Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev (; 30 October 1895 – 5 December 1971) was a Soviet Communist politician. An

Old Bolshevik The Old Bolsheviks (), also called the Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, were members of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Many Old Bolsheviks became leading politi ...

who rose to power during the rule of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, joining the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

as a candidate member in 1926 and as a full member in 1932, Andreyev also headed the powerful Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1931, and then again from 1939 until 1952. In 1952, Andreyev was removed from the Politburo and placed in a largely ceremonial position as a member of the

Presidium A presidium or praesidium is a council of executive officers in some countries' political assemblies that collectively administers its business, either alongside an individual president or in place of one. The term is also sometimes used for the ...

of the

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...

Biography

Early years

Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev was born in the Sychyovsky Uyezd of the

Smolensk Governorate Smolensk Governorate () was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, and the Russian SFSR. It existed, with interruptions, between 1708 and 1929. Smolensk Governorate, together with seven o ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

to a

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

family. He left the village at the age of 13 to work as a dishwasher in Moscow. He attended workers' educational courses, and by the time he was 15 had joined a Marxist circle. He joined the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

after settling in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

to work in the Putilov arms factory, in 1914. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, he worked as a hospital administrator, while carrying on illegal political work. He was a member of the Petrograd committee of the Bolsheviks in 1915–16, and one of the organisers of the wave of strikes that preceded the fall of the Tsar. After the February revolution, he helped found the Petrograd Metal Workers' Union. He was in the crowd that welcomed the Bolshevik leader,

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

on his return from exile in April 1917. At the Bolshevik conference that same month, he was one of the younger delegates who backed Lenin's call for a second revolution.

Union leader

Andreyev spent the early part of the

Russian civil war The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

as a trade union and Communist Party organiser in the Urals, where he oversaw the nationalisation of the factories, and for ensuring that the new Soviet republic was supplied with metal and food. He was posted in 1919 to Ukraine as the leader of the metal workers' union, and a member of the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council (TUC). In the latter part of 1919, Lenin came up against heavy opposition from the trade unions, who wanted democratic control of industry, which Lenin believed would undermine efficiency and delay economic recovery. In January 1920, he was outvoted in a meeting of the communist 'fraction' of the All-Russian TUC. Throughout, Andreyev was one of the minority who supported Lenin's line. His reward was to be appointed head of the railway workers' union, and at the 9th Communist Party Congress in March 1920 he was one of three union leaders, along with

Mikhail Tomsky Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (''Russian:'' Михаи́л Па́влович То́мский), born Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov (''Russian:'' Ефре́мов) (31 October 1880 – 22 August 1936) was a factory worker, trade unionist, and Soviet poli ...

and Janis Rudzutaks, elected to the 19-member Central Committee, which, prior to the creation of the

, was the body that effectively ruled Russia and its former colonies. Aged 24, he was its youngest member. (The second youngest,

Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (; rus, Николай Иванович Бухарин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn; – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist. A prominent Bolshevik ...

, was 31.) During 1920–21, the Central Committee was split 10–9 over the role of the unions. The minority, led by

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, proposed that they be incorporated in the state; the majority, led by Lenin and including

, argued for their continued existence, under party control. Andreyev was the only leading trade unionist to support the minority line – surprisingly, in view of his later career. (He was the only former member of that committee apart from Stalin still alive after the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

: all the others who had not died in the meantime were killed.) Andreyev was dropped from the Central Committee in March 1921, but when the TUC had its next congress, in May 1921, he loyally supported the party leadership against a campaign led by the veteran revolutionary David Riazanov, who called for union leaders to be elected rather than appointed by the party. Tomsky and Rudzutaks were sacked, temporarily, for failing to block this proposal, whilst Andreyev was made a secretary of the TUC, and at the 11th party congress in April 1922, he was restored to membership of the party's Central Committee. He retained his membership for the next 40 years. He was also co-opted onto the

Orgburo The Orgburo (), also known as the Organisational Bureau (), of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union existed from 1919 to 1952, when it was abolished at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party and its functions wer ...

, which was dominated by Stalin, the newly appointed General Secretary. In May 1923, Andreyev was a member of the small Communist delegation at the Congress of the

Second International The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties and Trade union, trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from mo ...

