Dmitri Shepilov
Encyclopedia
Dmitri Trofimovich Shepilov (– 8 August 1995) was a Soviet politician
and Minister of Foreign Affairs who joined the abortive plot to oust Nikita Khrushchev
from power in 1957.
in 1926 and was sent to work in Yakutsk
, where he worked as a deputy prosecutor and acting prosecutor for Yakutia. In 1928-1929 Shepilov worked as an assistant regional prosecutor in Smolensk
. In 1931-1933 Shepilov studied at the Institute of Red Professors
in Moscow
while simultaneously working as the "responsible secretary" of the magazine On the Agrarian Front. After graduating in 1933, Shepilov was made head of the political department of a sovkhoz
. In 1935 he was made Deputy Chief of the Sector of Agricultural Science of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party
.
In 1937 Shepilov became a Doctor of Science
and was made the Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Economics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He also taught economics
in Moscow's colleges between 1937 and 1941.
Shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa
, Shepilov joined the Soviet People's Militia
(Narodnoe Opolcheniye
) in July 1941 and was a Political commissar
of its Moscow component during the Battle of Moscow
in 1941-1942. In 1942-1943 he was the political commissar of the 23rd Guard Army and in 1944-1946 of the 4th Guard Army, ending the war with the rank of Major General
. Between May 1945 and February 1946, Shepilov was one of the top Soviet officials in Vienna
during the early stages of the Soviet occupation of eastern parts of Austria
.
's Main Political Directorate. On 2 August 1946 he became the head of the propaganda department of the main Communist Party daily Pravda
.
In mid-1947, the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party Central Committee Georgy Aleksandrov
and his deputies were subject to public criticism for being insufficiently vigilant and removed from their positions. Shepilov was appointed deputy chief of the Department on 18 September 1947. Since the new department head, Mikhail Suslov
, had other responsibilities, Shepilov had almost complete control of the Department's day to day operations.
While in Moscow, Shepilov– famous for his near-eidetic memory, erudition and polished manners– became an expert on Communist ideology and a protege of Joseph Stalin
's chief of Communist ideology Andrei Zhdanov
. The 1 December 1947 appointment of Yuri Zhdanov, Andrei Zhdanov's son, to lead the Propaganda Department's Science Sector put Shepilov in a delicate position of supervising his patron's son. The situation was made even more delicate by the fact that Yuri Zhdanov had just married Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana and the fact that Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's closest advisor at the time, had many enemies in the Soviet leadership.
When in April 1948 Shepilov approved Yuri Zhdanov's speech critical of Soviet biologist and Stalin favorite Trofim Lysenko
, it started an intense political battle between Andrei Zhdanov on the one hand and his rivals who were using the episode to discredit Zhdanov. On 1 July 1948, Zhdanov's main rival, Georgy Malenkov
, took over at the Communist Party Secretariat while Zhdanov was sent on a two-month vacation, where he died. Shepilov, however, not only survived this change at the top, but even improved his position and was appointed as the next head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department on 10 July 1948. He also survived the next round of the intra-Party struggle associated with the removal and later execution of the Politburo member Nikolai Voznesensky
. However, on 14 July 1949, he was censured by the Central Committee for allowing the Party's main theoretical magazine Bolshevik to publish Voznesensky's book on economics
back when Voznesensky was still in power.
In 1952 Stalin put Shepilov in charge of writing a new Soviet economics textbook based on Stalin's recently published treatise
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR. On 18 November 1952, after the 19th Communist Party Congress, Shepilov was appointed editor-in-chief of Pravda.
. He was made a Corresponding Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences the same year. While Malenkov argued in favor of producing more consumer goods, Shepilov emphasized the role of heavy and defense industries and characterized Malenkov's position as follows:
In February 1955 Malenkov was ousted as prime minister while Shepilov was elected one of the Secretaries of the Central Committee on 12 July 1955. He retained his Pravda post and became a senior Communist theoretician, contributing to Khrushchev's famous "secret speech" denouncing Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956.
to Yugoslavia
to end the confrontation between the two countries which had begun in 1947-1948. According to Veljko Mićunović, then a member of the Yugoslav leadership:
In July 1955 Shepilov traveled to Egypt
for talks with the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser
and secured an arms deal, which meant de facto Soviet recognition of Egypt's military regime and paved the way for subsequent Soviet-Egyptian alliance. It also signaled the Soviet Union's new found flexibility in dealing with non-Communist Third World
countries in marked contrast to the intransigence of Stalin's years. On 27 February 1956, after the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress, Shepilov was made a candidate (non-voting) member of the Central Committee's Presidium (the Politburo's name in 1952-1966).
