Wikipedia

Dmitri Shepilov

(Redirected fromDmitry Shepilov)

Dmitri Trofimovich Shepilov(Russian:Дми́трий Трофи́мович Шепи́лов,Dmitrij Trofimovič Šepilov;5 November [O.S.23 October] 1905 – 18 August 1995) was a Soviet economist, lawyer and politician who served asMinister of Foreign Affairs.He joined the abortive plot to oustNikita Khrushchevfrom power in 1957, and was denounced and removed from power. Rehabilitated after Khrushchev's downfall, he lived a largely obscure retirement.

Dmitri Shepilov
Дмитрий Шепилов
Shepilov in 1955
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
1 June 1956 – 15 February 1957
PremierNikolai Bulganin
Preceded byVyacheslav Molotov
Succeeded byAndrei Gromyko
Editor-in-chief ofPravda
In office
1952–1956
Preceded byLeonid Ilichev
Succeeded byPavel Satyukov
Head of thePropaganda Departmentof theCentral Committee
In office
20 July 1949 – 27 October 1952
Preceded byPost established
(Mikhail SuslovasPropaganda and Agitation Departmenthead)
Succeeded byMikhail Suslov
Candidate member of the20thPresidium
In office
27 February 1956 – 29 June 1957
Member of the19th,20thSecretariat
In office
14 February 1957 – 29 June 1957
In office
12 July 1955 – 24 December 1956
Personal details
Born
Dmitri Trofimovich Shepilov

5 November [O.S.23 October] 1905
Ashgabat,Russian Empire
Died18 August 1995(1995-08-18)(aged 89)
Moscow, Russia
NationalitySoviet and Russian
Political partyCommunist Party of the Soviet Union(1926–1962, 1976–1982)
ProfessionEconomist
In this name that followsEastern Slavic naming customs,thepatronymicisTrofimovichand thefamily nameisShepilov.

Early career

edit

Dmitri Shepilov was born inAskhabad(current capital ofTurkmenistan) in theTranscaspian Oblastof theRussian Empirein a working-class family of Russian ethnicity.[1]He graduated from theLaw Facultyof theMoscow State Universityin 1926 and was sent to work inYakutsk,where he worked as a deputy prosecutor and acting prosecutor forYakutia.In 1928–1929 Shepilov worked as an assistant regional prosecutor inSmolensk.In 1931–1933 Shepilov studied at theInstitute of Red Professors[2]inMoscowwhile simultaneously working as the "responsible secretary" of the magazineOn the Agrarian Front.After graduating in 1933, Shepilov was made head of the political department of asovkhoz.In 1935 he was made Deputy Chief of the Sector of Agricultural Science of theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In 1937 Shepilov became aDoctor of Scienceand was made the Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Economics of theSoviet Academy of Sciences.He also taught economics in Moscow's colleges between 1937 and 1941.

Shortly after the beginning ofOperation Barbarossa,Shepilov joined the SovietPeople'sMilitia(Narodnoe Opolcheniye) in July 1941 and was aPolitical commissarof its Moscow component during theBattle of Moscowin 1941–1942. In 1942–1943 he was the political commissar of the23rd Guards Army[citation needed]and in 1944–1946 of the4th Guards Army,[citation needed]ending the war with the rank ofMajor General.Between May 1945 and February 1946, Shepilov was one of the top Soviet officials inViennaduring the early stages of the Soviet occupation of eastern parts of Austria.

Post-war

edit

In February 1946, Shepilov was appointed deputy head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of theSoviet Army's Main Political Directorate. On 2 August 1946 he became the head of the propaganda department of the main Communist Party dailyPravda.

In mid-1947, the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party Central CommitteeGeorgy Aleksandrovand his deputies were subject to public criticism for being insufficiently vigilant and removed from their positions. Shepilov was appointed deputy chief of the Department on 18 September 1947. Since the new department head,Mikhail Suslov,had other responsibilities, Shepilov had almost complete control of the Department's day-to-day operations.

