Surganov, Fedor Anisimovich

Surganov, Fedor Anisimovich

 

Born May 25 (June 7), 1911, in the village of Sudniki, in what is now Vitebsk Raion, Vitebsk Oblast; died Dec. 12, 1976. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the CPSU since 1940.

The son of a peasant, Surganov graduated from the Byelorussian State Agricultural Institute in 1939. He had begun working as an agronomist at the Kolkhoztsentr (All-Union Council of Kolkhozes) of the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture of the Byelorussian SSR in 1931, and in 1939 he began working for the Komsomol in an administrative capacity. From 1942 to 1945 he was secretary of the Central Committee of the Byelorussian Komsomol. From 1942 to 1944, during the Great Patriotic War, he was an organizer and leader of the partisan movement and of the Komsomol underground in Byelorussia. At that time he was a member of the Task Force of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (Bolshevik), or CPB(B), and of the Byelorussian partisan headquarters; he was also an authorized representative of the Central Committee of the CPB(B) and of the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement in the enemy rear.

From 1945 to 1947, Surganov was on the administrative staff of the CPB(B). From 1947 to 1954 he was second secretary—and, in 1955–56, first secretary—of the Minsk oblast committee of the CPB. In 1954–55 he was chairman of the Minsk oblast executive committee. From 1956 to 1959 and from 1962 to 1965 he was secretary of the Central Committee of the CPB, and from 1959 to 1962 and 1965 to 1971, second secretary of the party’s Central Committee. In July 1971 he became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR, and in November 1971, deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

From 1956 to 1961, Surganov was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU; he became a member in 1961. He was a member of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPB from 1956. He was a deputy to the fourth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Surganov was awarded five orders of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.