Brezhnev-era industrial technocrat who ran the Russian republic for 12 years
Brezhnev, appointing Solomentsev as RSFSR premier: 'We have no separate Communist Party of Russia — I lead the Russian party organizations as General Secretary, and I ask you to be my deputy for the Russian Federation.'
A mechanical engineer from the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute who rose from defense-plant floors to chair the RSFSR Council of Ministers for an unprecedented 12 years (1971–1983), managing the economy of the largest Soviet republic as Brezhnev's unofficial 'deputy for the Russian Federation.' Elevated to the Politburo and chairmanship of the Party Control Committee in 1983, he led the 1987–1988 commission to rehabilitate victims of Stalin-era repression but was abruptly purged by Gorbachev at the September 1988 CC plenum.
Career Timeline
- 1940Graduated Leningrad Polytechnical Institute; assigned to defense plant
- 1941–1948Party organizer at evacuated defense plants in the Urals
- 1948–1954Chief engineer then director of plants in Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk
- 1955–1959Secretary, Second Secretary of Chelyabinsk Oblast, then Sovnarkhoz chairman
- 1959–1962First Secretary, Karaganda Oblast Committee, Kazakhstan
- 1962–1964Second Secretary, CC of Communist Party of Kazakhstan
- 1964–1966First Secretary, Rostov Oblast Committee
- 1966–1971CC Secretary and Head of Heavy Industry Department
- 1971–1983Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers
- 1983–1988Chairman, Party Control Committee; full Politburo member
- 1987–1988Chaired Politburo Commission for rehabilitation of victims of 1930s–1950s repression
- 1988Dismissed from all posts at September CC plenum; retired
Related historical events
- 1985–1991Perestroika and GlasnostRehabilitation chair, 1988 purgeHe chaired the Politburo commission for rehabilitation of Stalin-era victims (1987–1988), but was abruptly dismissed from the Politburo by Gorbachev at the September 1988 CC plenum.
- 1985–1988The Anti-Alcohol CampaignAs chairman of the Party Control Committee, directed enforcement.
Rehabilitation Commission (1987–1988)
Solomentsev's most historically significant role was chairing the Politburo Rehabilitation Commission established by Gorbachev in September 1987. The commission included Alexander Yakovlev, KGB chairman Viktor Chebrikov, the USSR Prosecutor General, and the Minister of Internal Affairs. Its first case was the "right-Trotskyite bloc" (Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and 18 others), all of whom were posthumously rehabilitated. In an August 1988 Pravda interview, Solomentsev revealed that 636 people had already been rehabilitated and declared that "the personal guilt of Stalin and the people closest to him before the party and people for the mass repressions and lawlessness is dreadful," pledging also to identify "the voluntary executors, those who blindly fulfilled inhumane instructions." Yet one month later, at the September 1988 CC plenum, Solomentsev himself was abruptly purged from the Politburo by Gorbachev. The commission passed to Yakovlev, whom Solomentsev later accused in his memoirs of turning it into "a tool of anti-communist forces" that helped "denigrate the Soviet past."