Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Mikoyan | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Анастас Микоян Անաստաս Միկոյան | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet | |||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 15 July 1964 – 9 December 1965 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Leonid Brezhnev | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Nikolai Podgorny | ||||||||||||||||||||||
First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 28 February 1955 – 15 July 1964 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Premier | Nikolai Bulganin Nikita Khrushchev | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Nikolai Bulganin | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Alexei Kosygin | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Anastas Ovaneysovich Mikoyan 25 November 1895 RSDLP (Bolsheviks ) (1915–1918) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse |
Ashkhen Tumanyan
(m. 1920; died 1962) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 5 (Stepan, Vladimir, Aleksei, Civil servant, statesman | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Central institution membership Other offices held
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Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (
An ethnic
Under Khrushchev, Mikoyan played an important role in Soviet foreign policy, making several key trips to the United States and communist Cuba. He acquired an important stature on the international diplomatic scene, especially with his skill in exercising soft power to further Soviet interests. In 1964, Khrushchev was forced to step down in a coup that brought Brezhnev to power. Mikoyan briefly served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state, from 1964 until his forced retirement in 1965.
Early life and career
Mikoyan was born to
Mikoyan received his education at the
At the age of twenty, he formed a workers'
Baku Commune
After the
After the fall of Baku, Shaumian and other Bolshevik leaders were arrested by the
Had Mikoyan's name been on a list of the party leaders as it properly should have been he would have been held, as was Shaumian, and would have been executed with him—there would have been twenty-seven, not twenty-six commissars executed. By that simple accident Mikoyan escaped and Shaumian did not. All his life Mikoyan was to wonder over this accident, feeling somehow at fault that he had lived while his beloved leader, Shaumian, and his other comrades had died.[8]
After his release in February 1919, Mikoyan returned to Baku and resumed his activities there, helping to establish the Baku Bureau of the Caucasus Regional Committee (kraikom).[9] In the middle of the Russian Civil War, the Central Committee assigned Mikoyan to the party organization in Nizhny Novgorod in 1920. In 1922-26, he became Secretary of the South East Bureau of the Communist Party and its successor, the North Caucasus kraikom. It was in that position that Mikoyan advocated granting Chechnya autonomous status.[10] In 1923, he was elected to the Central Committee and remained a member of that body for more than 50 years.
Politburo member
Mikoyan supported Stalin, whom he had first met in 1919, in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death in 1924;
As People's Commissar for External and Internal Trade from 1926, he imported ideas from the West, such as the manufacture of canned goods.[2] In 1935 he was elected to the Politburo and was one of the first Soviet leaders to pay goodwill trips to the United States in order to boost economic cooperation. Mikoyan spent three months in the United States, where he not only learned more about its food industry but also met and spoke with Henry Ford and inspected Macy's in New York. When he returned, Mikoyan introduced a number of popular American consumer products to the Soviet Union, including American hamburgers, ice cream, corn flakes, popcorn, tomato juice, grapefruit and corn on the cob.[13]
Mikoyan spearheaded a project to produce a home cookbook, which would encourage a return to the domestic kitchen. The result, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food (Книга о вкусной и здоровой пище, Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche), was published in 1939, and the 1952 edition sold 2.5 million copies.[14] Mikoyan helped initiate the production of ice cream in the USSR and kept the quality of ice cream under his own personal control until he was dismissed. Stalin made a joke about this, stating, "You, Anastas, care more about ice cream, than about communism."[15] Mikoyan also contributed to the development of meat production in the USSR (particularly, the so-called Mikoyan cutlet), and one of the Soviet-era sausage factories was named after him.[16]
The Great Purge
In the late 1930s Stalin embarked upon the
In September 1937, Stalin dispatched
World War II
In September 1939, under the
Mikoyan is also credited for his significant role in the 1941 relocation of Soviet industry from the threatened western cities, such as Moscow and Leningrad, eastward to the Urals, Western Siberia, the Volga region, and other safer zones.[24]
In February 1942, by order of Stalin, Mikoyan became a Special Representative of the
Thaw and de-Stalinization
Shortly before his
In 1956, Mikoyan helped Khrushchev organize the
In 1957, Mikoyan refused to back an attempt by Malenkov and Molotov to remove Khrushchev from power, and thus secured his position as one of Khrushchev's closest allies during the Thaw. He backed Khrushchev because of his strong support for de-Stalinization, and his belief that a triumph by the plotters might have given way to purges similar to those in the 1930s.[35] In recognition of his support and his economic talents, Khrushchev appointed Mikoyan First Deputy Premier[clarification needed].
