Nikolai Nikolaevich Rodionov

Born Apr. 17 (30), 1915, in Chern’, in what is now Tula Oblast. Soviet state and party figure and diplomat. Member of the CPSU since 1944.

The son of an office worker, Rodionov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Steel in 1941. From 1941 to 1948 he held various engineering and technical positions at the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine and at a scientific research institute in Leningrad.

Rodionov has been occupied with party work since 1948. He was second secretary of the Leningrad city committee of the CPSU from 1954 to 1956 and first secretary from 1957 to 1960. In 1956 and 1957 he was second secretary of the Leningrad oblast committee of the CPSU. Rodionov was second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan between 1960 and 1962. From 1962 to 1965 he was deputy chairman of the Leningrad Sovnarkhoz (Regional Economic Council). He became first secretary of the Cheliabinsk oblast committee of the CPSU in 1965 and held that position until 1970. In July 1970 he became deputy minister of foreign affairs of the USSR.

Rodionov was a delegate to the Nineteenth through Twenty-fifth Congresses of the CPSU. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1961 to 1966, in which year he became a full member of the Central Committee. He was a deputy to the fifth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Rodionov has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three other orders, and various medals.