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.
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