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Nikolai Bulganin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Николай Булганин | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg) Bulganin in 1955 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6thPremier of the Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 8 February 1955 – 27 March 1958 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| President | Kliment Voroshilov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First Deputies | Anastas Mikoyan Mikhail Pervukhin Maksim Saburov Joseph Kuzmin Lazar Kaganovich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Georgy Malenkov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Nikita Khrushchev | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 15 March 1953 – 9 February 1955 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Premier | Georgy Malenkov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Aleksandr Vasilevsky Nikolai Kuznetsov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Georgy Zhukov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин) (1895-06-11)11 June 1895 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 24 February 1975(1975-02-24) (aged 79) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Resting place | Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Citizenship | Soviet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917–1960) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Awards | Hero of Socialist Labour | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Russian Orthodox convert toAtheism | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Military service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Branch/service | Red Army | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years of service | 1941–1958 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Marshal of the Soviet Union (1947–1958) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Commands | Soviet Armed Forces | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Battles/wars | World War II | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Central institution membership Other offices held
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Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (Russian:Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; 11 June [O.S. 30 May] 1895 – 24 February 1975)[1] was thePremier of the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958. He also served asMinister of Defense, following service in theRed Army duringWorld War II.
Born inNizhny Novgorod, Bulganin joined theBolshevik Party in 1917 and became a member of the Soviet political policeCheka a year later. After theRussian Civil War, he held a number of administrative positions until 1931, when he became chairman of the Moscow City Soviet with the support ofLazar Kaganovich. A loyalStalinist, Bulganin rose through the Soviet hierarchy in the middle of Stalin'spurges, and in 1937 he was named premier of theRussian SFSR and a full member of theCentral Committee of the Communist Party. A year later he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and head of theSoviet State Bank. Although he was never a front-line commander, Bulganin held a number of important political posts in the Red Army during World War II, and served in Stalin'sState Defense Committee. In 1947, he succeeded Stalin asMinister for the Armed Forces and was named aMarshal of the Soviet Union. In early 1948, he became a full member of thePolitburo.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Bulganin supportedNikita Khrushchev during his power struggle withGeorgy Malenkov. In 1955, he replaced Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. Initially a close ally of Khrushchev, Bulganin came to doubt his policies and became associated with anopposition group led byVyacheslav Molotov. The group's defeat led to the fall of Bulganin, and in 1958 he was dismissed as premier and expelled from the Politburo. Forced into retirement, Bulganin died in 1975 at the age of 79.
Bulganin was born in 1895 inNizhny Novgorod. The son of an office worker, he was ofRussian ethnicity.[2] He joined theBolshevik Party in March 1917 and was recruited in 1918 into theCheka, the Bolshevik regime's political police, where he served until 1922. During the summer of 1918, he worked withLazar Kaganovich, the local communist leader, in imposing theRed Terror in Nizhny Novgorod. He worked with Kaganovich again in Turkestan in 1920. After theRussian Civil War (1917–1923), Bulganin became an industrial manager and worked in the electricity administration until 1927. He was the director of theMoscow electricity supply from 1927 to 1931. From 1931 to 1937, he served as chairman of the executive committee of the Moscow City Soviet (the equivalent of mayor). He came into office soon after Kaganovich had been put in charge of the Moscow party organisation.
In 1934, the17th Congress of the Communist Party elected Bulganin as a candidate member of theCentral Committee. A loyalStalinist, he was promoted rapidly as other leaders fell victim toJoseph Stalin'sGreat Purge in 1937 and 1938. In July 1937, Bulganin was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the equivalent of Prime Minister) of theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) after the arrest of the previous incumbent,Daniil Sulimov.[3] Bulganin became a full member of the Central Committee later that year. In September 1938, he became Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union and head of theState Bank of the USSR (Gosbank).
DuringWorld War II, Bulganin played a leading role in the government andRed Army, although he was never a front-line commander. His first posting was as chief political commissar on the Western Front, which was commanded byMarshal Timoshenko. He held similar posts until July 1944, when he was appointed the Soviet representative on thePolish Committee of National Liberation. On 18 November 1944, he was given the rank of General, and three days later he replacedMarshal Voroshilov on the State Defence Committee. He was also appointed USSR Deputy Minister for Defence, the Minister beingJoseph Stalin.
In March 1946, Bulganin became a candidate member of the18th Politburo of the Communist Party. Later in March 1947, he succeeded Stalin as Minister for the Armed Forces, and was again Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, under Stalin, from 1947 to 1950. In November 1947, he was promoted to the rank ofMarshal of the Soviet Union. By February 1948, he became a full member of the18th Politburo.
