The RSFSR premier who never stopped speaking bluntly to Brezhnev
“Voronov was a blunt man and told Brezhnev to his face everything he thought.” — Mikhail Smirtyukov, chief of staff of the USSR Council of Ministers
A hands-on party man who rose from electrician to RSFSR premier and full Politburo member. He backed Kosygin's reform and championed the 'zveno' autonomous work teams, but was blocked by Brezhnev and removed from the Politburo in 1973.
Career Timeline
- 1929–37Worked as electrician and brigade leader; graduated Tomsk Industrial Institute
- 1937–48Party propaganda and organization work in Prokopyevsk and Chita
- 1948–55First Secretary, Chita Oblast Party Committee
- 1955–57Deputy Minister of Agriculture, USSR
- 1957–61First Secretary, Orenburg (Chkalov) Oblast Party Committee
- 1961–73Member of the Presidium/Politburo: candidate 1961, full 1961–73
- 1962–71Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers (Premier)
- 1971–73Chairman of the USSR People's Control Committee
- 1973Agricultural reform plan (zveno) rejected by Brezhnev; removed from Politburo
Related historical events
From Khrushchev to Brezhnev: A Reformist Politburo Member's Isolation
Voronov was a pragmatic reformer who opposed Khrushchev's agricultural adventurism while supporting Kosygin's 1965 economic reform. At the October 1964 Central Committee plenum that ousted Khrushchev, Voronov delivered a blunt blow: "For three and a half years I have not been able to express an opinion without being shouted at. You think you're an expert on agriculture, but you have no friends here." His relations with the new General Secretary Brezhnev proved no better. Voronov was one of the few Politburo members to oppose the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, and he pushed for introducing autonomous small-scale work units (zveno) within kolkhozes to raise labor productivity. Brezhnev saw all of these proposals as threats to centralized control. In 1971, Voronov was removed as RSFSR premier and shunted to the lesser post of People's Control Committee chairman; in April 1973, he was dropped from the Politburo entirely. He was among the last hands-on reformers in the Soviet leadership who never stopped speaking his mind.