In 1962, Khrushchev sent Mikoyan and Frol Kozlov to Novocherkassk to deal with growing unrest in the southern city. Although Mikoyan opposed force and sought dialogue with the demonstrators, Kozlov pushed for a harsh response, resulting in the Novocherkassk massacre.[36]
Foreign diplomacy
China
Mikoyan was the first Politburo member to make direct contact with the Chinese Communist Party chairman, Mao Zedong. He arrived at Mao's headquarters on 30 January 1949, one day before the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek was forced to abandon Nanjing, which was then China's capital, and move to Guangzhou. Mikoyan reported that Mao was proclaiming Stalin to be the supreme leader of world communism and 'teacher of the Chinese people', but in his report he added that Mao did not genuinely believe what he was saying.[37] It was at Stalin's behest that Mikoyan asked that the Chinese communists arrest the US journalist Sidney Rittenberg.[38]
Czechoslovakia
On 11 November 1951, Mikoyan made a sudden visit to Prague to deliver a message from Stalin to President
Hungary
In July 1956, Mikoyan visited the
United States
Khrushchev's liberalization of hardline policies led to an improvement in
During November 1958 Khrushchev made an unsuccessful attempt to turn all of
However, Mikoyan eventually left for
In addition to such well received engagements, Mikoyan indulged in more informal opportunities to meet the public such as having breakfast at a
Mikoyan disapproved of Khrushchev's walkout from the
In November 1963 Mikoyan was asked by Khrushchev to represent the USSR at
Cuba and the Missile Crisis
The Soviet government welcomed the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro's pro-socialist rebels in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Khrushchev realized the potential of a Soviet ally in the Caribbean and dispatched Mikoyan as one of the top diplomats in Latin America. He was the first Soviet official to visit Cuba after the revolution, except for Soviet intelligence officers, and he secured important trade agreements with the new government.[47] He left Cuba with a very positive impression, saying that the atmosphere there made him feel "as though I had returned to my childhood."[52]
Khrushchev told Mikoyan of his idea of shipping Soviet missiles to Cuba. Mikoyan was opposed to the idea, and was even more opposed to giving the Cubans control over the Soviet missiles.[47] In early November 1962, after the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to a framework to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba, Khrushchev dispatched Mikoyan to Havana to help persuade Castro to cooperate in the withdrawal.[53][54] Just prior to beginning negotiations with Castro, Mikoyan was informed about the death of his wife, Ashkhen, in Moscow; rather than return there for the funeral, Mikoyan opted to stay and sent his son Sergo there instead.[55]
Castro was adamant that the missiles remain but Mikoyan, seeking to avoid a full-fledged confrontation with the United States, attempted to convince him otherwise. He told Castro, "You know that not only in these letters but today also, we hold to the position that you will keep all the weapons and all the military specialists with the exception of the 'offensive' weapons and associated service personnel, which were promised to be withdrawn in Khrushchev's letter [of October 27]."[56] Castro balked at the idea of further concessions, namely the removal of the Il-28 bombers and tactical nuclear weapons still left in Cuba. But after several tense and grueling weeks of negotiations, he finally relented, and the missiles and the bombers were removed in December of that year.[57]
Head of state and retirement
On 15 July 1964, Mikoyan was appointed as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, replacing Leonid Brezhnev, who received a promotion within the Party. Mikoyan's new position was largely ceremonial; it was noted that his declining health and old age were being considered.[58]
Some historians are convinced that by 1964 Mikoyan believed that Khrushchev had turned into a liability to the Party, and that he was involved in the October 1964 coup that brought Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin to power.[59] However, William Taubman disputes this, as Mikoyan was the only member of the Presidium (the name for the Politburo at this time) to defend Khrushchev. Mikoyan, however, did vote to force Khrushchev's retirement (so as, in traditional Soviet style, to make the vote unanimous). Alone among Khrushchev's colleagues, Mikoyan wished the former leader well in his retirement, and he, alone, visited Khrushchev at his dacha a few years later. Mikoyan laid a wreath and sent a letter of condolence at Khrushchev's funeral in 1971.[60]
Due to his partial defense of Khrushchev during his ouster, Mikoyan lost his high standing with the new Soviet leadership. The Politburo forced Mikoyan to retire from his seat in the Politburo due to old age. Mikoyan quickly also lost his post as head of state and was succeeded in this post by
Personality and legacy
