The last RSFSR premier who tried not to break Russia away
October 1989, at the CC CPSU meeting on the RSFSR political system: "Creating a separate Russian Communist Party is the path to splitting the Soviet Union." He directly opposed Gorbachev's plan.
A Soviet institutional figure who rose from aviation plant engineer to first secretary of the Kuibyshev and Voronezh regions. Sidelined as ambassador to Cuba under late Brezhnev, he was politically revived when Andropov sent him to Krasnodar to purge corruption. In 1983 he became chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers and a full Politburo member, leading the Russian republic's government for five years; immediately after Chernobyl he served as deputy chairman of the government commission dealing with the disaster. In 1988 he moved to chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, but when Gorbachev pushed for a separate Russian Communist Party in the final years of perestroika, Vorotnikov openly opposed it, defending the RSFSR within the union framework to the end.
Career Timeline
- 1942–60Kuibyshev aviation plant: engineer → party committee secretary
- 1961–67Kuibyshev region: party secretary → 2nd secretary → executive committee chair
- 1971–75First Secretary of Voronezh region
- 1975–79First Deputy Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers
- 1979–82Soviet Ambassador to Cuba
- 1982–83First Secretary of Krasnodar: anti-corruption purge
- 1983–88RSFSR Premier; full Politburo member
- 1988–90Chairman, RSFSR Supreme Soviet Presidium