Kiselev, Tikhon Iakovlevich

Born July 30 (Aug. 12), 1917, in the village of Ogorodnia, in present-day Dobrush Raion, Gomel’ Oblast. Soviet statesman and party figure. Became a member of the CPSU in 1940. The son of a peasant.

Kiselev graduated from the Rechitsa Teachers College in 1936 and from a correspondence course of the Gomel’ Pedagogical Institute in 1941. He worked as a teacher and school principal. In 1944 he became an instructor for the Gomel’ oblast committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Byelorussia. After graduating from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) in 1946, he headed the lecturers’ group of the Brest oblast committee of the party. From 1948 to 1952 he was in charge of the department of schools of the Administration for Propaganda and Agitation and deputy director and then director of the department of propaganda and agitation of the Central Committee of the CP(B) of Byelorussia. From 1952 to 1955 he was first secretary of the Brest oblast party committee. In 1955–56 he was secretary and, from 1956 to 1959, second secretary of the Central Committee of the CP of Byelorussia. From 1958 to 1962 he was deputy chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In April 1959 he became chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian SSR. At the Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Congresses of the CPSU he was elected to the Central Committee. He was a deputy to the fourth through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. His awards include two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and medals.