Wartime steward of besieged Leningrad, first victim of the Leningrad Affair
On 13 August 1949, Popkov was summoned to Georgy Malenkov's office and arrested on the spot. It was the opening of the Leningrad Affair.
A Soviet party official from Vladimir Governorate, Popkov rose from carpenter's apprentice to First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional and City Party Committee. As chairman of the Leningrad City Soviet from 1939, he was the hands-on organiser of the city's survival during the 872-day siege: food supply, epidemic control, energy, and the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga. After the war he led reconstruction and the end of rationing, becoming First Secretary in 1946 and running the party apparatus in the USSR's second city. The Trade Fair he organised in January 1949 drew the hostility of Georgy Malenkov, triggering the fabricated Leningrad Affair; Popkov was arrested in Malenkov's office that August and executed in October 1950. He was judicially rehabilitated in 1954 and restored to the Party in 1987.
Career Timeline
- 1925–1926Secretary of Vladimir Volost Komsomol Committee
- 1926–1937Carpenter and researcher; graduated Leningrad Institute of Municipal Construction Engineers
- 1937–1938Chairman of Leninsky District Soviet Executive Committee, Leningrad
- 1938–1939First Deputy Chairman of Leningrad City Soviet
- 1939–1946Chairman of Leningrad City Soviet Executive Committee — managed city defence and supply throughout the siege
- 1941–1944Member of Defence Commission, Air Defence Army Military Council, and Extraordinary Anti-Epidemic Commission
- 1946–1949First Secretary of Leningrad Regional and City Party Committee; member of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
- 1949–1950Leningrad Affair: arrested, tried, and executed (judicially rehabilitated 1954, party rehabilitation 1987)