Frantsov, Georgii

(also Frantsev, Georgii, or Iurii Pavlovich). Born Sept. 18 (Oct. 1), 1903, in Moscow; died there Apr. 18, 1969. Soviet philosopher, sociologist, and public figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1964; corresponding member, 1958). Member of the CPSU from 1940.

Frantsov was graduated from the linguistics and literature division of the department of social sciences of the University of Leningrad in 1924. In 1931 he began to teach in Leningrad’s higher educational institutions. From 1945 to 1949, Frantsov was director of the Institute of International Relations in Moscow. In 1949 he was appointed to a position of authority in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and, later, in the party press. From 1959 to 1964 he was rector of the Academy of Social Sciences attached to the Central Committee (CC) of the CPSU. From 1964 to 1968, Frantsov was editor in chief of Problemy mira i sotsializma (a journal on world affairs and socialism), and in 1968 he became deputy director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC of the CPSU.

Frantsov’s chief works deal with the history of religion and atheism, the problems of historical materialism and scientific communism, the methodology of history, and the critical analysis of bourgeois sociology. At the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses of the CPSU, Frantsov was elected a candidate member of the CC of the CPSU. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.