While in Moscow, Shepilov—famous for his near-eideticmemory, erudition and polished manners (reputedly, he could sing the whole ofTchaikovsky'soperaThe Queen of Spadesfrom memory)[3]—became an expert on Communist ideology and a protégé ofJoseph Stalin's chief of Communist ideologyAndrei Zhdanov.[4]One of his first tasks was to assist Zhdanov in disciplining the Soviet Union's two greatest living composers,Dmitri ShostakovichandSergei Prokofiev.He selected Shostakovich'sEighthandNinthSymphonies and Prokofiev's operaWar and Peaceas the worst examples of what was wrong with Soviet music.

The appointment ofYuri Zhdanov,Andrei Zhdanov's son, to lead the Propaganda Department's Science Sector on 1 December 1947 put Shepilov in the delicate position of supervising his patron's son. The situation was made even more delicate by the fact that Yuri Zhdanov had just married Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana and the fact that Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's closest advisor at the time, had many enemies in the Soviet leadership. When in April 1948 Shepilov approved Yuri Zhdanov's speech critical of Soviet biologist and Stalin favoriteTrofim Lysenko,it started an intense political battle between Andrei Zhdanov on the one hand and his rivals who were using the episode to discredit Zhdanov.[5]

On 1 July 1948, Zhdanov's main rival,Georgy Malenkov,took over at the Communist Party Secretariat while Zhdanov was sent on a two-month vacation, where he died. Shepilov, however, not only survived this change at the top, but even improved his position and was appointed as the next head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department on 10 July 1948. He also survived the next round of the intra-Party struggle associated with the removal and later execution of thePolitburomemberNikolai Voznesensky.However, on 14 July 1949, he was censured by the Central Committee for allowing the Party's main theoretical magazineBolshevikto publish Voznesensky's book on economics back when Voznesensky was still in power.[6]

In 1952 Stalin put Shepilov in charge of writing a new Soviet economics textbook based on Stalin's recently publishedtreatiseEconomic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.[7]On 18 November 1952, after the 19th Communist Party Congress, Shepilov was appointed editor-in-chief ofPravda.[8]

Khrushchev's theoretician

edit

After Stalin's death in March 1953, Shepilov became an ally and protégé of the new Soviet Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev,[9]providing ideological support in the latter's struggle with the Soviet prime ministerGeorgy Malenkov.He was made aCorresponding Memberof theSoviet Academy of Sciencesthe same year. WhileMalenkovargued in favor of producing more consumer goods, Shepilov emphasized the role of heavy and defense industries and characterized Malenkov's position as follows:

In generally understandable language this means: we surrender the advantage of forcing forward the development of heavy industry, machine construction, energy, chemical industry, electronics, jet technology, guidance systems, and so forth, to the imperialist world... It is hard to imagine a more anti-scientific, rotten theory, which could disarm our people more.[10]

In February 1955 Malenkov was ousted as prime minister while Shepilov was elected one of the Secretaries of the Central Committee on 12 July 1955. He retained hisPravdapost and became a senior Communist theoretician, contributing to Khrushchev's famous "secret speech" denouncing Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956.[11]

Minister of Foreign Affairs

edit

Even though his field was Marxist-Leninist theory, Shepilov soon began to branch out into foreign policy. In September 1954, he accompanied Khrushchev on a visit to China. In late May 1955 he accompanied Khrushchev and the new Soviet prime ministerNikolai BulganintoYugoslaviato end the confrontation between the two countries which had begun in 1947–1948. According to Veljko Mićunović, then a member of the Yugoslav leadership:

At a lunch withTitoin 1955, Khrushchev several times asked Shepilov to confirm an incident he had just described. "Shepilov would remove the table napkin," Micunovic recalled, "stand up from the table, and as though he were reporting officially, would reply: 'Just so, Nikita Sergeyevich!' and sit down again. I found such behavior on Shepilov's part most unusual, as I did Khrushchev's in tolerating it".[12]

In July 1955 Shepilov traveled toEgyptfor talks with the Egyptian leaderGamal Abdel Nasserand secured an arms deal, which meant de facto Soviet recognition of Egypt's military regime and paved the way for subsequent Soviet-Egyptian alliance.[13]It also signaled the Soviet Union's new found flexibility in dealing with non-CommunistThird Worldcountries in marked contrast to the intransigence of Stalin's years. On 27 February 1956, after the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress, Shepilov was made a candidate (non-voting) member of the Central Committee's Presidium (the Politburo's name in 1952–1966).[14]

On 1 June 1956, Shepilov replacedVyacheslav Molotovas theSoviet foreign minister.He gave up hisPravdapost, but remained a Secretary of the Central Committee until 24 December.[15]In early June 1956 Shepilov went back to Egypt and offered Soviet assistance in building theAswan Dam,which was eventually accepted after a competing American-World Bankoffer was withdrawn in July 1956 in the context of general deterioration of Western-Egyptian relations.

