Copyright 1998 ABC-CLIO, Inc.  
Kaleidoscope

COUNTRY: Russia

PERSON: Yegor Ligachev

HEADLINE: Biographies

 


Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev was a high-ranking official of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who rose to prominence during the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev but disagreed with many of Gorbachev's economic reform plans.  


Ligachev was born on Nov 29, 1920 in Dubinkino, on Russia's Siberian plain. He lost several members of his family to the purges carried out by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Ligachev joined the Communist Party in 1944 and became an active member of the Young Communist League. He began serving in local government office in 1949 and began moving up the ranks of party and government office, gaining election as a candidate member of the Central Committee in 1966 and a full member 10 years later. Analysts say Ligachev survived within the party because he consistently adhered to the policies proposed by the Politburo.  


During the administration of Yuri Andropov, Ligachev played a key role in fighting corruption and incompetence at the party's highest levels. He was appointed to the Politburo in 1985 and in 1986 appeared to have been appointed as the party's ideology chief, adding to other responsibilities.  


Ligachev held firm views on economic and political reform. He disagreed with the reforms based on capitalism and aimed at a "deepening of socialist democracy." He was considered a brake on President Gorbachev's reforms, although he did help implement many changes. He played an important part in the dismissal of Boris Yeltsin from the Politburo after Yeltsin pushed for radical economic and political reforms. In 1988 he became more outspoken in his opposition to Gorbachev's reform plans, prompting Gorbachev to force the Politburo to relieve Ligachev of his duties supervising the nation's media. He was not fully discredited, in part because Gorbachev felt it necessary to placate the hard-line party officials who would later foment an unsuccessful coup against him. However, in 1988 Gorbachev removed Ligachev from the post of party ideology head. Ligachev was able to retain a degree of influence until July 1990, when he was ousted from the Politburo as reformist forces became dominant. He then announced that he was retiring from the higher levels of Soviet power.  


[Sources: Current Biography Yearbook; Encyclopedia of Russian History; Facts on File World News Digest]

LOAD-DATE: February 18, 1998
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