Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In the Soviet Union, this was the highest level of party power. But the party led all the ongoing processes, which means that the holder of the post has reached the heights of state recognition in his country. This is how Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov was remembered - in the 70s one of the youngest and most energetic members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Childhood and youth
Kursk region, Fitizh village. Fedor Davydovich Kulakov was born here on February 4, 1918. The family was peasant. Information about childhood is very scarce and incomplete. Helped at home with the housework, went to school. From a young age I knew the taste of peasant labor s alted with sweat and the price of a loaf of coarse, home-made bread. Therefore, when the time came to decide on a future profession, he chose the work of a farmer without hesitation.
Fyodor went to study in the neighboring regional center of Rylsk, in 1922 in itopened an agricultural college. That's where the peasant boy came in. The ancient city with its sights and other temptations did not distract the young man from the main goal - study. Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov from childhood got used to doing everything in a peasant way thoroughly. At the age of 20, after graduating from a technical school, he was sent to work in the Tambov region. From that time began the work biography of a man who was destined to rise to the very heights of the Soviet party hierarchy.
Start in employment
In 1938, a young specialist Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov came to the Uritsky beet farm in the Tambov region. Yesterday's graduate of the agricultural technical school was immediately appointed assistant to the head of the department, there was a catastrophic lack of educated young personnel in the village. The infamous Stalinist purges took place not only among army commanders. The village was also affected by mass repression, and many agricultural leaders were arrested and received long prison terms. And the country desperately needed food. Therefore, the young agronomist had to work tirelessly. A symbolic coincidence: in the same 1938, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR established the Hero of Socialist Labor award. Kulakov was awarded this title in 1978 in honor of his 60th birthday.
Fyodor Davydovich worked at the Uritsky sugar beet farm, and later was transferred to the Penza region to the position of head of the department, and after some time became an agronomist at the Zemetchinsky sugar beet farm. At the same time, he joined the Communist Party (1940).
During the war years
At the same time as his production activities, the young agronomist was engaged in Komsomol and public affairs. Soon his professional party career began. In 1941, a new secretary, Kulakov, appeared in the Zemetchinsky District Committee. Fyodor Davydovich, information about his appointment quickly spread around the Komsomol organizations, began to travel a lot around the district. His official duties became larger: now he was responsible for the work of young people at all enterprises of the Zemetchinsky district.
The outbreak of war has made its own adjustments to the life of a young leader. They didn’t take him to the front, they needed specialists who could organize uninterrupted work in the rear. Kulakov showed himself to be just such a person. Fedor Davydovich, whose biography until that time was firmly connected with agricultural production, after working in the district committee, becomes the head of the district land department. Now he is responsible for the work of all agricultural enterprises in the region.
And in the rear they forged victory
The young leader's rapid career advancement indicates that he was a sensible and highly professional person. In difficult conditions, he managed to organize the smooth operation of enterprises whose products were used to supply the Red Army and defense enterprises. By 1944, Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov was already successfully heading the district executive committee and the district party committee in Nikolo-Pestravsky district.
Tense wartime boldly promoted very young people to leadership positions. At other times, their fates might have turned out differently, but the victorious offensive on the fronts commanded by young generals had to be supported by the uninterrupted work of the rear. And here the initiative belonged to the same young business executives. In 1944, at the age of 26, Fedor Davydovich became the head of the agricultural department of the Penza regional party committee and the regional agricultural department. In this position, Kulakov met the victory on May 9, 1945. Ahead of the young party leader was a peaceful life and a new interesting job.
Climbing to the top
Penza region has become the place where a major leader Fyodor Kulakov was formed. A statesman and party worker, he quickly went through all the steps of a long career ladder. When in 1950 he was entrusted to head the Penza Regional Council of People's Deputies, he was already an established leader with a balanced position and clear views on the organization of public administration. True, Kulakov did not linger on this work. A promising leader and practitioner in the field of agriculture was in demand in his main speci alty. Since 1955, Fedor Davydovich has been working as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and in 1959-1960 he headed the Ministry of Grain Products. At the same time, he fills in the gaps in education - he graduates in absentia from the Institute of Agriculture(1957).
And then something happened that many of Kulakov's biographers call "an honorary exile." Fedor Davydovich was sent to work in the party in Stavropol. Here, from 1960 to 1964, he headed the regional committee and became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1961). The return to Moscow took place after the removal of N. S. Khrushchev from the leadership of the country. It was rumored that Kulakov was directly involved in the preparation of Khrushchev's removal from office.
In the row of senior management
Agricultural production - his activities and biography were devoted to this. Fedor Kulakov in Moscow is again engaged in affairs familiar from his youth, but now on a national scale - he is in charge of the agricultural department in the Central Committee of the party (1964-1976). A year later, in 1965, he became secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. This was a high position, which gave the right to participate in meetings of the Politburo and have an advisory vote on them. In 1971, Fyodor Davydovich joined the Politburo - he reached the pinnacle of party and state power.
Kulakov was different from most of the elderly party leaders, who were ideologists who did not know the practical production. Having reached a high post, he tried to improve agricultural production in the Soviet Union. Belief in communist ideas did not hinder the understanding that under the existing conditions the peasantry could not effectively develop and feed the country. He proposed massively distributing plots of landtownspeople for dachas and running their own households. Thoughts about the introduction of farming in the Soviet Union seemed completely wild, Kulakov even suggested exempting farmers from taxes in the first two years.
Despite his high post, he was allowed to go abroad only within the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Apparently, too free thoughts about the structure of the Soviet village inspired some fear for his trustworthiness.
At the Kremlin wall
Death of Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov was sudden. Young by the standards of the Soviet nomenclature, the leader died on July 17, 1978. His unexpected death led to gossip and gossip. Except for the oncological operation he successfully performed in 1969, Kulakov was a he althy and strong man. Although the sharp criticism of the agricultural industry and himself, which sounded shortly before the fateful day at one of the party plenums, of course, did not add he alth to Fyodor Davydovich.
The official cause of death is heart failure. But people who knew Kulakov also discussed other possible versions: from murder to suicide. And they had weighty arguments to confirm their point of view, because Kulakov was considered one of the likely successors to the aging Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary of the Party. And he, with his point of view on the need for real changes in the economic sector of the economy, could be inconvenient for many colleagues from the top Soviet leadership. This is supported by the fact that a number of membersThe Politburo did not come to the funeral ceremony. It was unprecedented in Soviet history.
After cremation, the ashes of F. D. Kulakov were buried in the Kremlin wall.
Kulakov's wife, Evdokia Fedorovna, after the death of her husband visited his homeland, the village of Fitizh. Here, on the site of the old hut in which they settled after the wedding, she built a new house and often came to Fitizh for the summer. The house gradually began to resemble a museum, which the villagers eagerly looked into. And the undying memory is the best national monument to an outstanding person who, even after his death, was not forgotten in his small homeland.
