Cadres chief pushed from late-Stalin Secretariat into diplomacy
During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, Pegov appeared at the Indian Foreign Ministry and declared: "The Soviet fleet is already in the Indian Ocean, and the USSR will not allow the Seventh Fleet to intervene."
A Soviet party-state functionary who rose to CC secretary and candidate Presidium member in Stalin's final year, then was transferred to diplomatic postings under Khrushchev. In October 1952 he joined Malenkov and Suslov as one of three officials alternating chairmanship of Secretariat meetings in Stalin's absence, but was removed from both bodies immediately after Stalin's death. Made Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1953–1956), he ran the state apparatus before his transfer to diplomacy as ambassador to Iran, Algeria, and India, concluding as deputy foreign minister in 1973. During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, he publicly assured India that the Soviet Navy would prevent the US Seventh Fleet from intervening, a concrete demonstration of Soviet naval deterrence.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 19383rd Secretary, Far Eastern Regional Committee; 1st Secretary, Primorsky Org Bureau
- 1939–19471st Secretary, Primorsky Krai Committee (concurrently 1st Secretary, Vladivostok City Committee from 1940)
- 1941–1945Member, Military Councils of the Far Eastern Front and Pacific Fleet
- 1947–1952Deputy Chief, CC Party Organs Verification; Head of Light Industry; Head of Party/Trade Union/Komsomol Organs; Head of Cadres Dept.
- 1952–1953CC Secretary and candidate member of the CC Presidium
- 1953–1956Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
- 1956–1973Ambassador to Iran (1956–63), Algeria (1964–67), India (1967–73)
- 1973–1982Deputy Foreign Minister; Head of CC Dept. for Foreign Cadres and Travel Abroad
The Soviet Politburo
- Candidate 1952.10–1953.03
1953.03 removed
Related historical events
Far Eastern leadership and the founding of Nakhodka port, 1938-1947
In June 1938 Pegov became a responsible organizer in the CC department for leading party organs, and in September that year he was appointed third secretary of the Far Eastern krai committee and left for Khabarovsk. When the Central Committee soon decided to divide the Far Eastern krai on the grounds that its vast area made it hard to administer, he gathered proposals from local officials and the military and sent a partition plan to Moscow, which was adopted. A decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet dated 20 October 1938 created Khabarovsk krai and Primorsky krai; he took up the post of first secretary of the party organizing bureau for Primorsky krai in Vladivostok, became first secretary of the Primorsky krai committee on 16 February 1939, and from 1940 concurrently held the same post in the Vladivostok city committee.
A central task of his tenure was building a new port. Primorye then had no developed harbor besides the already overloaded Vladivostok, and large quantities of explosives bound for Dalstroy were being concentrated there by rail. When Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov visited Vladivostok in April 1939, Pegov and fleet commander Nikolai Kuznetsov inspected Nakhodka Bay with him aboard a destroyer, and construction of a port began there soon afterward.
After the German invasion in June 1941, Primorye had to serve as a wartime production base while preparing for a possible war with Japan. In October that year Stalin summoned Pegov, Pacific Fleet commander Ivan Yumashev and Far Eastern Front commander Iosif Apanasenko to Moscow to set out how to respond to a Japanese entry into the war, and Pegov was also made responsible for preparing partisan warfare. Around that time the composition of the underground district party committees in Primorye was approved, partisan bases were established in the taiga, and wartime contributions financed an armored train, tank columns and a bomber squadron. When the Far Eastern Front was reorganized into the 1st Far Eastern Front on 5 August 1945, during the Soviet-Japanese War, he became a member of its military council and of the Pacific Fleet's military council.
In March 1947 he returned to Moscow as deputy head of the CC directorate for the verification of party organs, went on to head the light industry department on 10 July 1948 and the department for party, trade union and Komsomol organs, doubling as the department for the selection and assignment of cadres, on 16 February 1952, and in October that year became a CC secretary and candidate member of the Presidium. On 30 March 1941 he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet in a by-election for the constituency whose previous deputy, Vasily Blyukher, had been repressed in 1938.