Petr Nilovich Demichev

Born Jan. 3, 1918, in the village of Pesochnaia, now the town of Kirov, Kaluga Oblast. Soviet party figure and statesman. Became a member of the CPSU in 1939. The son of a worker.

Demichev studied at a machine-building technicum and from 1937 to 1944 served in the Soviet Army. In 1944 he graduated from the D. I. Mendeleev Moscow Chemical-Technological Institute and in 1944-45 was engaged in scientific work and teaching. Beginning in 1945, Demichev occupied responsible party positions as a division head and later as secretary of the council of the Sovetskii committee of the party in Moscow; from 1950 to 1956 he worked in the administrative machinery of the Moscow municipal committee of the CPSU and in the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1953 he completed the correspondence course given by the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU. From 1956 to 1958, Demichev was secretary of the Moscow committee of the CPSU and from 1958 to 1959 served as administrative head of operations for the Council of Ministers of the USSR. During 1959-60 he was first secretary of the Moscow oblast committee of the CPSU and from 1960 to 1962 was first secretary of the Moscow municipal committee of the CPSU.

At the Twenty-second through the Twenty-fourth Congresses of the CPSU, Demichev was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In the years 1959-61 he was a member of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR, and he was secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU from October 1961 to December 1974. Since November 1974 he has been minister of culture of the USSR. From 1962 to 1966 he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1964 through April 1966 he was a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In April 1966 he became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Demichev has served as a deputy to the fifth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has often participated in negotiations between party-government delegations of the USSR and those of other countries; he has also spoken at scientific and theoretical conferences. Demichev has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.