39 Facts About Nikolai Podgorny

Nikolai Podgorny later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kyiv Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931.

In 1930, Nikolai Podgorny became a member of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and climbed up the Soviet hierarchy after years of service to the country's centrally planned economy.

In October 1964, Nikolai Podgorny participated in a coup replacing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev with a troika consisting of himself, Premier Alexei Kosygin and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.

Nikolai Podgorny started work at the age of 17 as a student at the mechanical workshops in Karlovka.

In 1930, Nikolai Podgorny became a member of the All-Union Communist Party, the ruling party of the Soviet Union.

In 1931, Nikolai Podgorny graduated from the Kyiv Technological Institute of Food Industry and started working in the sugar industry.

Nikolai Podgorny was promoted to deputy chief engineer of Vinnytsia in 1937 and was promoted in 1939 as the chief engineer of the Kamenetz-Podolsk Oblast sugar trusts.

The next year, Nikolai Podgorny was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Food Industry of the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Podgorny became the Director of the Moscow Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1942 during World War II.

In 1953, Nikolai Podgorny was elevated to Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU.

From 1957 to 1963, Nikolai Podgorny was First Secretary of the CC of the CPU, effectively the most powerful position in Ukraine.

Nikolai Podgorny worked to increase the rate of industrial and agricultural production and to improve people's welfare.

Nikolai Podgorny paid particular attention to improving party organisation and educating new cadres.

In 1960, Nikolai Podgorny became a member of the Politburo, the highest policy-making authority in the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Podgorny acted as a Soviet emissary to Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Canada, and Yugoslavia.

Nikolai Podgorny's beliefs were strongly influenced by Khrushchev, and under Leonid Brezhnev's rule, Nikolai Podgorny was one of the most liberal members within the Soviet leadership, even more liberal than Premier Alexei Kosygin.

However, in 1962, Nikolai Podgorny reported to Khrushchev that agricultural output had again increased: Under Nikolai Podgorny's leadership, the Ukrainian SSR had doubled Ukraine's supply of grain to the state from the previous year.

Nikolai Podgorny's position was constantly threatened by Brezhnev and his allies.

Nikolai Podgorny launched a counterattack in his 1965 speech in Baku, Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, where he criticised the Soviet leadership's heavy industrial policy.

Later in December 1965, Nikolai Podgorny relinquished his seat in the Secretariat, and took Mikoyan's place as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Factionalism within the Soviet leadership in the 1960s led Nikolai Podgorny to become more active; he held several speeches in Moscow and went on numerous state visits at the expense of Brezhnev and Kosygin's popularity.

In 1971, the 24th Party Congress affirmed Brezhnev's and Kosygin's status as the leadership's current highest-ranking figures but Nikolai Podgorny nevertheless showed that he remained a major player in Soviet politics by leading delegations to China and North Vietnam later that year.

However, such an opportunity was often ignored due to how frequently Nikolai Podgorny found himself in conflict with Kosygin over policy issues.

In 1967, just before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, Nikolai Podgorny delivered an intelligence report to Egyptian Vice President Anwar Sadat which claimed, falsely, that Israeli troops were massing along the Syrian border.

In 1971 Nikolai Podgorny went on two state visits, the first to the People's Republic of China and the second to North Vietnam; Kosygin went on a visit to Canada while Brezhnev visited Yugoslavia.

Nikolai Podgorny frequently paid visits to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War to discuss Soviet-Vietnamese foreign relations.

In 1973, Nikolai Podgorny visited Finland and Mohammed Daoud Khan's Afghanistan.

The reason was simple: Brezhnev was third, while Nikolai Podgorny was first in the ranking of Soviet diplomatic protocol.

Under such circumstances, removing Nikolai Podgorny would be condemned among the Soviet elite for violating the principle of collective leadership.

Pleased by the extension of powers given to the Supreme Soviet, Nikolai Podgorny saw little threat to his position, even if a Central Committee resolution from 1971 had called for the expansion of Party activities in the Soviets.

Unbeknownst to Nikolai Podgorny, Brezhnev felt threatened by his new authority and ordered Konstantin Chernenko to review the 1936 Soviet Constitution for a way to weaken Nikolai Podgorny's position.

Nikolai Podgorny was nominally still Chairman of the Presidium, but his leadership had ended.

Twenty-three days after his removal from the Politburo, Nikolai Podgorny lost his Chairmanship of the Presidium on 16 June 1977.

Nikolai Podgorny retained his seat in the Supreme Soviet after his downfall.

Nikolai Podgorny was seen at the 61st anniversary reception of the October Revolution at the Grand Palace of the Kremlin in November 1978 by Tokichiro Uomoto, the Japanese Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Podgorny spoke to Brezhnev, Kosygin, and then to Andrei Gromyko, all of whom looked embarrassed by the presence of Nikolai Podgorny, according to Uomoto.

In Tretyakov Gallery, Nikolai Podgorny was removed from the 1977 painting of the Soviet leaders at the Red Square by Dmitry Nalbandyan in which Nikolai Podgorny stood between Brezhnev and Kosygin.

Nikolai Podgorny died of cancer in Kyiv on 12 January 1983, and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Nikolai Podgorny was awarded five Orders of Lenin, one Order of the Red Banner and several medals, as well as being awarded several foreign state prizes by Bangladesh, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Mongolian People's Republic, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and Finland.