First chairman of People's Control, Shelepin's deputy who became Brezhnev's auditor
When Brezhnev split the Party-State Control Committee in 1965, Shelepin lost his chairmanship — but his own deputy Kovanov was named chairman of the new People's Control Committee, a classic Brezhnev-era maneuver: promote the rival's lieutenant to neutralize the general.
A product of the party apparatus, he rose through the Agitprop department to become Second Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, then served as Alexander Shelepin's deputy at the Party-State Control Committee. When Brezhnev split the control apparatus in 1965 to curb Shelepin's ambitions, Kovanov was named chairman of the new USSR People's Control Committee, a post he held until 1971. His tenure coincided with the early Brezhnev-era transformation of the control organs into a mass-participation body with millions of volunteer inspectors auditing government and enterprise performance. Earlier he had been a rural teacher, collective farm chairman, and war correspondent on three fronts; after retirement he served as scientific advisor to an oil and gas construction research institute.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1930–1941Teacher, collective farm chairman, director of pedagogical laboratories and institutes under Narkompros RSFSR
- 1941–1942Head of Primary and Secondary Schools Administration, Narkompros RSFSR
- 1942–1944War correspondent on the Kalinin, North Caucasus, and 2nd Ukrainian fronts
- 1944–1956Instructor, sector head, and deputy department head in Agitprop, CC VKP(b)/CPSU
- 1956–1962Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia
- 1962–1965Deputy Chairman, Party-State Control Committee (under Shelepin)
- 1965–1971Chairman, USSR People's Control Committee
- 1971–1986Retired; scientific advisor at a research institute under the Ministry of Construction of Oil and Gas Industry
Related historical events
Chairmanship of the People's Control Committee
In November 1962, Kovanov moved to the post of deputy chairman of the Party-State Control Committee under the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. On 9 December 1965 he became chairman of the USSR People's Control Committee, serving until 22 July 1971. The institution succeeded the Party-State Control Committee of the Khrushchev period but placed greater emphasis on supervising government and economic activity than on party discipline, supplementing a small permanent staff with volunteers to monitor plan fulfillment and report problems from the workplace. An encyclopedia account reports that the volunteer corps numbered about ten million by 1980. Kovanov's chairmanship thus fell in the early phase of institutionalizing this mass-participation system of oversight. After leaving the post in 1971, he retired and later worked as scientific director for new forms of transport at a research institute under the Ministry of Construction of the Oil and Gas Industry.