An Old Bolshevik survivor who pressed the Soviet leadership toward de-Stalinization
When Mikoyan urged him to leave for Sochi, Snegov refused to go until his Party card was returned.
Alexei Snegov was an Old Bolshevik who had worked in the early Soviet party apparatus before fabricated charges during the Great Purge sent him to the Gulag for more than fifteen years. Released and rehabilitated in 1954, he became an adviser to Nikita Khrushchev and Anastas Mikoyan, bringing the leadership testimony about camp violence and the need to rehabilitate victims. Alongside Olga Shatunovskaya, he pressed Khrushchev to condemn Stalin and the cult of personality at the 20th Party Congress. He continued to advocate a deeper de-Stalinization, drawing surveillance and official attacks, and was briefly expelled from the Communist Party in 1967 before being reinstated.
Career Timeline
- 1917Joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
- 1918–1921Worked in the underground party organizations of Vinnytsia and Podolia, then served as executive secretary of the Podolia Governorate committee
- 1930Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine
- 1931–1937Held party and political-sector posts in Transcaucasia, Irkutsk, Chelyabinsk, Chapayevsk and Murmansk
- 1937–1954Arrested in the Great Purge and spent more than fifteen years in the Gulag and exile
- 1954–1960After release and rehabilitation, headed the Gulag political department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
- 1956Pressed for condemnation of Stalin and rehabilitation of victims around the 20th Party Congress
- 1967Briefly expelled from the Communist Party, then reinstated