Agriculture secretary seen as a Brezhnev successor whose sudden death opened the seat for Gorbachev
When the commission preparing the April 1978 agricultural plenum was formed, Kulakov—the Politburo member and secretary in charge of agriculture—was not even included. Three months later, he collapsed from cardiac arrest.
A peasant's son who rose through the agricultural specialist track, Kulakov served as CC Secretary for Agriculture from 1965 and was one of only four men (alongside Brezhnev, Suslov, and Kirilenko) holding seats in both the Secretariat and the Politburo. As Stavropol First Secretary he discovered and mentored Mikhail Gorbachev; after entering the Politburo in 1971, Western analysts widely regarded him as a leading candidate to succeed Brezhnev. His sudden death in 1978, amid intra-party criticism over agricultural policy, opened his Secretariat seat for Gorbachev and became a watershed in the Soviet leadership succession.
Career Timeline
- 1938–1941Assistant at a sugar-beet sovkhoz in Tambov, then agronomist at a sugar combine in Penza
- 1941–1944First secretary of a district Komsomol committee, district executive chairman, then district party first secretary in Penza Oblast
- 1950–1955Chairman of the Penza Oblast Executive Committee
- 1955–1959Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the RSFSR
- 1959–1960Minister of Grain Products of the RSFSR
- 1960–1964First Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom — discovers and promotes Gorbachev
- 1964–1976Head of the CC Agricultural Department
- 1965–1978CC Secretary for Agriculture
- 1971–1978Politburo member (skipping candidate membership)
Related historical events
Sudden Death and the Succession Question
By the late 1970s Kulakov was the only Politburo member in his sixties who also held a Secretariat seat. A full generation younger than Brezhnev, Suslov, and Kirilenko, he was widely identified by Western analysts as the leading candidate to succeed Brezhnev. But the climate shifted abruptly in early 1978. When the commission preparing the April agricultural plenum was formed, Kulakov, the Politburo member and secretary responsible for agriculture, was not even included; Kosygin chaired it instead. On 4 July the Central Committee plenum openly criticized him for the poor state of agriculture.
On the night of 16 July, Kulakov was found dead of cardiac arrest at his dacha outside Moscow. The official cause was 'acute heart failure with sudden cardiac arrest.' Yet rumors persisted within and beyond the Party apparatus: some said he shot himself, others whispered of murder. Fyodor Morgun, a longtime associate from the Stavropol days, recalled that 'persistent rumors circulated in Central Committee circles (and beyond) that he had shot himself.' Alexander Yakovlev relayed both the slit-wrist and gunshot versions while citing Gorbachev's memoir: there had been a major family row that evening and no one had been with him through the night. Mikhail Smirtyukov offered yet another account, claiming two empty cognac bottles were found beside the bed, suggesting excessive drinking as the immediate cause.
The funeral was a political signal. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Suslov, and even Chernenko, Kulakov's old associate from Penza, stayed away, confirming the deceased's fall from favor. Kirilenko chaired the funeral commission; Gorbachev delivered the eulogy, his first appearance on the Red Square podium. A few months later Gorbachev inherited Kulakov's agriculture secretaryship and with it a place on the central political stage. Kulakov's death became an unexpected watershed in the Soviet leadership succession.