. A fellow delegate, the French communist

Alfred Rosmer Alfred Rosmer (born Alfred Griot, 23 August 1877 – 6 May 1964) was an American-born French communist political activist and historian who was a leading member of the Comintern. Rosmer is best remembered as a political associate of Leon Trotsky a ...

, remembered him as "a friendly and modest companion, who didn't mind us joking about his name".

Party official

Shortly after Lenin's death, in June 1924, Andreyev was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. From that date Andreyev was a loyal supporter of Stalin and part of the inner core of the Stalinist faction. He was one of five hard line Stalinists who were raised to candidate membership of the Politburo in July 1926, a few months before Trotsky was expelled from the same body. In 1925, when the People's Commissar for Finance,

Grigori Sokolnikov Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (born Hirsch Yankelevich Brilliant; 15 August 1888 – 21 May 1939) was a Russian revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician. Born to a Jewish family in Romny (now in Ukraine), Sokolnikov joined the Russian S ...

, pointed out that workers' wages were still below their pre-war (1913) level and suggested raising them, Andreyev denounced him for attacking the trade unions and for his 'irresponsible attitude to the workers'. From January 1928 to December 1930, Andreyev was based in

Rostov Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River, from the Sea of Azov, directly north of t ...

in south Russia, as First Secretary of the North Caucasus territory party committee. In this capacity, he was responsible for the seeing through the forcible collectivisation of agriculture in one of Russia's main grain-producing regions. At the outset, he seemed hesitant about forcing the pace: as late as October 1929, he forecast that it would be impossible to complete the changeover to collective agriculture before the end of the

First five-year plan First five-year plan may refer to: * First five-year plan (China) * First Five-Year Plans (Pakistan) * First five-year plan (Soviet Union) The first five-year plan (, ) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economi ...

in 1933. His complaints about the difficulty of achieving the grain deliveries Stalin demanded almost caused a rift, when Stalin lost his temper with Andreyev – but then, unusually, apologised. By December, Andreyev had committed the regional party to a target of complete collectivisation by the spring 1931. In January 1930, he announced that they had been too modest, and would complete the process during that year. As part of the process, the North Caucasus

OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...

was set a quota of 6,000–8,000 '

kulak Kulak ( ; rus, кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈɫak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over ...

s' to be arrested and executed, and 20,000 to be deported to remote parts of the USSR. By February, 80 per cent of the rural population of the North Caucasus had been herded onto collective farms, but the result was armed rebellion by thousands of peasants, which was put down by the Red Army, and which forced a partial retreat by the authorities. Within two months, the proportion of peasants on collective farms had fallen to 67 per cent. In December 1930, Andreyev was recalled to Moscow and appointed Chairman of the Central Control Commission, which was responsible for party discipline, and chairman of Rabkrin. In September 1931, he volunteered to take the additional post of People's Commissar for Transport, after the Politburo had heard a report on the serious state of the railways. He relinquished the chairmanship of the Control Commission on 4 February 1932, when he became a full member of the Politburo. In March 1935, Andreyev was reappointed a secretary of the Central Committee, in the wake of the assassination of

Sergey Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russ ...

. On 3 April 1935, he was co-opted onto the Orgburo, to chair its meetings, and was put in charge of the Industrial department of the Communist Party.

Role in the 1930s purges

During the

, when it was common to send high-ranking party officials from Moscow to the provinces to oversee mass expulsions and arrests of provincial communist party members, Andreyev "became the unchallengeable master of these murderous sideshows". Between June and September 1937, he travelled to

Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk; , is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, seventh-largest city in Russia, with a population ...

, Sverdlovsk,

Kursk Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of Kursk ...

Saratov Saratov ( , ; , ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the List of cities and tow ...

, Kuybyshev,

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, Stalinabad,

and

Krasnodar Krasnodar, formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southern Russia, with a population of 1,154,885 residents, and up to 1.263 millio ...