On 27 July 1956, one day after Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, Shepilov met the Egyptian ambassador to the Soviet Union and offered general support for Egypt's position, which Khrushchev made official in his 31 July speech. Although the Soviet Union, as a signatory to theConstantinople Convention of 1888,was invited to the international conference on the Suez issue to be held in London in mid-August, Shepilov at first hesitated to accept the offer. However, once the decision to go was made, he led the Soviet delegation at the conference. Although the conference adopted the American resolution on the internationalization of theSuez Canal18 votes against 4, Shepilov succeeded in striking an alliance withIndia,Indonesiaand theDominion of Ceylonas directed by the Soviet leadership.

Shepilov represented the Soviet Union at theUN Security Councilduring the1956 Hungarian Revolutionand theSuez Crisisin October–November 1956, although all important political decisions were made by Khrushchev and other top Soviet leaders.[16]

Post-ministership and resignation

edit

On 14 February 1957 Shepilov was once again made Secretary of the Central Committee[17]responsible for Communist ideology and the next day,Andrei Gromykoreplaced him as the Soviet foreign minister.

In his new capacity, Shepilov oversaw the Second Composers' Congress in March 1957, which re-affirmed the decision of the First Congress (January 1948) to denounceDmitri Shostakovichand otherformalistcomposers.[18]While delivering his speech to musicians, Shepilov mispronounced the name of the 19th century composerRimsky-Korsakov,putting the stress on the syllable 'sak', which inspired Shostakovich to compose, privately, a satirical cantataThe Anti-formalist Rayok(Peepshow) later that year[19](published in 1989). Its leading characters, Edinitsyn, Dvoikin, and Troikin (Onesyn, Twokin and Threekin) are transparently caricatures of Stalin, Zhdanov, and Shepilov. Shepilov also denouncedjazzand rock music at the Congress, warning against "wild cave-man orgies" and the "explosion of basic instincts and sexual urges".[20]

Shepilov was the only Central Committee Secretary to support an abortive plot to oust Khrushchev in June 1957, having reportedly joined the plot at the last moment whenLazar Kaganovichassured him that the plotters had a majority in the Presidium[21]When Khrushchev prevailed at the Central Committee meeting, he was furious over what he saw as Shepilov's betrayal, and denounced him as 'Shepilov-who-joined-them'. Shepilov was ousted from the Central Committee on 29 June 1957 and vilified in the press as a member of the "Anti-Party Group" along with Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich, the only 3 other Soviet leaders whose participation in the coup attempt was made public at the time. Shepilov was friend of MarshalGeorgy Zhukovand perhaps that was one of the reasons why a few months later Zhukov himself was removed from the office.[citation needed]

After losing his Central Committee positions, Shepilov was sent toKyrgyzstanto head the Economics Institute of the local Academy of Sciences, but was soon demoted to deputy director. In 1960 he was recalled to Moscow, expelled from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and sent to the Soviet State Archive (Gosarkhiv) to work as a clerk, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. Following a second wave of denunciations of the "Anti-Party Group"at the 22nd Communist Party Congress in November 1961, Shepilov was expelled from the Communist Party on 21 February 1962. In 1976 he was allowed to re-join the Communist Party, but remained on the sidelines.[citation needed]

When Khrushchev was ousted as the Soviet leader in October 1964, Shepilov began working on his memoirs, a project which he continued intermittently until circa 1970. His papers were lost after his death at age 89 in Moscow, but were eventually found and published in 2001.[citation needed]

As a young man,Marion Barrychose "Shepilov" as his middle name. It is said that this was done in honor of the Soviet politician, but the reasons have been disputed.[22]

