Architect of perestroika cadres, last surviving Politburo member
In January 1989, Vilnius city party leaders sent Razumovsky a second appeal for a response to their criticisms — none came, and that December the Lithuanian CP declared independence.
Gorbachev's cadre chief, Razumovsky headed the CC Organizational-Party Work Department (1985–1988) and chaired the Party Building and Cadre Policy Commission (1988–1990), driving the largest personnel turnover of perestroika. An agronomist who rose to First Secretary of Krasnodar Kraikom (1983–1985), he became CC Secretary and candidate Politburo member in 1986. Under Gorbachev's banner of intra-party democracy, his rigid delegate quotas fueled a backlash in Lithuania's Communist Party that contributed to its secession. He later served as Consul General in Shanghai (1990–1992) and is, as of 2025, the last living member of the 1986 Politburo.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1958Graduated Kuban Agricultural Institute, collective farm agronomist
- 1959–1961First Secretary, district Komsomol committee
- 1964–1967First Secretary, Korenovsk District Party Committee
- 1967–1971Head, Organizational-Party Work Dept, Krasnodar Kraikom
- 1971–1973Deputy then head of sector, CC Org-Party Work Dept
- 1973–1981Chairman, Krasnodar Krai Executive Committee
- 1981–1983Head, Agricultural Dept, USSR Council of Ministers Admin
- 1983–1985First Secretary, Krasnodar Kraikom CPSU
- 1985–1988Head, CC Org-Party Work Dept (succeeding Ligachev)
- 1986–1990Secretary, CPSU Central Committee
- 1988Head, CC Party Building and Cadre Work Dept
- 1988–1990Chairman, CC Commission on Party Building and Cadre Policy; candidate PB member
- 1990–1992USSR Consul General in Shanghai
The Soviet Politburo
- Candidate 1988.02–1990.07
1990.07 not re-elected
Related historical events
Delegate selection for the 1988 Nineteenth Party Conference and the Lithuanian backlash
The Nineteenth All-Union Party Conference, convened in 1988, was the first such conference since 1941. As head of the Organizational-Party Work Department, Razumovsky was the party official in charge of the practical side of the conference, including the preparation of delegate selection and conference business.
The Lithuanian delegation sent to Moscow had been the object of open contention in Vilnius. On 9 July 1988, Sąjūdis gathered more than 100,000 people in Vingis Park to welcome home the delegates returning from the conference in Moscow. Complaints that the delegate list had been drawn up at the centre and handed down surfaced in Lithuania from this time.
At the 28th Party Congress in July 1990 the rules for delegate selection changed again: higher party bodies were allowed to fill roughly 10 percent of delegate seats from their own list, a measure that effectively nullified the district- and city-level contests then under way.
In Lithuania, this administrative practice produced the worst possible result at the worst possible time. In January 1989 the Vilnius city party organization sent the Central Committee's organizational-party work department a letter criticising the delegate quotas and the conduct of the elections, and demanded a reply; none came. On 20 December 1989, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of Lithuania voted by 855 of 1,033 delegates to declare that the party was "an independent political organization with a programme and rules of its own" and to break with the CPSU, making it the first republican party to sever its ties with the Soviet Communist Party.
It was no accident that the official who had risen through the Organizational-Party Work Department and had kept handling Lithuanian questions was pushed out to the backwater of the Shanghai consulate that same year. In July 1990, at the 28th Party Congress, Razumovsky lost both his CC secretary post and his seat as candidate member of the Politburo.