World: Lonely Death of a Survivor

Alexei Kosygin: 1904-1980

When Alexei Kosygin resigned as Soviet Premier last October after more than 40 years of service to the state and the Communist Party, no honors or tributes were bestowed upon the veteran leader. Among the 14 other Politburo members, only Leonid Brezhnev was moved to acknowledge "cordial gratitude" to Kosygin. Even that faint praise came after international surprise over Kosygin's unceremonious exit from power. Last week news of Kosygin's death of a heart attack in the Kremlin hospital was treated in more generous fashion. A day and a half after the event, the Soviet government and Communist Party made the announcement "with deep sorrow."

Though rumors of the ailing 76-year-old ex-Premier's death had been circulating insistently in Moscow, the official communiqué had been postponed while the Kremlin leaders apparently considered how much posthumous praise should be accorded their late comrade. There was an inconvenient fact: Kosygin had died on the eve of Brezhnev's birthday, when the Soviet press traditionally publishes panegyrics to the Soviet President, now 74. When the birthday celebrations were over, Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders finally paid tribute to Kosygin with such ritual phrases as: "he labored selflessly for the good of the Soviet state."

Thus, in death as in life, Kosygin had been eclipsed by Brezhnev. Still, until he fell ill last year and was replaced as Premier by Nikolai Tikhonov two months ago, he had maintained an iron grip over the vast state bureaucracy that he commanded. World leaders had learned not to judge Kosygin by appearances. In spite of his characteristically hangdog expression, he had been capable of driving as hard a bargain as any Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin. Equally tough and tenacious in the Kremlin corridors of power, Kosygin was unsurpassed in his ability to sidestep the purges that had swept away other Soviet leaders of his generation. Justifiably, he earned a reputation as the U.S.S.R.'s great survivor.

Born in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) in 1904, Kosygin came from modest beginnings. The son of a lathe operator, he held a series of managerial jobs in the Leningrad region, until he began a spectacular rise to power in the late 1930s. Escaping the Great Purge that dispatched millions of others to Stalin's Gulag, he became mayor of Leningrad. By 1939 he had ascended to membership in the ruling Central Committee.

Stalin quickly recognized Kosygin's administrative skills, and promoted him into the Politburo in less than a decade. Soon after, the dictator turned on his protégé during a purge of Leningrad party officials in 1949-1950. Nikita Khrushchev recalled that Kosygin's life "was hanging by a thread. Kosygin must have drawn a lucky lottery ticket." Again, in late 1952, Kosygin's life was in jeopardy when Stalin demoted him and denounced one of his close colleagues.