Gorbachev's last agriculture Politburo member: operational chief of perestroika farm policy
In August 1991, when the GKChP was formed, Stroev refused to recognise it — one of the few perestroika-era Politburo members who did not side with the coup.
Stroev began as a collective-farm shepherd in the Oryol countryside and graduated from the Michurinsk Horticultural Institute, a classic Soviet agricultural technocrat. Over three decades he rose through the Oryol party apparatus to become oblast first secretary in 1985, and in 1989 Gorbachev brought him to Moscow as Central Committee Secretary for Agriculture, adding Politburo membership in 1990. As the operational chief of perestroika farm policy, he oversaw the reorganisation of the agro-industrial complex and the response to a deepening food crisis, and he refused to endorse the GKChP during the August 1991 coup. After the Soviet collapse he reinvented himself as a post-Soviet regional heavyweight, serving as governor of Oryol Oblast (1993–2009) and chairman of the Federation Council (1996–2001).
Career Timeline
- 1973–1984Secretary for Agriculture, Oryol Oblast Party Committee
- 1984–1985Instructor, CPSU Central Committee
- 1985–1989First Secretary, Oryol Oblast Party Committee
- 1986–1991Member, CPSU Central Committee
- 1989–1991CPSU Central Committee Secretary (Agriculture)
- 1990–1991Member, CPSU Politburo
- 1993–2009Governor of Oryol Oblast
- 1996–2001Chairman, Federation Council of Russia