References

edit
  1. ^"VIVOS VOCO: Шепилов Дмитрий Трофимович".
  2. ^William Taubman.Khrushchev: The Man and His Era,New York, W. W. Norton and Co., 2003,ISBN0-393-05144-7p.314.
  3. ^McSmith, Andy (2015).Fear and the Muse Kept Watch.New York: New Press. p. 264.ISBN978-1-62097-079-9.
  4. ^Transcripts of frank conversations between Zhdanov and ShepilovinJonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov.Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948–1953,Harper Collins Publishers, 2003,ISBN0-06-093310-0p.79.
  5. ^See Alexei Kojevnikov. "Games of Stalinist Democracy: ideological discussions in the Soviet sciences 1947–1952" inStalinism: New Directions,ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick, London, Routledge,ISBN0-415-15234-8p.158-159
  6. ^Current Digest of the Soviet Press,Volume 4, No. 50, 24 January 1953, p. 15.
  7. ^I primknuvshii k nim Shepilov: pravda o cheloveke uchyonom, voine, politike,eds. Tamara Tochanova and Mikhail Lozhnikov, Moscow, 1998, pp. 127–28, 180–82, 281–82
  8. ^See Yoram Gorlizki, Oleg V Khlevniuk.Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953,Oxford University Press, 2004,ISBN0-19-516581-0p.215
  9. ^Taubman, op. cit., p.313.
  10. ^Pravda,January 24, 1955. Quoted inLawrence Freedman.The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy,New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 (third edition),ISBN0-312-02843-1p.140
  11. ^Roger D. Markwick.Rewriting History in Soviet Russia,New York, Palgrave, 2001,ISBN0-333-79209-2p.262, note 146
  12. ^Quoted in Taubman, op. cit., p. 312
  13. ^Rami Ginat.The Soviet Union and Egypt, 1945–1955,London, Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1993,ISBN0-7146-3486-7pp. 213–214.
  14. ^USSR: Communist Party: Presidium at www.archontology.org
  15. ^Since Central Committee Secretaries were only appointed and dismissed by infrequent Central Committee plenary meetings, Shepilov formally retained the post until the next meeting
  16. ^Laurent Rucker. "The Soviet Union and the Suez Crisis", inThe 1956 War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East,ed. David Tal, London, Frank Cass Publishers, 2001,ISBN0-7146-4394-7pp.67–82.
  17. ^USSR: Communist Party: Secretariat at www.archontology.org
  18. ^L.N. Lebedinsky. "Rayok:The Music Lesson "inModernism and Music: An Anthropology of Sources,ed. Daniel Albright, University of Chicago, 2004,ISBN0-226-01267-0p.363. Also see Daniel Zhitomirsky. "Shostakovich the public and the private: reminiscences, materials, comments" inDaugava,1990, No. 3.An English translation is available online as of March 2006
  19. ^McSmith.Fear and the Muse Kept Watch.pp. 287–8.
  20. ^Quoted in David Caute.The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War,Oxford University Press, 2003,ISBN0-19-924908-3p.457
  21. ^Taubman. op. cit., p.313.
  22. ^Barry, Marion, and Omar Tyree.Mayor For Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry, Jr.New York: Strebor Books, 2014. P. 36

Bibliography

edit
Wikimedia Commons has media related toDmitri Shepilov.
Autobiography
In English
  • Speech at the 20th Congress of the C. P. S. U., 15 February 1956,Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956, 28 p.
  • TheSuezProblem,Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956, 95p.
In Russian
  • Obshchestvennoe i lichnoe v kolkhozakh,1939, 79p.
  • Velikij sovetskij narod,Moscow, 1947, 47p.
  • I. V. Stalin o kharaktere ekonomicheskikh zakonov sotsializma,Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stwo politicheckoj literatury, 1952, 35p.
  • Pechat' v bor'be za dal'nejshij pod'em sel'skogo hozyajstva,Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheckoj literatury, 1954, 63p.
  • Za dal'nejshij rastsvet sovetskogo hudozhestvennogo tvorchestva,1957, 31p.
  • Dmitry Shepilov. "Vospominaniia" inVoprosy istorii1998, no. 4.
  • Шепилов Д.Т. Непримкнувший. ВоспоминанияИздательство «ВАГРИУС», 2001.ISBN5-264-00505-2
  • Biography
  • K.A. Zalessky.Imperiya Stalina. Biograficheckij Entsiklopedicheskij slovar'.Moscow, Veche, 2000.ISBN5-7838-0716-8
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR
1956–1957 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dmitri_Shepilov&oldid=1253423093"