Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny

Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny , 1903-83, Soviet Communist leader, b. Ukraine. An engineer, trained at the Technological Institute of the Food Industry in Kiev, he became deputy commissar of the Ukrainian food industry before entering (1950) the official ranks of the Communist party. He was elected a member of the central committee of the party (1956) and of the presidium (1960, now the politburo). In 1965 he became chairman of the presidium, or chief of state, succeeding Anastas Mikoyan. He traveled widely and enhanced the position of president of the USSR. He was relieved of his chairmanship and removed from the politburo in a 1977 power struggle with Brezhnev , who wished to combine the posts of presidium chairman and party secretary-general.

Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich (b. 18 Feb. 1903, d. 12 Jan. 1983). Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 1965–77 Born in Karlovka (Ukraine), he was educated at the Kiev Institute for Food Technology. He came to benefit from the gap in the state administration left after Stalin's Great Purge, so that in 1939 he became Deputy People's Commissar (i.e. Minister) for the Ukrainian food industry, and in 1940 occupied that post for the Soviet Union as a whole. A protégé of Khrushchev, he joined the Communist Party Central Committee in 1956, and the Politburo in 1960. In 1963, he became a Secretary of the Central Committee. He was an important member during the transition of power from Khrushchev to Brezhnev, who manoeuvred him to become the titular head of state in 1965, after which his power declined as that of Brezhnev increased.