The conservative apparatchik who founded the Russian republic's Communist Party
Gorbachev later said: 'I have known Polozkov for a very long time. He is an honest, decent fellow, but stupid and uneducated. Someone writes something for him, and he recites it.'
Founding First Secretary of the Communist Party of the RSFSR (1990–1991), the first republican-level Communist Party in Russian history, and the public face of the conservative anti-perestroika opposition within the CPSU. In May 1990 he contested Boris Yeltsin for the chairmanship of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet and led in early counts before the Politburo ordered him to stand down; weeks later the founding congress elected him to lead the new Russian party. A provincial apparatchik who had run the Krasnodar party organization for five years, he rose to the CPSU Politburo but was caught between reformers and hardliners, resigning after a heart attack in August 1991. He remained a symbolic elder of the Russian communist movement through the CPRF's consultative council after the party's dissolution.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1957–1962Komsomol and party functionary, Solntsevo district, Kursk Oblast
- 1969–1972Deputy department head, Kursk Oblast Party Committee
- 1972Chairman, Rylsk District Executive Committee
- 1973–1978, 1980–1983CPSU Central Committee apparatus
- 1983–1984Ideology secretary, Krasnodar Krai Party Committee
- 1984–1985Sector head, Organizational-Party Work Dept, CPSU CC
- 1985–1990First Secretary, Krasnodar Krai Party Committee
- 1990–1991First Secretary, CPRSFSR CC · CPSU Politburo member
The Soviet Politburo
- Full member 1990.07–1991.08
served until the party ban of 1991.11
Related historical events
The 1990 Supreme Soviet contest and the founding of the Russian republican party
From 1989 a sector of the party opposed to Gorbachev demanded a republican-level Communist Party for the RSFSR, as the other Union republics had. The RSFSR was the only Soviet republic without a republican party of its own, and in December 1989 the Central Committee plenum responded not by creating one but by reviving a Russian Bureau of the Central Committee chaired by Gorbachev. Polozkov, who headed the Krasnodar krai party organization, was elected a USSR People's Deputy in April 1989 and in April 1990 also became chairman of the Krasnodar krai Soviet of People's Deputies. At the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, held from 16 May to 22 June 1990, he stood for chairman of the Supreme Soviet as the main candidate of the conservative and communist camp against the liberal candidate Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin led narrowly in both rounds: 497 votes to Polozkov's 473 in the first, then 503 to 458 in the second. Polozkov later recalled that before the decisive vote he was ahead by 120 to 130 votes, but was summoned to the Politburo and told, in the tone of an order, to withdraw to avoid a split. The communist camp replaced him with Alexander Vlasov as its candidate, and Yeltsin defeated Vlasov and was elected. A month later, on 19 June, the founding congress of the Communist Party of the RSFSR opened in Moscow with 2,768 delegates. Valentin Kuptsov, backed by Gorbachev and the all-Union party leadership, was routed with only 343 votes, and Polozkov defeated Oleg Lobov in the run-off by 1,396 votes to 1,066 and was elected first secretary on 22 June. For the first time in the RSFSR's history a republican-level Communist Party had been founded, and at its head stood a former provincial party official regarded as a hardliner. The founding congress concluded at its second session on 4–6 September, electing 272 members of the Central Committee and 96 members of the Central Control Commission; by then the Communist Party of the RSFSR held about 40 percent of the seats in the newly formed Russian Supreme Soviet. He played an important part in defining the party as a rallying point for the forces opposed to perestroika, but his leadership was judged passive: deputies of the Russian Supreme Soviet criticised him for not attacking Gorbachev, while party members in Kaliningrad criticised him for opposing Yeltsin.