Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov (October 25, 1907, village of Ratunino, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate — October 1, 1950, Leningrad) was a Soviet party and state figure. A native of the Lyskovo uyezd (district) of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, he was First Secretary of the Gorky Regional and City Committees of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1940 to 1946 and later Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR; he was shot in the "Leningrad Affair" and posthumously rehabilitated.[1]

Nizhny Novgorod Years and Early Career

He was born into a peasant family. In 1927 he graduated from the Lyskovo Pedagogical Technical School.[2] After his studies he worked as executive secretary of the Kisloye volost committee of the Komsomol and as inspector of political and educational work in the Lyskovo and then the Nizhny Novgorod district departments of public education.[1] In 1929 he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[3] From 1930 he headed the pedagogical technical school in Bor, and from 1931 he moved to party work in the Bor District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), first as head of a department and then as deputy secretary.[1] From 1935 he was First Secretary of the Ivanovo District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Gorky Region.[1]

At the Head of Gorky Region

In January 1938 Rodionov was appointed head of the Gorky Regional Department of Public Education, and in July of the same year he was elected Third Secretary of the Gorky Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[1] From 1939 he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Gorky Regional Soviet, and from 1940 First Secretary of the Gorky Regional and City Party Committees.[1] During the Great Patriotic War he headed the city defense committee.[1] For his wartime work he was awarded two Orders of Lenin (1942, 1943), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1944), and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class (1945).[1] From 1941 he was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[3]

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR

From March 23, 1946, to March 9, 1949, Rodionov served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and, from March 18, 1946, was also a member of the Orgburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[3] From 1947 to 1949, he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd convocation.[1] In February 1949, he was removed from office and given a severe reprimand; in March he was expelled from the Orgburo and sent to study at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[3]

Arrest, Execution, and Rehabilitation

On August 13, 1949, Rodionov was arrested in Malenkov's office and became one of the principal figures in the "Leningrad Affair," the postwar purges within the party apparatus.[3] On October 1, 1950, he was sentenced to death and shot in Leningrad; his ashes were buried at the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.[1] He was posthumously rehabilitated on December 19, 1954, and was reinstated in the party in 1987.[3] In 2010, he was posthumously awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Lyskovsky District.[1]

Legacy

A street in the Nizhegorodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod bears Rodionov's name — one of the longest streets in the upper part of the city, stretching from Sennaya Square to the Verkhniye Pechyory neighborhood.[1] There is also a street named after him in Lyskovo.[1]

Sources

  1. names52.ru — Rodionov Mikhail Ivanovich
  2. opentextnn.ru — First Secretaries of the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Party Organization — Page 2 — OPEN TEXT
  3. 1937god.info — Rodionov Mikhail Ivanovich + 01.10.1950 — 1937 and Other Years