20 Facts About Nikolai Bulganin

Nikolai Bulganin joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917 and was recruited in 1918 into the Cheka, the Bolshevik regime's political police, where he served until 1922.

Nikolai Bulganin worked with Kaganovich again in Turkestan in 1920.

Nikolai Bulganin was the director of the Moscow electricity supply from 1927 to 1931.

Nikolai Bulganin came into office soon after Kaganovich had been put in charge of the Moscow party organisation.

In July 1937, Nikolai Bulganin was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic after the arrest of the previous incumbent, Daniil Sulimov.

Nikolai Bulganin became a full member of the Central Committee later that year.

Nikolai Bulganin's first posting was as chief political commissar on the Western Front, which was commanded by Marshal Timoshenko.

Nikolai Bulganin held similar posts until July 1944, when he was appointed the Soviet representative on the Polish Committee of National Liberation.

Nikolai Bulganin was appointed USSR Deputy Minister for Defence, the Minister being Joseph Stalin.

In March 1946, Nikolai Bulganin became a candidate member of the 18th Politburo of the Communist Party.

Nikolai Bulganin reached the highest rank in the Red Army, despite only having served as political officer.

Nikolai Bulganin's role was to ensure that none of the genuine wartime commanders, particularly Marshal Zhukov, became powerful enough to threaten Stalin.

Pavel Sudoplatov, who participated in conferences in the Kremlin with him, wrote contemptuously about how Nikolai Bulganin failed to understand elementary military concepts.

Unlike Khrushchev or Beria, Nikolai Bulganin was always smartly dressed and looked like an old nobleman, with well-groomed grey hair and goatee.

Nikolai Bulganin was a man without any political principles, only the obedient servant of any leader.

In March 1949, Nikolai Bulganin was replaced as Minister for Defence by a career soldier, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and then was responsible for the arms industry.

Nikolai Bulganin impressed those who had worked with him in the State Bank, including a famous expert on banking, with his high intelligence, mild manners, and capacity to learn in a very short time the most special and difficult of problems.

Nikolai Bulganin was generally seen as a supporter of Khrushchev's reforms and destalinisation.

Nikolai Bulganin's wife was Elena Mikhailovna Korovina, an English teacher from a Moscow school.

Nikolai Bulganin died on February 24,1975, after a long illness at the age 79 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.