23 Facts About Mikhail Pervukhin

Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin was a Soviet official during the Stalin Era and Khrushchev Era.

Mikhail Pervukhin served as a First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, literally First Vice-Premier of the Soviet Union, from 1955 to 1957.

Mikhail Pervukhin was born on 14 October 1904 in the village of Yuryuzansky Zavod, Ufa governorate, Russian Empire to a Russian working-class family.

Mikhail Pervukhin began working for the Zlatoust newspaper Borba in October 1919, and worked there until February 1920 when he started to attend after-school lessons.

Mikhail Pervukhin fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War in the South Urals.

From October to November 1920 Mikhail Pervukhin was a member of the Bolshevik squad quelling the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Chrysostom.

From January 1921 to mid-autumn Mikhail Pervukhin worked as the Executive Secretary of the Proletarian Thought.

Mikhail Pervukhin was a member of the Bureau of the Zlatoust Komsomol District Committee, and later became the head of its Department for Political Education in April 1922.

Mikhail Pervukhin graduated in 1929 from the Electrical Department of the Plekhanov Moscow Institute of the National Economy with a degree in electrical engineering.

From June to September 1937, Mikhail Pervukhin worked as Mosenergo's Chief Engineer, and later that year became its acting head.

Mikhail Pervukhin started to work for the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry in late 1937, and was later appointed to the post of Deputy People's Commissar for Heavy Industry in 1938, and First Deputy People's Commissars for Heavy Industry in June 1937 when Lazar Kaganovich was People's Commissar for Heavy Industry.

From 1940 to 1942, during World War II, Mikhail Pervukhin served as a Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and from 1943 until 1950 he served as the Minister of Chemical Industry.

Stalin personally picked the members of the committee; Mikhail Pervukhin was one of nine members.

Mikhail Pervukhin was the Deputy Chairman under Vannikov's Chairmanship of the First Main Directorate of the Council of People's Commissars, the executive branch of the special committee.

Mikhail Pervukhin served as Chairman of the State Commission on the RDS-1 testing at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.

At the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1952, Mikhail Pervukhin delivered the main speech at the Moscow Kremlin commemoration.

From 5 March 1953 to 17 April 1954, Mikhail Pervukhin was the Minister of Power and Electrical Industry, and from December 1953 to February 1955, he was Chairman of the Bureau for Energy, Chemical and Forest Industries of the Council of Ministers.

Mikhail Pervukhin opposed Khrushchev's Regional Economic Soviet reform, whose main aim was to reduce the powers and functions of the central ministries.

Mikhail Pervukhin told Khrushchev and other Presidium members that this reform would weaken branch administration, and that the centralisation and specialisation which had been the system's cornerstone would be lost.

Later, in 1957, Mikhail Pervukhin joined the Anti-Party Group in a bid to remove Khrushchev as First Secretary.

Mikhail Pervukhin discussed other problems as well, claiming that Ulbricht but the East German leadership in general, were opposed to the Soviet Union's plan to improve relations with West Germany.

When Khrushchev gave his approval to construct what would become the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Pervukhin was the first to know.

Mikhail Pervukhin was succeeded in his post as Soviet ambassador to East Germany by Peter Abrassimov at the end of 1962.