Nikolay Viktorovich Podgorny

Ukrainian by ethnic origin, Nikolay Podgorny served as secretary in his home district's Komsomol committee in 1921-1923. He joined the Communist Party in 1930 and started working in engineering jobs in 1931. Podgorny's first government appointment came in 1939, as deputy people's commissar (1939-1940) of the food-processing industry in the Ukraine. He was promoted in 1940 to deputy people's commissar of food-processing industry of the USSR (1940-1942). In 1942-1944 Podgorny headed the Moscow Technological Food-processing Industry Institute and then returned to Ukraine as deputy people's commissar (1944-1946) of the food-processing industry. In 1946-1950 he was a resident representative of the Ukrainian government in the USSR Council of Ministers.

Podgorny assumed the first important party post as first secretary of the Kharkov regional party committee (1950-1953), and he soon rose to second secretary (1953-1957) and then first secretary (1957-1963) of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party. In 1952 he was appointed to the Central Revision Commission and in 1956 he became a full member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956-1981). He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee's Presidium (18 Jun 1958 - 4 May 1960) and promoted to full membership in the Presidium and later Politburo (4 May 1960 - 24 May 1977). On 21 Jun 1963, Leonid Brezhnev and Nikolay Podgorny were elected secretaries of the Central Committee.

Podgorny became involved in a power struggle with Brezhnev, who had become first secretary of the Central Committee in October 1964. Podgorny relinquished his secretaryship (6 Dec 1965) and was given the less-influential post of chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet (9 Dec 1965 - 16 Jun 1977). Podgorny enhanced his position of ceremonial head of state and traveled widely, but real power was in the hands of Brezhnev. On 24 May 1977, as a result of his resistance to Brezhnev's wish to hold both the party secretaryship and the Presidium chairmanship, Podgorny was removed from the Politburo and relieved of his duties as chairman of the Presidium (16 Jun 1977), with Brezhnev assuming the latter title. Thereafter Podgorny lived in retirement in Moscow. Biography source: [3, p. 474]