Background
He was born Feb. 26, 1896, in Mariupol, in what is now Ukraine.
He was born Feb. 26, 1896, in Mariupol, in what is now Ukraine.
Zhdanov joined the Bolshevik party in 1915. During the Russian Civil War (1918 - 1921) he did political work in the Red Army, and after the war he rose through the party ranks to become a member of the central committee in 1930. In 1934 he was chosen to succeed the assassinated Sergei Kirov as secretary of the important party organization in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). In 1939 he was named a full member of the politburo, the highest party organ.
During World War II he served heroically as the chief political leader of Leningrad during the 29-month German siege of the city. In 1946, as party leader in the most Westernized of Soviet cities, he was charged by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin with carrying out a ruthless and far-reaching purge of Soviet literary and artistic circles. However, in 1948 he fell afoul of Stalin by proposing the removal of the charlatan Trofim Lysenko from the presidency of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. After his death, most of his closest associates in Leningrad were purged and later executed on Stalin's orders.
ZHDANOV, ANDREI ALEKSANDROVICH , Soviet Communist Party leader and government administrator, was born Feb. 26, 1896, in Mariupol, in what is now Ukraine.
Zhdanov intended to create a new philosophy of artistic creation valid for the entire world. Zhdanov and his associates further sought to eliminate foreign influence from Soviet art, proclaiming that "incorrect art" was an ideological diversion. This doctrine suggested that the world was split into two opposing camps, namely, the “imperialistic”-led by the United States and the “democratic”-led by the Soviet Union.
