Mikhail Suslov

Who was Mikhail Suslov?

Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov 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 the separation of power within the Communist Party. His hardline attitude toward change made him one of the foremost anti-reformist Soviet leaders.

Born in rural Russia in 1902, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party 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. Suslov impressed the Soviet leadership to such an extent in the pre-Eastern Front Soviet Union that he was made First Secretary of Stavropol Krai administrative area. During the war, Suslov headed the local Stavropol guerilla movement. He became a member of the Organisational Bureau of the Central Committee in 1946 and, four years later, was elected to the Presidium of the All-Union Communist Party.