On 1 June 1956, Shepilov replaced Vyacheslav Molotov
as the Soviet foreign minister. He gave up his Pravda post, but remained a Secretary of the Central Committee until 24 December . In early June 1956 Shepilov went back to Egypt and offered Soviet assistance in building the Aswan Dam
, which was eventually accepted after a competing American
-World Bank
offer was withdrawn in July 1956 in the context of general deterioration of Western-Egyptian relations.
On 27 July 1956, one day after Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, Shepilov met the Egyptian ambassador to the Soviet Union and offered general support for Egypt's position, which Khrushchev made official in his 31 July speech. Although the Soviet Union, as a signatory to the Constantinople Convention of 1888
, was invited to the international conference on the Suez issue to be held in London
in mid-August, Shepilov at first hesitated to accept the offer. However, once the decision to go was made, he led the Soviet delegation at the conference. Although the conference adopted the American
resolution on the internationalization of the Suez Canal
18 votes against 4, Shepilov succeeded in striking an alliance with India
, Indonesia
and Ceylon as directed by the Soviet leadership.
Shepilov represented the Soviet Union at the UN Security Council during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
and the Suez Crisis
in October-November 1956, although all important political decisions were made by Khrushchev and other top Soviet leaders.
and the next day, Andrei Gromyko
replaced him as the Soviet foreign minister. In his new capacity, Shepilov oversaw the Second Composers' Congress in March 1957, which re-affirmed the decision of the First Congress (January 1948) to denounce Dmitri Shostakovich
and other modernist composers. When Shostakovich privately composed a satirical cantata Rayok (Peepshow) later that year (published in 1989), he made one of the bass
es a caricature of Shepilov. Shepilov also denounced jazz
and rock music
at the Congress, warning against "wild cave-man orgies" and the "explosion of basic instincts and sexual urges".
Shepilov was the only Central Committee Secretary to oppose Khrushchev in June 1957 when a majority of the Presidium members tried to oust Khrushchev during the so-called Anti-Party Group
affair. He reportedly joined the plot at the last moment when Lazar Kaganovich
assured him that the plotters had a majority in the Presidium When Khrushchev prevailed at the Central Committee meeting, he was furious over what he saw as Shepilov's betrayal. Shepilov was ousted from the Central Committee on 29 June 1957 and vilified in the press along with Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich, the only 3 other Soviet leaders whose participation in the coup attempt was made public at the time. Shepilov was friend of Marshal Georgy Zhukov
and perhaps that was one of the reasons why a few months later Zhukov himself was removed from the office.
After losing his Central Committee positions, Shepilov was sent to Kyrgyzstan
to head the Economics Institute of the local Academy of Sciences, but was soon demoted to deputy director. In 1960 he was recalled to Moscow, expelled from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and sent to the Soviet State Archive (Gosarkhiv) to work as a clerk, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. Following a second wave of denunciations of the "Anti-Party Group" at the 22nd Communist Party Congress in November 1961, Shepilov was expelled from the Communist Party on 21 February 1962. In 1976 he was allowed to re-join the Communist Party, but remained on the sidelines.
When Khrushchev was ousted as the Soviet leader in October 1964, Shepilov began working on his memoirs, a project which he continued intermittently until circa 1970. His papers were lost after his death at age 89 in Moscow, but were eventually found and published in 2001.
Politics of the Soviet Union
The political system of the Soviet Union was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , the only party permitted by Constitution.For information about the government, see Government of the Soviet Union-Background:...
and Minister of Foreign Affairs who joined the abortive plot to oust Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
from power in 1957.
Childhood
Dmitri Shepilov was born to a worker's family in Askhabad. He graduated from the Law School of the Moscow State UniversityMoscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
in 1926 and was sent to work in Yakutsk
Yakutsk
With a subarctic climate , Yakutsk is the coldest city, though not the coldest inhabited place, on Earth. Average monthly temperatures range from in July to in January. The coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet outside Antarctica occurred in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast...
, where he worked as a deputy prosecutor and acting prosecutor for Yakutia. In 1928-1929 Shepilov worked as an assistant regional prosecutor in Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
. In 1931-1933 Shepilov studied at the Institute of Red Professors
Institute of Red Professors
The Institute of Red Professors was an institute of graduate-level education in the Marxist social sciences located in the Orthodox Convent of the Passion, Moscow. It was founded in February 1921 to address shortage of Marxist professors but only about 25% of its graduates continued an academic...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
while simultaneously working as the "responsible secretary" of the magazine On the Agrarian Front. After graduating in 1933, Shepilov was made head of the political department of a sovkhoz
Sovkhoz
A sovkhoz , typically translated as state farm, is a state-owned farm. The term originated in the Soviet Union, hence the name. The term is still in use in some post-Soviet states, e.g., Russia and Belarus. It is usually contrasted with kolkhoz, which is a collective-owned farm...