Bulganin reached the highest rank in the Red Army, despite only having served as a political officer. His role was to ensure that none of the genuine wartime commanders, particularlyMarshal Zhukov, became powerful enough to threatenStalin.Pavel Sudoplatov, who participated in conferences in theKremlin with him, wrote contemptuously about how Bulganin failed to understand elementary military concepts. Sudoplatov added:
Bulganin was notorious for avoiding decisions. Letters requesting urgent action remained unsigned for months. The entire secretariat of the Council of Ministers was furious with his style of work, especially when Stalin left him in charge while he vacationed in the Caucasus.... Bulganin's appearance was deceiving. UnlikeKhrushchev orBeria, Bulganin was always smartly dressed and looked like an old nobleman, with well-groomed grey hair and goatee. Later I learnt he was a heavy drinker and an admirer of ballerinas and singers from theBolshoi Theatre. He was a man without any political principles, only the obedient servant of any leader.[4]
In March 1949, Bulganin was replaced as Minister for Defence by a career soldier,Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and then was responsible for the arms industry.
Conversely, a 1955 report from the USCentral Intelligence Agency suggests that Bulganin's tenure at theState Bank demonstrated high intelligence and his ability to learn quickly:
Bulganin impressed those who had worked with him in the State Bank, including a famous expert on banking, with his high intelligence, mild manners, and capacity to learn in a very short time the most special and difficult of problems.[5]
After Stalin's death in March 1953, Bulganin moved into sixth place in the Soviet leadership, when he was reappointed to the post of Defense Minister, but with Marshal Zhukov as his deputy. He was an ally ofNikita Khrushchev during his power struggle withGeorgy Malenkov, and in February 1955 he succeeded Malenkov asPremier of the Soviet Union.[6] He was generally seen as a supporter of Khrushchev's reforms anddestalinisation. In July 1955, he attended theGeneva Summit, with U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, French Prime MinisterEdgar Faure, and British Prime MinisterAnthony Eden. He and Khrushchev travelled together toIndia,Yugoslavia and in April 1956 toBritain, where they were known in the press as "the B and K show"[7] or "Bulge and Crush". In his memoirs, however, Khrushchev recounted that he believed that he "couldn't rely on [Bulganin] fully."[8]
During theSuez Crisis of October–November 1956, Bulganin sent letters to the governments of theUnited Kingdom,France, andIsrael threatening rocket attacks onLondon,Paris, andTel Aviv if they did not withdraw their forces from Egypt. In a letter to Israeli prime ministerDavid Ben-Gurion, Bulganin wrote, "Israel is playing with the fate of peace, with the fate of its own people, in a criminal and irresponsible manner; [...] which will place a question [mark] upon the very existence of Israel as a State."[9] Khrushchev, in his memoirs, admitted the threat was designed simply to divide Western opinion, especially since at the time he did not have enoughICBMs to launch the rockets, and in any case he had no intention of going to war in 1956.
By 1957, however, Bulganin had come to share the doubts held about Khrushchev's policies by the opposition group (which Khrushchev and his supporters labelled the "Anti-Party Group") led byVyacheslav Molotov. In June, when the dissenters tried to remove Khrushchev from power at a meeting of the Politburo, Bulganin vacillated between the two camps. When the dissenters were defeated and removed from power, Bulganin held on to his position for a while, but in March 1958, at a session of theSupreme Soviet, Khrushchev forced his resignation.[6] Bulganin was appointed Chairman of the Soviet State Bank, a job he had held two decades before, but in August was dispatched toStavropol as Chairman of theRegional Economic Council, a token position, and on 12 November he was expelled from the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee. In September he was removed from the Central Committee and deprived of the title of Marshal, and in February 1960 he was retired on a pension.
His wife was Elena Mikhailovna Korovina, an Englishteacher from aMoscowschool. The couple had twochildren: son Leo and daughter Vera. Vera married the son ofAdmiralNikolai Kuznetsov.
Bulganin died on February 24, 1975, after a long illness at the age of 79 and was buried in theNovodevichy Cemetery.
 | Hero of Socialist Labour (10 June 1955) |
 | Orders of Lenin, twice (1931, 1955) |
 | Order of the Red Banner (1943) |
 | Order of Suvorov, 1st class (1945) and 2nd class (1943) |
 | Order of Kutuzov, 1st class, twice (1943, 1944) |
 | Order of the Red Star, twice (1935, 1953) |
| Order of the Republic [ru] (Tuvan People's Republic, 3 March 1942) | |
 | Grand Cross of theVirtuti Militari (Poland) |
Nikolai Bulganin atFind a Grave
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of the Armed Forces 3 March 1947 – 24 March 1949 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union 15 March 1953 – 9 February 1955 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | ||
| Preceded by | Premier of the Soviet Union 8 February 1955 – 27 March 1958 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by A. P. Grichmanov | Chairman of Board of theSoviet State Bank 1938–1940 | Succeeded by N. K. Sokolov |
| Preceded by N. K. Sokolov | Chairman of Board of the Soviet State Bank 1940 | Succeeded by Ya. I. Golev |
| Preceded by | Chairman of Board of the Soviet State Bank 1958 | Succeeded by A. K. Korovushkin |
| People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs (1917–1934) |
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| People's Commissars for Defence (1934–1946) |
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| People's Commissars for the Navy (1937–1946) |
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| People's Commissar for the Armed Forces (1946) | ||
| Ministers of the Armed Forces (1946–1950) |
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| Minister of War (1950–1953) | ||
| Ministers of the Navy (1950–1953) |
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| Ministers of Defence (1953–1992) |
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