Background
Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko was born on September 8, 1906 in Alexeyevka, Belgorod Oblast, Russian Federation to a Ukrainian working-class family.
Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko was born on September 8, 1906 in Alexeyevka, Belgorod Oblast, Russian Federation to a Ukrainian working-class family.
As a young boy, Andrei Pavlovich worked as an electrician and a locksmith. In 1920, he graduated from one of the local schools. Five years later, he graduated from the Alekseevskii vocational technical school.
In the mid-to-late 1920s, Andrei Pavlovich started working for a mining enterprise located in the Voronezh Oblast. He became an active member of Komsomol in 1929 and, two years later, became a member of the All-Union Communist Party.
In 1936, Andrei Pavlovich graduated from the Rybinsk Aviation Technology Institute.
Andrei Pavlovich started working as a design engineer for the aircraft factory, Zaporizhia Engine Plant. In 1938, he became an active participant in party politics and was eventually selected to the position of Second Secretary of the Voroshilov District Party Committee in Zaporozhye Oblast. The following year, he was voted in as First Secretary. Later that year Andrei Pavlovich was appointed to Second Secretary of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Party Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In this role, Kirilenko made significant contributions to the development of metallurgical and electrical engineering, but also other sorts of industry.
During the Great Patriotic War, Andrei Pavlovich was directly involved with evacuating industry to safe zones. From 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the Military Soviet of the 18th Army of the Southern Front. In 1943, he was relocated to Moscow, and during his stay there the production of advanced aircraft increased rapidly. By the end of the war, in 1944, Andrei Pavlovich was made First Secretary of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Party. He succeeded Leonid Brezhnev, future Soviet leader, as First Secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Party Committee. From 1955 to 1962, he was First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee; he was appointed by Nikita Khrushchev himself to take charge of economic planning and personnel selection in urban areas of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Andrei Pavlovich was later promoted to Khrushchev's Vice-Chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee. Brezhnev benefited from Kirilenko's position, Brezhnev used him to win over supporters of his conspiracy against Khrushchev.
Immediately after Khrushchev's ouster, a "collective leadership" had been formed with Brezhnev as First Secretary, Alexei Kosygin as head of government and Anastas Mikoyan as head of state. Central Committee Secretaries Mikhail Suslov and Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko were also a part of the collective leadership, with he ranked fifth behind Brezhnev, Podgorny, Kosygin, and Suslov. In 1962, Andrei Pavlovich became a voting member of the Political Bureau (Politburo). In 1966, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSFSR was abolished, and Andrei Pavlovich became Brezhnev's chief lieutenant.
Konstantin Chernenko became a "counterweight" to Kirilenko's power within the Central Committee (CC). Before Chernenko's rise in the Soviet hierarchy, Andrei Pavlovich provided detailed supervision of new party personnel and the economy. When Chernenko came on board in 1976, he supervised the economy.
By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kirilenko's health was beginning to decline, and his memory weakened. Despite his failing health, he was still a high-standing member, and he usually presided over the meetings of the Secretariat when Suslov was not around. While First World representatives treated Andrei Pavlovich as Second Secretary of the Communist Party because most of his duties had been associated with that office in the past, the position was actually held by Suslov. During most of his term, he was one of four who had both a seat in the Secretariat and Politburo; the three others were Brezhnev, Suslov and Fyodor Kulakov.
By 1976 Kirilenko's position within the Soviet leadership had grown to such an extent that leading officials, such as Brezhnev and Suslov, were beginning to worry about his "organisational tail" in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). His supervisory responsibilities led many of his colleagues to view him as a threat to the Party Organisational Work Department of the Central Committee - the Central Committee department overseeing the civilian economy and the military -industrial complex. His position was weakened drastically by the end of the year, his weakened position did not lead to a strengthening of the Collective leadership but to the weakening of it.
As with Kosygin, Kirilenko's leading position in the Soviet leadership was in "limbo" due to his support for economic reform to countenance the country's stagnating economy. Andrei Pavlovich grew increasingly estranged with Brezhnev in 1977, some believe that it was due to the growing economic hardship that faced the Soviet Union. The most common explanation is that Andrei Pavlovich grew estranged was because of his weakened position within the Collective leadership.
Andrei Pavlovich led the Soviet delegation to the December 1977 MPLA Party Congress. At this congress, MPLA officially subscribed to the doctrine of Marxist-Leninism.
Andrei Pavlovich was seen as a possible candidate for the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1977, however, First World observers tended to overrate the significance of the office, and because of it, their observation were completely off the mark. Vasili Kuznetsov, a 76-year-old man, was chosen to the office of First Deputy Chairman instead. During Brezhnev's later rule, KGB chairman Yuri Andropov gradually took over the functions and, eventually, Kirilenko's position within the Soviet leadership.
In 1979, Andrei Pavlovich lost his unofficial office as supervisor of the defence industry over to Pavel Finogenov, a protegé of Dmitriy Ustinov. He was seen as a key candidate by the West to replace Brezhnev as Soviet leader in 1982. After Brezhnev's death, Kirilenko was removed from the ruling Politburo by the new General Secretary Andropov.[20] With his deteriorating health, having a disease known as arteriosclerosis, Andrei Pavlovich was disabled from ensuing active politics or protecting himself from Andropov's attacks.
After Brezhnev's death and funeral, Kirilenko's mental condition deteriorated to where he could not remember the names of several leading Politburo members. He was unable to write properly during his later life; when asked by Andropov to write a letter of resignation in 1982, he was unable to do so. The decision to remove Kirilenko was taken before Andropov rose to power, so in the event Brezhnev had died later, Kirilenko would still have been forced to resign. The reason for the decision was that Kirilenko's son had tried to defect to the United Kingdom.
Andrei Pavlovich made his last public appearance in 1983, and was given an honorary retirement the same year. He lived the rest of his life in Moscow and died on 12 May 1990. He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.
