The last Soviet ambassador to watch the GDR dissolve
On the night of 9 November 1989, as the Berlin Wall came down, Kochemasov tried unsuccessfully to telephone Gorbachev, then Shevardnadze, for instructions. He did nothing.
Soviet politician and diplomat who served as Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers for 21 years (1962–1983), overseeing cultural and social policy in the Russian republic, while also chairing the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments (1966–1983). Appointed Soviet ambassador to East Germany in 1983, he held this critical Cold War post through the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, when he was unable to reach Mikhail Gorbachev or Eduard Shevardnadze for instructions. In April 1990 he delivered to East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière the Soviet 'Non-paper' setting out eleven conditions for German reunification, representing Moscow's interests as the GDR dissolved.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1946–1948First Secretary, Gorky Oblast Komsomol Committee
- 1949–1955Secretary, Komsomol Central Committee
- 1955–1960Counsellor / Minister-Counsellor, Soviet Embassy in the GDR
- 1961–1962Deputy / First Deputy Chairman, State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
- 1962–1983Deputy Chairman, RSFSR Council of Ministers
- 1966–1983Chairman, Presidium of the Central Council, All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments
- 1966–1983Candidate Member, CC CPSU
- 1983–1990Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR to the GDR
- 1983–1990Member, CC CPSU
Related historical events
From the Gorky Komsomol to youth anti-fascist diplomacy
Kochemasov's career began in youth organisation and international youth exchange work, before the cultural and social policy responsibilities that define his public profile. He graduated from the Gorky Institute of Water Transport Engineers in 1941 without defending a diploma thesis, and from that year to 1942 served as secretary of the institute's Komsomol committee. He was first secretary of the Sverdlovsky district Komsomol committee in Gorky in 1942-1943, secretary and then second secretary of the Gorky oblast Komsomol committee in 1943-1946, and first secretary of that committee in 1946-1948. He joined the Communist Party in 1942.
The most distinctive strand of this period is his anti-fascist youth diplomacy. He was deputy chairman of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Youth in 1948-1949, chaired it in 1949-1954, and concurrently served as a secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee in 1949-1955. That committee, founded in 1941 and reorganised in 1956 into the USSR Committee of Youth Organisations, handled international youth contacts rather than the direct propaganda of communist ideology that was the Komsomol's remit, and both bodies were heavily staffed with cadres from the state security apparatus.
This track led him toward German affairs. From 1955 to 1958 he was counsellor at the Soviet embassy in the GDR and from 1958 to 1960 minister-counsellor, gaining his first on-site experience of the country that later became his main stage. After serving in 1960-1961 as a deputy department head in the Soviet foreign ministry, he moved in 1961 to the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries as a deputy and then first deputy chairman, and in 1962 transferred to the post of Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, opening 21 years of cultural and social policy work. This path, from a regional Komsomol post in Gorky through youth exchange and cultural diplomacy to a republican deputy premiership, shows that in 1983 he was not a novice sent into diplomacy but a figure who had already accumulated long practical experience in international youth contacts and in East German affairs.