Anastas Mikoyan

Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (Անաստաս Հովհաննեսի Միկոյան in Armenian; Анаста́с Ива́нович Микоя́н in Russian) (1895–1978) was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the Stalin and Khrushchev years.

Related Topics:
Armenian - Russian - Old Bolshevik - Soviet - Stalin - Khrushchev

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Mikoyan was born on November 25 1895 in the Armenian village of Sanahin (now part of Alaverdi), and educated in a seminary. At the age of twenty, he joined the Bolshevik Party and became a leader of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus. In 1918, he was arrested by interventionist British troops in Baku. After his release, he continued his Party work, rising in the ranks.

Related Topics:
November 25 - 1895 - Armenia - Sanahin - Alaverdi - Bolshevik - Caucasus - 1918 - British - Baku

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He supported Stalin in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death and was appointed to the Central Committee in 1923. He went on to become People's Commissar for external and internal trade in 1926, and imported ideas from the West, such as the manufacture of canned goods. In 1935 he was elected to the Politburo, and was responsible for organizing the transport of supplies during World War II. In 1942 he became a member of the State Defense Committee, and in 1946, vice chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Related Topics:
Lenin - Central Committee - 1923 - 1926 - 1935 - World War II - 1942 - 1946

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He remained in the government after Stalin's death, in the post of minister of trade under Malenkov. He supported Khrushchev in the power struggle to succeed Stalin, and was made Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union in recognition of his services. Mikoyan was sent to Hungary in October 1956 to resolve the crisis caused by the uprising against the communist government there. He strongly opposed the decision by Khrushchev and the politiboro to use Soviet troops believing it would destroy the Soviet Union's international reputation. He threatened to resign according to William Taubman's recent biography of Khrushchev. In 1957, he refused to back the attempt to remove Khrushchev led by Malenkov and Molotov and he became Khrushchev's closest ally. His motivation for backing Khrushchev was because of his strong support for de-stalinization and his belief that a triumph by the plotters might presage a return to the murderous purges of the 1930s.

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He continued to hold numerous other posts in the field of trade, and made a number of state visits to the U.S., Japan, and Mexico as well as retaining the title of 1st Deputy Premier. It would appear that Mikoyan continued to hold moderate views on the cold war and was unhappy with Khrushchev's brinkmanship over Berlin (1958-61) and over Khrushchev's walk out from the 1960 Paris Summit over the U2 incident, which he believed kept tension in the cold war high for another fifteen years. However, throughout this time, he remained Khrushchev's closest ally in the upper echelons of the Soviet leadership. His importance and stature might be gauged from his attendence at the funeral of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, representing the Soviet Union, where he assured President Lyndon Johnson that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the assasination despite the involvement of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald had briefly defected to the Soviet Union prior to his involvement in the assasination of Kennedy.

Related Topics:
U.S. - Japan - Mexico - Funeral of U.S. President John F. Kennedy - 1963 - President - Lyndon Johnson - Assasination - Lee Harvey Oswald

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