Agriculture minister of late stagnation
In 1978 the USSR reaped a record 237 million tons of grain. Mesyats later recalled: "We applied one centner of fertilizer per hectare; Europe used ten."
The son of a Kuzbass miner, he served as USSR Minister of Agriculture (1976–1985), managing the sector as food imports grew during the stagnation years. Under Gorbachev he became First Secretary of the Moscow Oblast Party Committee, remaining active into the perestroika period.
Career Timeline
- 1953–1958MTS chief agronomist & director (Moscow Oblast)
- 1958–1961Chekhov district executive chairman & Volokolamsk district first secretary
- 1965–1971First Deputy Minister of Agriculture, RSFSR
- 1971–1976Second Secretary, CP of Kazakhstan
- 1976–1985USSR Minister of Agriculture
- 1985–1990First Secretary, Moscow Oblast Party Committee
Related historical events
From Miner's Son to Minister: 1953–1976
Mesyats was born to a miner's family in Kiselevsk, Kemerovo Oblast, and began working at age 13. After graduating from the Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy in 1953, he was posted as chief agronomist of a machine-tractor station (MTS) in Lopasnya (now Chekhov) district, Moscow Oblast, just as Khrushchev's agricultural reforms were gathering pace. He became MTS director the following year, and after five years of hands-on management was promoted to chairman of the Chekhov district executive committee (1958) and then first secretary of the Volokolamsk district party committee (1959). By 1961 he headed Moscow Oblast's agricultural administration; in 1964 he became second secretary of the oblast party committee, and in 1965 first deputy minister of agriculture of the RSFSR. Over these twelve years he experienced firsthand Khrushchev's maize campaign, the amalgamation of collective farms into state farms, and the surge in agricultural investment under early Brezhnev. In 1971, with Brezhnev's direct backing, he was dispatched to Alma-Ata as second secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, where under First Secretary Dinmukhamed Kunayev he drove the continuing exploitation of the Virgin Lands and the construction of large-scale livestock complexes. His five-year record in Kazakhstan earned him appointment as USSR Minister of Agriculture in March 1976.