Suslov, Mikhail

Suslov, Mikhail (Andreyevich)

(born Nov. 21, 1902, Shakhovskoye, Russia—died Jan. 25, 1982, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Soviet ideologue. He joined the Communist Party in 1921 and was sent to Moscow for his education, after which he taught economics. In the 1930s he helped supervise the Stalinist purges in the Urals and Ukraine. Later a leading official in the Caucasus, he supervised the deportation of ethnic minorities in World War II. He was appointed to the Politburo in 1952, and from 1955 he held a pivotal position in the ruling clique. A political conservative, he helped Nikita Khrushchev quell a conspiracy in the Politburo in 1957, but he organized the bloodless coup in 1964 that ousted Khrushchev and substituted Leonid Brezhnev. Thereafter, he concentrated on relations between the Soviet Communist Party and other communist parties around the world.