great Purge in 1938, 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." Suslov was made First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai Committee in 1939.

Wartime activities (1941–1945)

thumb|206px|left|Suslov in 1941

On the Eastern Front in World War II, Suslov was a member of Military Council of the North Caucasian Front

Suslov later purged the Baltic region in the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. 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.

Rise to the Soviet leadership

thumb|right|250px|Suslov (standing, front row, furthest to the right) at the 3rd Party Congress of East Germany's ruling [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|Socialist Unity Party, 1950]]

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. 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. After becoming head of the Agitprop, at the height of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, Suslov also purged Jews from media and public institutions.

In 1947, Suslov was transferred to Moscow and elected to the Central Committee Secretariat. In January 1948, Stalin entrusted him with the task of speaking on behalf of the Central Committee before a solemn meeting on the twenty-fourth anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's death. Upon Zhdanov's death in August 1948, Suslov succeeded him as CC Secretary of Ideology. From September 1949 to 1950, he was editor-in-chief of the central Party daily Pravda. Domestically, Suslov opposed Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinisation and his economic decentralisation scheme.

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.

thumb|Suslov in 1963.

Sino–Soviet relations had long been strained and, as Suslov told the Central Committee in one of his reports, "The crux of the matter is that the Leadership of the CCP has recently developed tendencies to exaggerate the degree of maturity of socialist relations in China... There are elements of conceit and haughtiness. [These shortcomings] are largely explained by the atmosphere of the cult of personality of comrade Mao Zedong... who, by all accounts, himself has come to believe in his own infallibility." Suslov compared Mao's growing personality cult with that seen under Joseph Stalin.

Suslov was highly critical of Maoist China, as he led the Sino-Soviet Dispute and criticized Maoism in various ways under the Khrushchev administration, particularly its split from the Soviet leadership in the Socialist Camp, the rejection of the theory of Peaceful Coexistence, and Mao's support of anti-Soviet rival communist militant groups globally. In a report made on 14 February 1964 at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Suslov compared Mao's China to Trotskyism, and denounced the Chinese leadership as petty-bourgeois nationalists and left-deviationists:

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". 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 1962 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.

Brezhnev era

Gatekeeper of Marxist-Leninist Dogma

In October 1964, Mikhail Suslov played a central role in having Khrushchev removed from power. Thereafter, a triumvirate or troika assumed power in the Kremlin consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary, Alexei Kosygin as Premier, and CC Secretary Nikolai Podgorny. Likewise, Suslov emerged as one of the most powerful figures in the Soviet leadership, ranking fourth in the Politburo hierarchy behind the members of the ruling troika. By 1965, he was promoted to Second Secretary, the most senior official within the party apparatus beneath the First Secretary. For the next 10 years, Suslov was one of only four people who had both a seat in the Secretariat and the Politburo alongside Brezhnev, Andrei Kirilenko and Fyodor Kulakov.

From the beginning, Suslov was a vocal critic of one-man rule such as that seen under Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev. A strong supporter of democratic centralism, Suslov prevented Brezhnev from taking over Kosygin's post as head of government in 1970.

right|thumb|250px|Suslov (standing behind Brezhnev on the right) at the signing the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Talks|SALT agreement, 1972.]]

It was during the Brezhnev era that Mikhail Suslov was given the unofficial title "Chief Ideologue of the Communist Party". He devoted much of his time memorializing the legacies of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Suslov also grew increasingly concerned that the Soviet Union would lose its leading role in the communist movement. Consequently, he became an outspoken opponent of political reform throughout the communist world. According to Christian Schmidt-Häuer, Suslov was regarded as the "pope" among orthodox communist officials in the Eastern Bloc.

In the midst of following the party line set by Moscow, Suslov supported a retreat from some core beliefs of Marxism-Leninism, including the end of single, Party-approved natural science versions of biology, chemistry and physics. On the other hand, there still existed tight ideological control over literature. This included not only literature critical of Soviet rule, but much of Lenin's work.

Later life and death

left|thumb|250px|Suslov (standing second from left in front row) at the 10th Party Congress of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party, 1981

At the beginning of the 1980s, the political and economic turmoil in the Polish People's Republic had seriously eroded the authority of the Polish United Workers' Party. Suslov's position on this matter carried particular weight as he chaired a Politburo Commission, established on 25 August 1980, on how to deal with the Polish crisis. Members of the commission included such high-ranking Soviets as KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, Minister of Defence Dmitry Ustinov, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, and Brezhnev's long-time associate Konstantin Chernenko.

200px|thumb|Suslov's tomb in the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]]

On 28 August, the Commission considered Soviet military intervention to stabilize the region. 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". Suslov was able to persuade Jaruzelski and the Polish leadership to establish martial law in Poland.

In January 1982, 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. His death is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Brezhnev. Thereafter, Andropov assumed Suslov's place in the Secretariat before eventually sidelining Kirilenko and Chernenko during the final months of Brezhnev's rule.

Suslov was buried on 29 January at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin Wall. Brezhnev expressed great sadness at Suslov's passing.

Recognition

Suslov was awarded several decorations and medals during his life; among them were two Hero of Socialist Labour awards, five Orders of Lenin, one Order of the October Revolution, and one first degree Order of the Patriotic War. The USSR Academy of Sciences awarded Suslov the Gold Medal of Karl Marx. Suslov was awarded the highest state awards of the German Democratic Republic, the Mongolian People's Republic, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

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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.

Bernard Lown, a Lithuanian-born American M.D., was once requested to see her in the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital; it was one of the few cases where a renowned foreign doctor was invited to visit the Kremlin Hospital. Suslov expressed his gratitude for Lown's work, but avoided meeting Lown in person because he was a representative of an "imperialistic" country.

Yelizaveta and Suslov had two children, Revoly (born 1929), named after the Russian Revolution, and his second child, Maya (born 1939), named after May Day.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

  • Selected Writings and Speeches published in 1980 by Pergamon Press.