Mikoyan was defiantly proud of his Armenian identity, and in a 1959 meeting with U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon in Washington, he even raised the issue of the treatment of the Armenians in Turkey.[67] He greatly enjoyed meeting fellow Armenians abroad, including former U.S. ambassador Edward Djerejian.[68] However, in post-Soviet Armenia, Mikoyan's legacy is contentious.[69] His critics point to his participation in the 1930s purges in Armenia on the orders of Stalin.[69] His supporters argue that he was a major figure on the global political stage and usually point to his role in defusing the Cuban missile crisis.[69] Others emphasize Mikoyan's important role in de-Stalinization in Armenia, including his March 1954 speech in Yerevan and his significant involvement in rehabilitations.[18] Mikoyan's contributions to the development of the Soviet Armenian state included support for major economic projects, such as the Arpa–Sevan canal.[70] As a Supreme Soviet Deputy for Yerevan, he maintained close ties with Soviet Armenian leaders like Yakov Zarobyan and Anton Kochinyan and regularly consulted with them on Armenian affairs.[70] Although limited in his ability to assist Armenian leaders on Nagorno-Karabakh, he was sympathetic to Armenian concerns,[70][71] and his son Sergo was later a prominent advocate for the Karabakh movement.[72] Despite his break with the Armenian Church, Mikoyan maintained good relations with Catholicos Vazgen I.[73] He was also a supporter of composer Aram Khachaturian,[74] and counted Marshal Ivan Bagramyan among his personal friends.[75]
Dubbed the Vicar of Bray of politics and known as the "Survivor" during his time, Mikoyan was one of the few Old Bolsheviks who was spared from Stalin's purges and was able to retire comfortably from political life. This was highlighted in a number of popular sayings in Russian, including "From Ilyich [Lenin] to Ilyich [Brezhnev] ... without heart attack or stroke!"(Ot Ilyicha do Ilyicha bez infarkta i paralicha).[64] One veteran Soviet official described his political career in the following manner: "The rascal was able to walk through Red Square on a rainy day without an umbrella [and] without getting wet. He could dodge the raindrops."[64]
Portrayals
Paul Whitehouse played Mikoyan in the 2017 satirical film The Death of Stalin.[76]
Decorations and awards
- Hero of Socialist Labour
- Order of Lenin, six times
- Order of the October Revolution
- Order of the Red Banner
References
- OCLC 41594812.
- ^ Armenian Academy of Sciences. 1981. p. 542.
- ^ Staff writer (16 September 1957). "Russia: The Survivor". Time. p. 2. Archived from the original on 22 November 2007. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Staff writer (23 December 1958). "Mikoyan: Soviet Union's Shrewd Trader". Milwaukee Sentinel. p. 7. Retrieved 8 May 2012.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b Staff writer (16 September 1957). "Russia: The Survivor". Time. p. 4. Archived from the original on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Mikoyan's activities in Baku are treated in passim in Ronald Grigor Suny, The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
- ^ Suny, The Baku Commune, pp. 341–343.
- ISBN 0-943071-04-6.
- OCLC 797273730.
- ISBN 9780415410120.
- ^ For more on Mikoyan's and Stalin's first encounter see Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928. New York: Penguin Press, 2014, p. 465.
- ISBN 0-19-281065-0.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, pp. 192–193n.
- ^ Russell, Polly; The history cook; The Financial Times (FT Weekend Magazine), 17/18 August 2013, p36.
- ^ (in Russian) Bogdanov, Igor A. Лекарство от скуки, или, История мороженого. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2007, p. 100.
- ^ (in Russian) "Цены на ассортимент ТД Агроторг."
- ^ a b Montefiore 2005, p. 256.
- ^ a b c d e f g Shakarian, Pietro A. (12 November 2021). "Yerevan 1954: Anastas Mikoyan and Nationality Reform in the Thaw, 1954–1964". Peripheral Histories. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
- ^ Conquest, Robert (1971). The Great Terror. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 341.
- OCLC 26298147.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 333.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 463.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 373.
- ^ Keegan, John (2005). The Second World War. New York: Penguin Books. p. 209.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 383.
- ^ Vasilyevich, Ufarkinym Nikolai. Анастас Иванович, Микоян [Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich] (in Russian). warheroes.ru. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ Naimark, Norman M. The Russians In Germany: a History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995
- ^ Service, Robert, Stalin: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 2005, pp. 533, 577-80.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 662.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 666.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 652.
- ^ Staff writer (16 September 1957). "Russia: The Survivor (page 5)". Time. Archived from the original on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Matossian, Mary Kilbourne (1962). The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia. Leiden: E.J. Brill. p. 201.
- ISBN 9781848858480.
- OCLC 20932380.
- ISBN 9780804740937.
- OCLC 774136780.
- ^ Chang & Halliday 2007, p. 418.
- OCLC 29358222.
- ^ Mikoyan, Anastas; Suslov, Mikhail (24 October – 4 November 1956). Soviet Documents on the Hungarian Revolution, 24 October – 4 November 1956. Cold War International History Project Bulletin. Government of the Soviet Union. pp. 22–23 and 29–34. Archived from the original on 18 August 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- Note: See the Mikoyan-Suslov Report of 24 October in Johanna Granville.
