Yegor Ligachev

Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev (also transliterated as Ligachyov; Russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and who continued an active political career in post-Soviet Russia. Originally an ally of Mikhail Gorbachev, Ligachev became a challenger to his leadership.

Ligachev was born on 29 November 1920 in the village Dubinkino in the Kainsky district [ru] of the Tomsk province (in the present-day Chulymsky District of the Novosibirsk Oblast). Between 1938 and 1943 he attended the Ordzhonikidze Institute for Aviation in Moscow and attained a technical engineering degree. Ligachev joined the Communist Party at the age of 24 in 1944, later studying at the Central Committee Higher Party School in Moscow in 1951.

Ligachev's career began in his native Siberia and took him to some of the highest functions of the Party. He was often regarded as Gorbachev's second man, holding important posts such as the Secretary for Ideology. He initially served under Yuri Andropov and later Gorbachev himself. However, Ligachev lost his posts in 1990, a year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, resigning from his political career at the 28th Party Congress. Ligachev was critical of Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev to an extent, although he is often portrayed as having been Gorbachev's primary critic.

Ligachev was First Secretary of the Novosibirsk Komsomol, before becoming Deputy Chairman of the Novosibirsk Soviet, and then Secretary of the Novosibirsk Obkom between 1959 and 1961.

Ligachev gained his first major post in 1961, when he began working in the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1965, he became First Secretary of the Party in Tomsk, Siberia. He was reputed to be an effective administrator. In a memoir published in 1984, Nikolai Baibakov, the chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, praised Ligachev for introducing "modern management methods" in Tomsk, and for his "tremendous contribution to all branches of the region's economy." During his time there he led the cover-up of the Stalin-era mass grave at Kolpashevo. He was to hold this position until 1983, when he was discovered by Yuri Andropov and made head of the Party Organization Department and a Secretary of the Central Committee.

In 1966, Ligachev was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee, and ten years later in 1976 he was promoted to a full member. When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, Ligachev was promoted to become a Secretary of higher status, and was generally viewed as one of Gorbachev's primary allies: he had helped organize a pro-Gorbachev faction in hope of having Gorbachev succeed Andropov in 1984, although this attempt failed (instead, Konstantin Chernenko was chosen as a stop-gap candidate). Ligachev was made head of the Secretariat.

Ligachev supported reform of the Soviet Union and initially supported Gorbachev; however, as Gorbachev's policies of perestroika and glasnost began to resemble what were seen as social democratic policies, he distanced himself from Gorbachev, and by 1988 he was recognized as the leader of the more conservative, anti-Gorbachev faction of Soviet politicians. During this period, Ligachev began to utter the phrase "Boris, you are wrong" when referring to Yeltsin in a political discourse. Ligachev served in the Politburo between 1985 and 1990. Ligachev, having made some speeches criticizing Gorbachev, was demoted from his more prestigious position as Secretary for Ideology to Secretary for Agriculture on 30 September 1988.

At the 28th Congress of the CPSU in 1990, he criticized Gorbachev for circumventing the Party via the Soviet Presidency, and he argued Glasnost had gone too far. During the Party Congress, Ligachev challenged Gorbachev for the office of General Secretary, standing as the "Leninist" candidate. Having been defeated, Ligachev left the Politburo for temporary retirement.