Anastas Mikoyan

Veteran Soviet statesman and longtime Politburo member Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan is perhaps best remembered in both the West and the post-Soviet space as a master of international diplomacy and a political survivor who stayed in high office from Lenin through the Brezhnev eras. Less well known, though, is the pivotal role he played in dismantling and rejecting the authoritarian Stalinist state and guiding Khrushchev's nationality policy toward state unity and a respect for ethnic and cultural diversity.

As the first political biography in English of a key figure in Soviet politics, Anastas Mikoyan focuses on Mikoyan's statesmanship during the Thaw of 1953-1964, when Stalin's death and Khrushchev's ascension opened the door for greater pluralism and freedom of information in the Soviet Union. Mikoyan had been a loyal Stalinist, but his background as a native Armenian guided his Thaw-era reform initiatives on nationality policy and de-Stalinization. The statesman advocated a dynamic approach to governance, rejecting national nihilism and embracing a multitude of ethnicities beneath the aegis of democratic socialism, using Armenia as his exemplar. While most of Mikoyan's recommendations were adopted by the Khrushchev government, significant opposition in the Soviet leadership and Khrushchev's ouster in 1964 ended the Thaw and led to Mikoyan's own resignation the following year, though he remained a prominent public figure until his death in 1978.

Following a leading statesman through his personal and professional connections within and beyond the Soviet state, Anastas Mikoyan offers important insights into nation-building, the politics of difference, and the lingering possibilities of coexistence in a multiethnic society.