- OCLC 847476436.
- ^ Taubman 2004, p. 312.
- ^ Staff writer (26 January 1959). "Foreign Relations: Down to Hard Cases". Time. Archived from the original on 1 February 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Taubman 2004, p. 409.
- ^ Shakarian, Pietro A. (6 January 2019). "Cleveland visit 60 years ago this week of No. 2 Soviet official Anastas Mikoyan reflected a detente that served both nations well". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-470-38781-8.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-97515-5.
- ISBN 9780470387818.
- ISBN 978-0-415-35463-9.
- ISBN 978-0-8090-9717-3.
- ISBN 978-1-4391-9388-4.
- ^ Taubman 2004, pp. 532–533.
- ^ See Mikoyan, Sergo; Svetlana Savranskaya (ed.) The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012.
- ^ Taubman 2004, pp. 580ff.
- ISBN 978-0-271-02170-6.
- ^ Savranskaya, Svetlana. "The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November." George Washington University.
- BBC News Magazine. 12 October 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
- ^ Staff writer (24 July 1964). "Russia: Successor Confirmed". Time. p. 1. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ Taubman 2004, pp. 3–17.
- ISBN 978-0-271-02332-8.
- ISBN 978-0-06-113879-9.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 669.
- ^ Staff writer (17 December 1965). "Russia: Kicks, Upstairs & Down". Time. p. 1. Archived from the original on 3 February 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ a b c Montefiore 2005, p. 83n.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, p. 52.
- ^ Montefiore 2005, pp. 12n., 43–44.
- ^ "Document 97: Memorandum of Conversation: Vice President's Kremlin Conversation with Mikoyan". Office of the Historian - U.S. Department of State. 25 July 1959. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
- ^ "Matlock and Djerejian talk Stalin's monument and meeting with Mikoyan". Mediamax. 23 May 2017. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
'Mikoyan asked, 'So you're Armenian, right?' When I confirmed, he clapped me on the shoulder and said he was glad Armenians were doing well in America,' Edward Djerejian recalled.
- ^ a b c Poghosyan, Yekaterina (29 May 2014). "Stalin's Man Mikoyan to Get Statue in Yerevan". Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
- ^ a b c "Q&A With Pietro Shakarian: On Anastas Mikoyan, Armenia and Karabakh". USC Institute of Armenian Studies. 16 September 2020. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
- ^ Astsatryan, Yeghishe [in Russian] (2004). XX դար. Հայաստանի կառուցման ճանապարհին (in Armenian). Yerevan: Edit Print. pp. 81–84.
- ^ Libaridian, Gerard, ed. (1988). The Karabagh File: Documents and Facts on the Question of Mountainous Karabagh, 1918-1988. Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute. p. 69.
- ISBN 9785227051097.
- ^ Yuzefovich, Victor (1985). Aram Khachaturyan. Translated by Kournokoff, Nicholas; Bobrov, Vladimir. New York: Sphinx Press. p. 128.
- ^ Gasparyan, Albert (1992). I. C. Bagramyan. Moscow: MaRafon. pp. 300–303.
- ^ "The Death of Stalin".
Further reading
- ISBN 9781848858480.
- ISBN 9780385190626.
- Mikoyan, Anastas I. (1988). The Memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan, Vol. 1: The Path of Struggle. Translated by O'Connor, Katherine T.; Burgin, Diana L. Madison, CT: Sphinx Press. ISBN 0-943071-04-6.
- Mikoyan, Anastas I. (2014). Так было. Размышления о минувшем (in Russian). Moscow: Центрполиграф. ISBN 9785227051097.
- ISBN 9780804762014.
- Mikoyan, Stepan A. (1999). Stepan Anastasovich Mikoyan: An Autobiography. Translated by Mikoyan, Aschen. Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing. ISBN 1-85310-916-9.
- Pavlov, Mikhail (2014). Анастас Микоян. Политический портрет на фоне советской эпохи (in Russian). Moscow: Международные отношения. ISBN 9785713313647.
- ISBN 978-1-4000-7678-9.
- Shakarian, Pietro A. (2021). An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev's Kremlin: Anastas Mikoyan and the Politics of Difference in the USSR, 1953-1964 (Ph.D.). The Ohio State University.
- Smith, Kathleen E. (2017). Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674972001.
- ISBN 978-0-393-32484-6.
External links
- Mikoyan Brothers Museum Archived 18 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Sanahin, Alaverdi, Armenia
- Newspaper clippings about Anastas Mikoyan in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW