Vasily Kuznetsov (politician)

Vasily Kuznetsov was born on February, 13 [O.S. 31 January] 1901, in the village of Sofilovka, Ovsyanovsky volost, Varnavinsky district, Kostroma province. Vasily's father was a peasant, the head of a large, poor family. In 1915, He graduated from a rural school and immediately entered a pedagogical school in the village of Poretskoye, Simbirsk province (now Ulyanovsk region). He studied at the school until 1919. With the beginning of the Civil War, he ended up in the ranks of the Red Army, until 1921 he fought against the whites. After the end of the war, he entered the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, which he graduated in 1926. In the same year, he went to the Donbass, got a job as a research engineer at the Makeevsky Metallurgical Plant. Soon he was appointed shift engineer, then deputy chief. He meets the year 1930 as the head of the open-hearth shop.

Kuznetsov (in Kennedy left) during a visit to the US in 1963

He joined the CPSU back in 1927. In 1931, Kuznetsov was among the workers of the Makeevka plant who went on an internship in the United States, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1936, he moved from Makeevka to the Moscow region, got a job at the Elektrostal plant as head of the metallographic laboratory. In September 1937, he began to rise to the highest echelons of power: Vasily began working in the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. In 1946, he became chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He held the position until March 1953, at the same time being a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1953, he went to work at the USSR Foreign Ministry, for some time he headed the Soviet embassy in China. In 1955, he became the first deputy minister of foreign affairs of the USSR. After the head of the USSR Foreign Ministry Dmitry Shipilov was transferred to the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, He became one of the main candidates for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, he was succeeded by Andrei Gromyko.

Kuznetsov made an invaluable contribution to the settlement of the Caribbean crisis. As an official representative of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Kuznetsov repeatedly met with the Americans, explaining to them the position of the USSR, in every possible way preventing a nuclear war. Another major achievement of Kuznetsov is the establishment of negotiations with China after the bloody clash on Damansky Island, which threatened to escalate into a full-scale war. He was the head of the Soviet delegation at the negotiations with the PRC on the demarcation of the border. In 1971, Kuznetsov was engaged in the settlement of the Indo-Pakistani crisis, his diplomatic activity at least temporarily helped to avoid deepening the bloody conflict.

In 1977, Kuznetsov became the first deputy chairman of the Presidium of the USSR. On November 10, 1982, immediately after the death of Brezhnev, Kuznetsov became the acting Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR until in June 16, 1983, Yuri Andropov takes the position he held.

Andropov was the head of the USSR for a short time – on February 9, 1984 he died at the age of 69 years old. Kuznetsov succeeded Andropov in February 9 to April 11, 1984, Chernenko takes the position. The last time Kuznetsov headed the USSR was on March 10, 1985, Chernenko died. On July 27, 1985, Kuznetsov was succeeded by Andrei Gromyko.

He decided to retired in 1986 and died of old age in June 5, 1990 at the age of 89 years old. For a long time, Kuznetsov retained the title of the longest-lived Head of State of the USSR, but in 2021 this record was broken by Mikhail Gorbachev.

• Nikolai A. Zenkovič, Samye zakrytye ljudi i.(in Russian) Encyclopedia of biographies, OLMA-Press, Moscow, 2002, ISBN 5-94850-035-7; pp. 298–292