Ivan Kapitonov

Born Feb. 10 (23), 1915, in the village of Serovskoe, in present-day Sasovo Raion, Riazan Oblast. Soviet state and party figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the CPSU since 1939.

The son of a peasant, Kapitonov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Municipal Construction Engineering in 1938 and served as a senior engineer and section chief in construction. Kapitonov has held party and Soviet posts since 1941: he was at first secretary of a primary party organization and then secretary of the Krasnaia Presna City-Raion party committee. He was elected chairman of the raion executive committee of the Krasnaia Presna City-Raion of Moscow in 1947 and appointed chief of a department of the Moscow city committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) in 1948. After holding the post of secretary and second secretary of the Moscow oblast party committee in 1951–52, Kapitonov was elected first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU in 1952, first secretary of the Moscow oblast committee of the CPSU in 1954, and first secretary of the Ivanovo oblast committee of the CPSU in 1959 (to 1964). In 1964, Kapitonov became chief of a department of the CentralCommittee of the CPSU and in 1965, secretary of the CC. Adelegate to the Nineteenth through Twenty-fourth Party Congresses, he was elected member of the CC CPSU at the Nine-teenth, Twentieth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Congresses. Kapitonov was a member of the Bureau onthe RSFSR of the CC CPSU from 1964 to 1966, a deputy to thethird through Ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of theUSSR, and a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1954 to 1962. He was awarded three Orders ofLenin, three other orders, and medals.