Aleksandra Pavlovna Biryukova (née ''Achkasova''; russian: Александра Павловна Бирюкова; 25 February 1929 - 20 February 2008) was a prominent female politician in the USSR.Gravestone of Aleksandra Pavlovna Biryukova and Alexander Nikitovich Biryukov. Digital Image. Moscow-Tombs.ru. Accessed March 2, 2020. She was the highest-ranking female politician under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Biryukova was the second woman ever appointed to the Politburo, the executive committee for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Bill Keller,“A Soviet Woman’s Point of View.” in The New York Times, January 24, 1989. The first woman was

Yekaterina Furtseva Yekaterina Alexeyevna Furtseva (russian: Екатерина Алексеевна Фурцева; 7 December 1910 – 24 October 1974) was a Soviet politician and the second woman to be admitted as secretary of the Central Committee of the Comm ...

, an advocate for women and trade unions. Biryukova echoed these beliefs, as she was involved with the Bureau for Social Development, specifically focused on labor conditions, consumer issues, housing, and health.Keller, “A Soviet Woman’s Point of View.”

Early life

Biryukova was born in

Voronezh Oblast Voronezh Oblast (russian: Воронежская область, Voronezhskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Voronezh. Its population was 2,308,792 as of the 2021 Census. Geography V ...

, Russia on February 25, 1929. She was the middle child of five. Throughout her education, she was extremely ambitious and scored top grades.Dejevsky, “Out shopping for a new Soviet future.” She graduated with distinction from the Moscow State Textile Institute in 1952. After graduating, Biryukova worked in a Moscow textile factory called The First Printed Fabric Works. She began as a specialist and rose to the position of deputy supervisor and later shop supervisor.

Political career

Biryukova joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as a full member in 1956.McCauler, Who’s Who in Russia since 1990.; Weeks, The Soviet nomenklatura. Administrators for

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

( Chairman of the Council of Ministers) took attention to her in 1959, and she was appointed to one of Moscow's administrative committees on the economy, and put in charge of Moscow's textile and knitwear industries. She became successful within this movement and created a strong rapport with the workers by campaigning for improved safety and working conditions. In the 1960s and 1970s, she campaigned to establish holiday homes for trade union members and families, as well as to improve health and safety provisions. Biryukova was made secretary and Presidium member of the

All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions The All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (ACCTU; russian: Всесоюзный центральный совет профессиональных союзов, VTsSPS) was the national trade union federation of the Soviet Union. The federati ...

in 1968. In 1971, she would become a candidate member of the

Central Committee of the CPSU The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee directe ...

and would go on to become a full member in 1976. On March 6, 1973, Biryukova was appointed the Secretary of the Consumer Goods Industry, responsible for supervising the consumer goods industry (which included the food and light industries).Weeks, The Soviet nomenklatura. When Mikhail Gorbachev came into power in 1985, Biryukova entered the highest level of soviet politics by becoming Deputy Chair of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. In 1986, Gorbachev selected Biryukova at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party as a lead on what would become perestroika.McCauler, Who’s Who in Russia since 1990. She became the first woman elected to the Secretariat of the CPSU in over 20 years, and was responsible for the light industry and production of consumer goods. She was also made a deputy to the

USSR Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...

and the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. In October 1988, she was elected as a candidate member of the Politburo. In the same month, she was made the deputy USSR Prime Minister and chair of the Bureau for Social Development. The bureau was tasked with providing Soviets with improved food, clothes and many other crucial consumer goods. As chair, Biryukova was required to do a large amount of international shopping. She took a major trip in which she went to eight different cities and purchased 50 million pairs of tights, 1.7 million pairs of lady's shoes and mass quantities of necessities like toothpaste, soap, razor blades, and instant coffee. All of this international shopping was due to product shortages in the Soviet Union and was intended to help reduce labour strikes and workforce unrest. In 1989, she was the only woman out of the more than 200 highest-ranking members of the Soviet political sphere.

The 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Aleksandra Biryukova attended the

congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

held on July 5, 1990.Christopher Young, “Sick, Outdated and Badly Led, the Once-Mighty..." in CanWest News, July 5, 1990. At the conference, Biryukova called the Soviet consumer market “a crisis situation” and described the status of health services as “criminal”. At this time, the Communist Party was experiencing an unfavourable period. At the Congress, Biryukova was criticized by many attendees, some of whom also called her to resign. In response to these criticisms, Gorbachev told the group that she would receive a pension and be relieved of all her duties. As a result, Biryukova resigned from all her positions in September 1990, at the age of 61.

Political views

As Biryukova was a supporter of

Soviet Communism The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Bolshevist Marxism–Leninism, an ideology of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Un ...

, she was anti-capitalist and was also an advocate for women. She viewed the lack of representation of women in high-ranking roles as a result of their natural inclination to be a mother. She spoke out about the lack of contraceptives and access to abortion in the Soviet Union in 1989.

Personal life

Biryukova's father and one brother died in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. She married Alexander Nikitovich Biryukov (Russian: Александр Никитович Бирюков; 8 September 1925 - 17 September 2006) a staff military officer who retired in 1980. They had a daughter who passed away at the age of sixteen, due to natural causes. In 1973, Biryukova published a book called “The Working Woman in the USSR”. The book discusses women and their contribution to the creation of the Soviet socialist state.“The Working Woman In The USSR : Aleksandra Biryukova : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive, 2015. In her free time, Biryukova enjoyed skiing, swimming, and opera.

Bibliography

* Cartledge, Sir Bryan, Stephen Dalziel, David Dyker, Ian Gorvin, Angus McQueen, Tim Whewell, Helen Womack, and Martin Wright. ''Soviet Union: The challenge of change''.Edited by Martin Wright. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1989. * Dejevsky. Mary. “Out shopping for a new Soviet future.” ''The Times'', July 31, 1989. * Gravestone of Aleksandra Pavlovna Biryukova and Alexander Nikitovich Biryukov. Digital Image. Moscow-Tombs.ru. Accessed March 2, 2020. *Greenspan, Karen. ''The timetables of women's history: a chronology of the most important people and events in women's history''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. * Keller, Bill. “A Soviet Woman’s Point of View.” ''The New York Times'', January 24, 1989. * McCauler, Martin. ''Who’s Who in Russia since 1990''. London: Routledge, 1997. * Remnick, David. “Soviet Woman Official Speaks Out on Abortion, Women’s Role.” ''The Washington Post'', January 24, 1989. * Rigby, T.H. ''Political elites in the USSR : central leaders and local cadres from Lenin to Gorbachev''. England: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990. * Rosenberg, Chanie. ''Women and perestroika''. London: Bookmarks, 1989. * Ruthchild, Rochelle G. ''Women in Russia and the Soviet Union: an annotated bibliography.''New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993. * Temko, Ned. “Near the top, but still not decisionmakers.” ''The Christian Science Monitor'', October 9, 1981. * “The Working Woman In The USSR : Aleksandra Biryukova : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive, 2015. https://archive.org/details/TheWorkingWomanInTheUssr/page/n3/mode/2up. * Weeks, Albert L, comp. ''The Soviet nomenklatura: a comprehensive roster of Soviet civilian and military officials''. Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute Press, 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biryukova, Aleksandra Pavlovna 1929 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Russian women politicians People from Voronezh Oblast Soviet political people Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Moscow State Textile University alumni Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Eleventh convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian communists Soviet women in politics Textile workers Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery