Mikhail Solomentsev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Solomentsev (; – 15 February 2008) was a Soviet politician and bureaucrat.

Early life

He was born in a village Yerilovka in the Yeletsky Uyezd, and graduated from the Leningrad Technological Institute in 1940.

Career

Solomentsev was a leading Communist Party functionary in Kazakhstan during 1962–1964 and was in charge of the Rostov-on-Don obkom from 1964–1966. He served as a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the years 1966–1971. Solomontsev was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian RSFR starting from 1971 and ending in 1983. He sat in the Politburo from 1983 until he was sacked by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. In October 1987 he led a Commission of the Politburo to look into the “purge” trials of the 1930s. The commission also included KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov and Alexander Yakovlev. Yakovlev subsequently took over the chairmanship of the Commission.

Decorations and awards

• Twice Hero of Socialist Labour (1973; 1983)
• Five Orders of Lenin (19 July 1958; 5 August 1966; 2 December 1971; 5 November 1973; 5 November 1983)
• Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (11 January 1957; 5 November 1963)
• Medal "For Labour Valour" (25 December 1959)
• Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (23 April 1985)
• Order of the Red Star (16 September 1945)

References

• Martin McCauley, Who's Who in Russia Since 1900, Routledge, 1997, ; pp. 194–195