Soviet party and state leader Fedor Davydovich Kulakov: biography and interesting facts

Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. In the Soviet Union, this was the highest level of party power. But the party led all the processes that are taking place, so the holder of the post has reached the heights of state recognition in his country. Such was the memory of Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov - in the 1970s one of the youngest and most energetic members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Childhood and youth

Kursk Region, the village of Fitizh. Here February 4, 1918 Kulakov was born Fedor Davydovich. The family was peasant. Information about childhood is very mean and incomplete. I helped at home at home, I went to school. From a young age I learned the taste of salted from the sweat of peasant labor and the price of a loaf of rough, homemade bread. Therefore, when it was time to determine with the future profession, without hesitation chose the labor of the farmer.

To study Fedor went to the neighboring district center of Rylsk, in 1922 he opened an agricultural technical school. There and entered a peasant boy. An ancient city with its sights and other temptations did not distract the young man from the main goal - studies. Fedor Davydovich Kulakov, from childhood, used to do everything in a peasant way thoroughly. At the age of 20, after graduating from the technical school, he was sent to work in the Tambov region. From that time began the work biography of a man who was destined to rise to the very tops of the Soviet party hierarchy.

Start of work

In 1938 a young specialist, Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov, arrived in Uritsk in the Tver region of the Tambov region. Yesterday's graduate of the agricultural technical school was immediately appointed assistant to the head of the department, educated young cadres in the village was sorely lacking. The notorious Stalinist purges passed not only among army chiefs. The village was also affected by mass repression, and many agricultural leaders were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. And the country desperately needed food. Therefore, the young agronomist had to work tirelessly. A symbolic coincidence: in the same year 1938 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR established the "Hero of Socialist Labor" award. Kulakov was awarded this title in 1978 in honor of the 60th anniversary.

In the Uritsky beet-sovkhoz, Fyodor Davydovich worked as the head of the department, and was later transferred to the Penza region as head of the department, and after a while became an agronomist of the Zemetchinsky beet-sovkhoz. At the same time joined the ranks of the Communist Party (1940).

During the war

Simultaneously with the production activity, the young agronomist was engaged in Komsomol and social affairs. Soon began his professional party career. In 1941, a new secretary, Kulakov, appeared in the Zemetchin District Committee. Fedor Davydovich, information about his appointment quickly flew around the Komsomol organizations, began to travel a lot around the district. His official duties became more extensive: now he was responsible for the work of young people in all enterprises of the Zemetchin district.

The outbreak of war brought its own corrections to the life of the young leader. He was not taken to the front, specialists were needed who could organize uninterrupted work in the rear. Just such a man showed himself Kulakov. Fedor Davydovich, whose biography has been firmly connected to agricultural production, has become head of the district land department after work in the district committee. Now, on his shoulders, he took care of the work of all the agricultural enterprises of the district.

And in the rear forged a victory

The rapid official promotion of the young leader shows that he was a sensible and highly professional person. In difficult conditions he managed to organize the uninterrupted operation of enterprises, whose products went to supply the Red Army and defense enterprises. By 1944, Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov had already successfully headed the district executive committee and the district committee of the party in the Nikolo-Pestravsky district.

Tense wartime boldly put forward to leadership positions are still young people. At another time, their fate could have been different, but the victorious offensive on the fronts, commanded by the young generals, was to be supported by the uninterrupted operation of the rear. And here the initiative belonged to the same young business executives. In 1944, at the age of 26, Fyodor Davydovich became the head of the agricultural department of the Penza Regional Party Committee and the Regional Agricultural Administration. In this post, Kulakov met the victory on May 9, 1945. Ahead of the young party leader was a peaceful life and a new interesting work.

Climb to the top

The Penza region became the place where the great leader Fedor Kulakov was formed. A statesman and party worker, he quickly passed all the steps of a long career ladder. When in 1950 he was entrusted to head the Penza Regional Council of People's Deputies, it was already a formed leader with a well-adjusted position and clear views on the organization of public administration. True, Kulakov did not linger on this work. The perspective head and specialist in the field of agriculture was in demand in his main specialty. Since 1955 Fedor Davydovich has been working as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and in 1959-1960 he headed the Ministry of Bread Products. At the same time, he fills the gap in education - in absentia finishes the Institute of Agriculture (1957).

And then happened what many of Kulakov's biographers call an "honorable reference". Fedor Davydovich was sent to Party work in Stavropol. Here, from 1960 to 1964, he headed the Regional Committee and became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1961). Return to Moscow occurred after the removal of Khrushchev from the leadership of the country. It was said that Kulakov took a direct part in preparing Khrushchev's dismissal from office.

Among the top management

Agricultural production - this was devoted to his activities and biography. Fedor Kulakov in Moscow again deals with familiar affairs from youth, but already on a nationwide scale - he heads the agricultural department in the Party Central Committee (1964-1976). A year later, in 1965, became secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. This was a high position, which gave the right to participate in the meetings of the Politburo and to have an advisory voice on them. In 1971, Fyodor Davydovich joined the Politburo - he reached the peak of party and state power.

Kulakov differed from the majority of elderly party leaders who were not knowledgeable by practical ideology. Having reached a high post, he tried to improve agricultural production in the Soviet Union. Belief in communist ideas did not prevent the understanding that under existing conditions the peasantry can not effectively develop and feed the country. He proposed mass distribution of land to townspeople for cottages and the maintenance of their own farms. The thought of introducing farming in the Soviet Union seemed wild, and Kulakov even offered to free farmers from taxes in the first two years.

Despite a high post, it was released abroad only within the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Apparently, too free ideas about the structure of the Soviet village inspired some fear for his trustworthiness.

At the Kremlin wall

The departure from the life of Fedor Davydovich Kulakov was unexpected. The youngest by the standards of the Soviet nomenklatura, the leader died on July 17, 1978. His sudden death led to gossip and rumors. Apart from the cancer surgery successfully performed in 1969, Kulakov was a healthy and strong man. Although sharp criticism of the agricultural industry and himself, which sounded shortly before the fateful day at one of the party plenums, certainly did not add Fedor Davidovich health.

The official version of the cause of death is heart failure. But people who knew Kulakov discussed other possible versions: from murder to suicide. And the arguments for confirming their point of view were significant, because Kulakov was considered one of the likely successors of the aging Leonid Brezhnev as party general secretary. And he, with his point of view on the need for real changes in the economic sector of the economy, could be uncomfortable for many colleagues from the top Soviet leadership. In favor of this is the fact that a number of members of the Politburo did not attend the mourning ceremony. This was an unprecedented event in Soviet history.

After cremation, the ashes of F. D. Kulakov were buried in the Kremlin wall.

Wife Kulakova, Evdokia Fedorovna, after the death of her husband visited his homeland, the village of Fitizh. Here, in place of an old hut in which they settled after the wedding, built a new house and often came to Fitige for the summer. The house gradually began to resemble a museum, in which villagers eagerly looked. And undying memory is the best national monument to an outstanding person who, even after death, was not forgotten in his small homeland.