. Sometimes, he accused local party leaders of arresting the wrong people, who were released. More often, his arrival meant arrests and executions. He always stayed in telegram communication with Stalin, who always approved all his recommended lists of party members to be expelled and/or arrested. Early in January 1937, he arrived in Rostov to organise the removal of Boris Sheboldayev, his successor as regional party in the renamed Azov-Black Sea territory, who was accused of excessive leniency because he had allowed former oppositionists such as

Alexander Beloborodov Alexander Georgiyevich Beloborodov (; 26 October 189110 February 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, party figure and statesman best known for his role as one of the chief regicides of Nicholas II and his family. ...

and Nikolai Glebov-Avilov to hold responsible jobs in the region. Sheldboldayev temporarily saved himself by apologising, and was transferred to another post, only to be arrested later and shot. In Saratov, where he arrived on 20 July, his main target was the local head of the NKVD Yakov Agranov, who was arrested and shot, along with the second secretary of the regional communist party and others. Some people whom Agranov had had arrested were released. At the same time, Andreyev and identified 20 employees of the Machine Tractor Stations who were "working very obstructively". Stalin replied with a telegram the same day, saying they should all be shot. In total, in the wake of his visit, 430 people were shot. In Kuybyshev, he ordered the local party boss,

Pavel Postyshev Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (; – 26 February 1939) was a Soviet politician, state and Communist Party official and party publicist. He was a member of Joseph Stalin's inner circle, before falling victim to the Great Purge. In 2010, a court in K ...

, to step up the hunt for hidden enemies, after which Postyshev disbanded most of the local party branches and had 3,300 party members arrested. By the end of 1937, it was decided that Postyshev had gone too far, and Andreyev was assigned the job of collecting names of people wrongfully expelled from the Kuibyshev party, after which Postyshev was arrested and shot. When Andreyev arrived in Tashkent, in September 1937, the founder of the Uzbek communist party, Faizullah Khojaev, and seven others were denounced as enemies of the people. Four days later, on 12 September, the First Secretary of the Uzbek communist party

Akmal Ikramov Akmal Ikramovich Ikramov (Russia: Акмаль Икрамович Икрамов; Uzbek: Akmal Ikromovich Ikromov; 1898 – 13 March 1938) was an Uzbek politician active in Uzbek SSR politics and served as the First Secretary of the Central Com ...

was expelled from the party. He was arrested two weeks later. In the ensuing purge, 430 people were executed. Andreyev then moved on to Stalinabad, in Tajikistan, where he had 344 shot. In March 1938, an official of the USSR Writers' Union approached Andreyev about finding work for the poet

Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (, ; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school. Osip Mandelstam was arrested during the repressions of the 1930s and sent into internal exile wi ...

, who was in Moscow, but unemployed. Andreyev refused. Mandelstam was arrested and died in the

gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. In October 1940, he issued an order that a recently published book of poems by

Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; , . ( – 5 March 1966), better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova,. ...

was banned and all copies were to be seized. In 1940, Akhmatova was suddenly granted official recognition, having been prevented from publishing any of her work for 15 years. Andreyev's order meant that "Akhmatova's nine months a published poet again had come to an end". In November 1938, Andreyev supervised the changes at the headquarters of the NKVD, in which

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria ka, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია} ''Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria'' ( – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph ...

was confirmed as its new head in place of

Nikolai Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Николай Иванович Ежов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet Chekism, secret police official under Joseph Stalin who ...

, who was arrested and shot. Also in November, he chaired a session of the Central Committee of

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

, the communist youth league, at which most of its leaders were sacked, and later arrested and shot.

Later career

In 1939, Andreyev resumed his former position as Chairman of the Central Commission, combining that with his continued role as party secretary and Politburo member. He was also Chairman of the Soviet of the Union from 1938 until 1946. Despite this array of titles, there were signs that he was being supplanted within Stalin's inner circle by

Georgi Malenkov Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (8 January 1902 O.S. 26 December 1901">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 26 December 1901ref name=":6"> – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who br ...

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

Nikolai Voznesensky Nikolai Alekseevich Voznesensky (, – 1 October 1950) was a Soviet politician and economic planner who oversaw the running of Gosplan (the USSR's State Planning Committee) during the German–Soviet War of 1941–1945. A protégé of And ...

and other rising stars. During the war, he was not included in the emergency

State Defense Committee The State Defense Committee () was an extraordinary organ of state power in the Soviet Union during the German-Soviet War, also called the Great Patriotic War, with complete state power in the country. General scope The Soviets set up the GKO ...

(GOKO), or involved front line duties, but was given responsibility for transport and food supplies, as deputy chairman of the transport sub-committee of GOKO, as USSR People's Commissar for Agriculture, 1943–46, and as chairman of the

Kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...

