Presidium member born a fisherman's son, party cadres chief who loved to fish
Sergei Khrushchev recalled: 'More than once I heard father express disappointment with Averky Borisovich Aristov: you start talking to him about business, and he always changes the subject to fishing.'
Born into a poor Cossack fishing family in Astrakhan, he rose from metallurgical engineer to party cadre, catching Stalin's eye and landing a Presidium seat and CC secretary post in 1952. Purged by Malenkov after Stalin's death, Khrushchev rehabilitated him and after the anti-party group's defeat in 1957 he returned to the Presidium, effectively overseeing party affairs for the Russian republic. Khrushchev scapegoated him for the 'Ryazan affair' and banished him to the Warsaw embassy in 1961; at the 1964 plenum that ousted Khrushchev, Aristov formally moved to insert the phrase 'did not justify the trust of the CC' into the resolution.
Career Timeline
- 1940–46Party secretary in Sverdlovsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk
- 1946–50First Secretary, Chelyabinsk regional party
- 1950–52First Secretary, Krasnoyarsk krai party
- 1952–53Presidium member & CC Secretary for party/trade union/Komsomol organs
- 1955–60CC Secretary (reappointed)
- 1957–61Presidium member (reinstated), RSFSR Bureau deputy chair
- 1961–71Soviet ambassador to Poland
- 1971–73Soviet ambassador to Austria
Related historical events
The Ryazan Affair and Downfall
The most dramatic turning point in Aristov's career was the so-called 'Ryazan affair' of 1959–1961. As Khrushchev pressured regional parties to boost meat production in his drive to catch up with America, Ryazan First Secretary Aleksei Larionov made the outlandish pledge to increase meat output 3.8-fold in a single year. Aristov, as the de facto head of the RSFSR Bureau, was the official supervising the campaign. He and Larionov had a long history: back in 1952, when Larionov faced dismissal over food-supply disruptions and drew Stalin's wrath, Aristov, then a CC secretary, had saved him at the cost of souring his own relations with Malenkov.
By spring 1959, reports were flooding into the Central Committee of mass fraud in Ryazan: confiscating peasants' milk cows and young calves, buying livestock cheap from neighboring regions and relabeling it as 'Ryazan produce.' A memo from CC department heads stated that 'especially gross violations and distortions of Soviet law have been committed in Ryazan Oblast.' Aristov reviewed the memo and instructed staff to prepare proposals, but Khrushchev blocked any investigation and even awarded Larionov the Hero of Socialist Labor. In September 1960, with the fraud impossible to conceal any longer, Larionov shot himself.
Khrushchev needed a scapegoat. Aristov dutifully authored the investigative report under instructions, a document that quoted Khrushchev's own words ('If you see you're falling short, say so honestly and the CC will not condemn you') to emphasize the leader's foresight, while pinning the blame on Aristov's own 'failure of supervision.' Khrushchev had 600 copies printed and distributed nationwide, then at the December 1960 extended Presidium session publicly berated Aristov for 'groupism.' At the January 1961 CC plenum, Khrushchev called Aristov 'a very good and honest comrade' but announced his removal, saying 'on this sector he apparently lacks the requisite abilities.' Aristov declined a make-work deputy post on an economic council and, with the help of Second Secretary Kozlov, secured the Warsaw ambassadorship, a form of honorable exile. The Ryazan affair was later cited among the grievances aired by Presidium members when they ousted Khrushchev in October 1964.