. In 1935 he was made Deputy Chief of the Sector of Agricultural Science of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...
.
In 1937 Shepilov became a Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
and was made the Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Economics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He also taught economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
in Moscow's colleges between 1937 and 1941.
Shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, Shepilov joined the Soviet People's Militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
(Narodnoe Opolcheniye
Narodnoe Opolcheniye
Narodnoe Opolcheniye or Opolchenie was the name of irregular troops formed from the population in Russia and Soviet Union to fight alongside the regular army during several wars throughout its history....
) in July 1941 and was a Political commissar
Political commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
of its Moscow component during the Battle of Moscow
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...
in 1941-1942. In 1942-1943 he was the political commissar of the 23rd Guard Army and in 1944-1946 of the 4th Guard Army, ending the war with the rank of Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
. Between May 1945 and February 1946, Shepilov was one of the top Soviet officials in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
during the early stages of the Soviet occupation of eastern parts of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
.
Early career
In February 1946, Shepilov was appointed deputy head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Soviet ArmySoviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
's Main Political Directorate. On 2 August 1946 he became the head of the propaganda department of the main Communist Party daily Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
.
In mid-1947, the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party Central Committee Georgy Aleksandrov
Georgy Aleksandrov
Georgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov Georgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov Georgy Fedorovich Aleksandrov (22 March 1908 (Old Style), Saint Petersburg - 7 July 1961 (New Style, Moscow) was a Marxist philosopher and a Soviet politician.-Childhood and education:...
and his deputies were subject to public criticism for being insufficiently vigilant and removed from their positions. Shepilov was appointed deputy chief of the Department on 18 September 1947. Since the new department head, Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial Chief Ideologue of the Party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and the separation of power...
, had other responsibilities, Shepilov had almost complete control of the Department's day to day operations.
While in Moscow, Shepilov– famous for his near-eidetic memory, erudition and polished manners– became an expert on Communist ideology and a protege of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's chief of Communist ideology Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician.-Life:Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks, becoming the All-Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934...
. The 1 December 1947 appointment of Yuri Zhdanov, Andrei Zhdanov's son, to lead the Propaganda Department's Science Sector put Shepilov in a delicate position of supervising his patron's son. The situation was made even more delicate by the fact that Yuri Zhdanov had just married Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana and the fact that Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's closest advisor at the time, had many enemies in the Soviet leadership.
When in April 1948 Shepilov approved Yuri Zhdanov's speech critical of Soviet biologist and Stalin favorite Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...
, it started an intense political battle between Andrei Zhdanov on the one hand and his rivals who were using the episode to discredit Zhdanov. On 1 July 1948, Zhdanov's main rival, Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
, took over at the Communist Party Secretariat while Zhdanov was sent on a two-month vacation, where he died. Shepilov, however, not only survived this change at the top, but even improved his position and was appointed as the next head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department on 10 July 1948. He also survived the next round of the intra-Party struggle associated with the removal and later execution of the Politburo member Nikolai Voznesensky
Nikolai Voznesensky
Nikolai Alekseevich Voznesensky was the Soviet economic planner who oversaw the running of Gosplan during the German-Soviet War. A protégé of Andrei Zhdanov, Voznesensky was appointed Deputy Premier in May 1940 at the age of thirty-eight. He was directly involved in the recovery of production...
. However, on 14 July 1949, he was censured by the Central Committee for allowing the Party's main theoretical magazine Bolshevik to publish Voznesensky's book on economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
back when Voznesensky was still in power.
In 1952 Stalin put Shepilov in charge of writing a new Soviet economics textbook based on Stalin's recently published treatise
Treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR. On 18 November 1952, after the 19th Communist Party Congress, Shepilov was appointed editor-in-chief of Pravda.
Khrushchev's theoretician
After Stalin's death in March 1953, Shepilov became an ally and protege of the new Soviet Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev, providing ideological support in the latter's struggle with the Soviet prime minister Georgy MalenkovGeorgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
. He was made a Corresponding Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences the same year. While Malenkov argued in favor of producing more consumer goods, Shepilov emphasized the role of heavy and defense industries and characterized Malenkov's position as follows:
In February 1955 Malenkov was ousted as prime minister while Shepilov was elected one of the Secretaries of the Central Committee on 12 July 1955. He retained his Pravda post and became a senior Communist theoretician, contributing to Khrushchev's famous "secret speech" denouncing Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956.
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Even though his field was Communist ideology, Shepilov soon began to branch out into foreign policy. In late May 1955 he accompanied Khrushchev and the new Soviet prime minister Nikolai BulganinNikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense and Premier of the Soviet Union . The Bulganin beard is named after him.-Early career:...
to Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
to end the confrontation between the two countries which had begun in 1947-1948. According to Veljko Mićunović, then a member of the Yugoslav leadership:
- At a lunch with TitoJosip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
in 1955, Khrushchev several times asked Shepilov to confirm an incident he had just described. "Shepilov would remove the table napkin," Micunovic recalled, "stand up from the table, and as though he were reporting officially, would reply: 'Just so, Nikita Sergeyevich!' and sit down again. I found such behavior on Shepilov's part most unusual, as I did Khrushchev's in tolerating it".
