Vsevolod Serafimovich Murakhovsky (Russian: Всеволод Серафимович Мураховский; 20 October 1926 – 12 January 2017) was a Ukrainian-Russian politician who served as first deputy premier during the Gorbachev Era.

Early life and education

Murakhovsky hailed from an Ukrainian family. He was born in a village of Holubivka, near Kreminna (today Luhansk Oblast), on 20 October 1926. He attended Stavropol Pedagogical Institute and graduated in 1954.

Career

Murakhovsky served in the Soviet army from 1944 to 1950. In 1946, he joined the Communist Party. Then he worked as a communist party officer in the Stavropol region from 1954 to 1985. He also served a senior official in the Komsomol. He replaced Mikhail Gorbachev as first secretary of party's regional committee when the latter was appointed to party's central committee secretariat in Moscow in 1978. In 1981, Murakhovsky became a full member of the party's central committee.

Murakhovsky was appointed by the then Soviet president Gorbachev, his long-time friend, as one of the three first deputy premiers on 1 November 1985. It was his first post in Soviet administration. Murakhovsky was in charge of agriculture and related affairs and also appointed chairman of the state committee for the agro-industrial complex, Gosagroprom, which was abolished in 1989. The reason for disestablishment of the body was its proven inefficiency for which Gorbachev criticised Murakhovsky. Murakhovsky's term also ended in 1989.

Murakhovsky died on 12 January 2017, aged 90.

Decorations and awards

• Hero of Socialist Labour (1982)
• Two Orders of Lenin
• Order of the October Revolution
• Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour
• Order of the Badge of Honour
• Medal "For Services to the Stavropol Territory" (2001)
• Honorary Citizen of the Stavropol Territory (awarded by Resolution of the Governor of the Stavropol Territory on 28 October 2008 for his contribution to the economic, social and cultural development of the Stavropol Territory)