(collective farms) Central Council from December 1943 to February 1950. After the war, Andreyev appeared to recover his position. In March 1946, he was appointed a Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, responsible for agriculture, while Malenkov was temporarily removed from his role as party secretary, and a protégé of Andreyev, Nikolai Patolichev was appointed head of the party organisation department. In March 1947, Khrushchev was temporarily ousted from control of the Ukrainian communist party, and Patolichev was sent to Kiev apparently as the party secretary in charge of agriculture. During 1948, Andreyev ran the investigation which brought down Voznesensky, whom he accused of losing 526 documents from

Gosplan The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( ), was the agency responsible for economic planning, central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Unio ...

. "This invented case was one of Andreyev's last achievements". It marked the start of the Leningrad case. However, by the summer of 1947, both Malenkov and Khrushchev had recovered their positions, while Andreyev was ill. His doctors proscribed cocaine, to which he became addicted. In December 1949, he was replaced by Khrushchev as the party secretary in charge of agriculture. Although still nominally a member of the Politburo, he was in reality excluded from the party leadership in what Khrushchev later described, somewhat hypocritically, as one of Stalin's "most unbridled acts of willfulness". According to Sergo Mikoyan, son of Andreyev's contemporary and colleague,

Anastas Mikoyan Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (; , ; ; – 21 October 1978) was a Soviet statesman, diplomat, and Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union. As a member of th ...

, around 1950 Andreyev asked Stalin for permission to retire from office, because he had become nearly totally deaf, as even

hearing aids A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers ...

hardly helped him - making him one of the few high-ranking communists in Stalin's time to leave office alive, without being arrested.

Family

Andreyev was married to Dora Khazan (1894–1961), who was a student along with Stalin's second wife,

Nadezhda Alliluyeva Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva (; – 9 November 1932) was the second wife of Joseph Stalin. She was born in Baku to a friend of Stalin, a fellow revolutionary, and was raised in Saint Petersburg. Having known Stalin from a young age, they m ...

, at an industrial academy.

Sheila Fitzpatrick Sheila Mary Fitzpatrick (born June 4, 1941) is an Australian historian, whose main subjects are history of the Soviet Union and history of modern Russia, especially the Stalin era and the Great Purges, of which she proposes a " history from b ...

, ''On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015; pg. 317. Together the couple had two children, a son named Vladimir (born 1919) and a daughter Natalya (born 1922–2015). Dora Khazan worked in Stalin's secretariat for a time. She was arrested in 1948. It was not unknown for Politburo members to continue in high offices while their wives were in the gulag: the same happened to

Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...

Mikhail Kalinin Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (, ; 3 June 1946) was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the first chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1938 until his resignation in 1946. From ...

and Otto Kuusinen, among others. He later married Zinaida Ivanovna Desyatova. They had two daughters, Tatyana and Valentina. He has three grandchildren – Kochergin Ilya N., Kharlamov and Ivan V. Kharlamov Xenia Vyacheslavovna.

Death and legacy

Andreyev was formally removed from the Politburo, after 20 years, at the 19th party congress in October 1952. After Stalin's death, he was briefly brought back as Chairman of the Central Commission, in 1954–56, and was made a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a largely ceremonial position. Because he was no threat to Khrushchev or his successors, his role in the great purges was generally kept quiet. However, after he died, on 5 December 1971, despite his historical importance and decades of tenure in the top ranks of Soviet government officials, Andreyev's funeral was not attended by either

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

, the

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

of the CPSU, or

Alexei Kosygin Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (–18 December 1980) was a Soviet people, Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980 and, alongside General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, was one of its most ...

, the

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of the

Council of Ministers Council of Ministers is a traditional name given to the supreme Executive (government), executive organ in some governments. It is usually equivalent to the term Cabinet (government), cabinet. The term Council of State is a similar name that also m ...

. Andreyev is remembered for having loved the music of

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

, and nature photography. During his life Andreyev was four times awarded the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

, the

Order of the October Revolution The Order of the October Revolution (, ''Orden Oktyabr'skoy Revolyutsii'') was instituted on 31 October 1967, in time for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was conferred upon individuals or groups for services furthering communis ...

, and other awards. He is the namesake of the AA-20 locomotive, which he is credited for sponsoring as the head of the Soviet railway system from 1931 to 1935.

Biography

Early years

Union leader

Party official

Role in the 1930s purges

Later career

Family

Death and legacy

Footnotes

Further reading