In July 1955 Shepilov traveled to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
for talks with the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
and secured an arms deal, which meant de facto Soviet recognition of Egypt's military regime and paved the way for subsequent Soviet-Egyptian alliance. It also signaled the Soviet Union's new found flexibility in dealing with non-Communist Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
countries in marked contrast to the intransigence of Stalin's years. On 27 February 1956, after the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress, Shepilov was made a candidate (non-voting) member of the Central Committee's Presidium (the Politburo's name in 1952-1966).
On 1 June 1956, Shepilov replaced Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
as the Soviet foreign minister. He gave up his Pravda post, but remained a Secretary of the Central Committee until 24 December . In early June 1956 Shepilov went back to Egypt and offered Soviet assistance in building the Aswan Dam
Aswan Dam
The Aswan Dam is an embankment dam situated across the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. Since the 1950s, the name commonly refers to the High Dam, which is larger and newer than the Aswan Low Dam, which was first completed in 1902...
, which was eventually accepted after a competing American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
offer was withdrawn in July 1956 in the context of general deterioration of Western-Egyptian relations.
On 27 July 1956, one day after Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, Shepilov met the Egyptian ambassador to the Soviet Union and offered general support for Egypt's position, which Khrushchev made official in his 31 July speech. Although the Soviet Union, as a signatory to the Constantinople Convention of 1888
Convention of Constantinople
The Convention of Constantinople was a treaty signed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and the Ottoman Empire on October 29, 1888. In the 1880s Britain had recently acquired physical control over the Suez Canal and Egypt...
, was invited to the international conference on the Suez issue to be held in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in mid-August, Shepilov at first hesitated to accept the offer. However, once the decision to go was made, he led the Soviet delegation at the conference. Although the conference adopted the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
resolution on the internationalization of the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
18 votes against 4, Shepilov succeeded in striking an alliance with India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and Ceylon as directed by the Soviet leadership.
Shepilov represented the Soviet Union at the UN Security Council during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
and the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
in October-November 1956, although all important political decisions were made by Khrushchev and other top Soviet leaders.
Post-Ministership and resignation
On 14 February 1957 Shepilov was once again made Secretary of the Central Committee responsible for Communist ideologyIdeology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
and the next day, Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
replaced him as the Soviet foreign minister. In his new capacity, Shepilov oversaw the Second Composers' Congress in March 1957, which re-affirmed the decision of the First Congress (January 1948) to denounce Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
and other modernist composers. When Shostakovich privately composed a satirical cantata Rayok (Peepshow) later that year (published in 1989), he made one of the bass
Bass (instrument)
Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...
es a caricature of Shepilov. Shepilov also denounced jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
at the Congress, warning against "wild cave-man orgies" and the "explosion of basic instincts and sexual urges".
Shepilov was the only Central Committee Secretary to oppose Khrushchev in June 1957 when a majority of the Presidium members tried to oust Khrushchev during the so-called Anti-Party Group
Anti-Party Group
The Anti-Party Group was a group within the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that unsuccessfully attempted to depose Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Party in May 1957. The group, named by that epithet by Khrushchev, was led by former Premiers Georgy Malenkov and...
affair. He reportedly joined the plot at the last moment when Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...
assured him that the plotters had a majority in the Presidium When Khrushchev prevailed at the Central Committee meeting, he was furious over what he saw as Shepilov's betrayal. Shepilov was ousted from the Central Committee on 29 June 1957 and vilified in the press along with Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich, the only 3 other Soviet leaders whose participation in the coup attempt was made public at the time. Shepilov was friend of Marshal Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
and perhaps that was one of the reasons why a few months later Zhukov himself was removed from the office.
After losing his Central Committee positions, Shepilov was sent to Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
to head the Economics Institute of the local Academy of Sciences, but was soon demoted to deputy director. In 1960 he was recalled to Moscow, expelled from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and sent to the Soviet State Archive (Gosarkhiv) to work as a clerk, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. Following a second wave of denunciations of the "Anti-Party Group" at the 22nd Communist Party Congress in November 1961, Shepilov was expelled from the Communist Party on 21 February 1962. In 1976 he was allowed to re-join the Communist Party, but remained on the sidelines.
When Khrushchev was ousted as the Soviet leader in October 1964, Shepilov began working on his memoirs, a project which he continued intermittently until circa 1970. His papers were lost after his death at age 89 in Moscow, but were eventually found and published in 2001.