Mzhavanadze, Vasilii

Born Sept. 7 (20), 1902, in Kutaisi. Soviet party official; lieutenant general (1944). Member of the CPSU from 1927. Son of a worker.

Mzhavanadze was a worker in the city of Tsulukidze from 1915 to 1924. He joined the Soviet Army in 1924. After graduating from the V. I. Lenin Leningrad Military Political Academy in 1937, he was involved in political work in the Soviet Army. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Mzhavanadze was a commissar of large army units and a member of army military councils. Between 1945 and 1953 he was a member of the military councils of the Kharkov, Kiev, and Ciscarpathian military districts. Mzhavanadze was first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP of Georgia from 1953 to 1972. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twentieth and Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Party Congresses. Mzhavanadze was a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee from 1957 to 1966, a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1966 to 1972, and a deputy to the fourth through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He retired in September 1972.