Nikolay Mikhailovich Shvernik was a Russian politician, who was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (or President of the USSR)

President of the Soviet Union

The President of the Soviet Union , officially called President of the USSR was the Head of State of the USSR from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the only person to occupy the office. Gorbachev was also General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between...

 from March 19, 1946 until March 15, 1953. Though the titular head of state Shvernik, in fact, had little power as the real authority lay with 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...

 as General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Biography

Shvernik was born in St. Petersburg.

Shvernik joined the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s in 1905. In 1924 he became a People's Commissar in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

 and became a full member of the Central Committee of the party in 1925. In 1927 he was demoted and sent to the Urals to head the local party organization. Stalin found him a loyal supporter of his policy of rapid industrialisation and moved him back to Moscow in 1929 making him chairman of the Metallurgist Trade Union. He resumed his rise in the party becoming a member of the Orgburo

Orgburo

The Orgburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union existed from 1919–52, until the 19th Congress, when the Orgburo was abolished and its functions were transferred to the enlarged Secretariat....

 and the party Secretariat. He also served as first secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions from July 1930 to March 1944.

During the Second World War Shvernik was responsible for evacuating Soviet industry away from the advancing Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. He was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, led by a chairman, was the de jure leader office of the Russian SFSR between 1938 and 1990...

 1943 - 1946. In 1946 he became Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR succeeding Mikhail Kalinin

Mikhail Kalinin

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin , known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych," was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the nominal head of state of Russia and later of the Soviet Union, from 1919 to 1946...

. He only became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee (then named the Presidium of the Party's Central Committee) in 1952 but was demoted in 1953 when the body was reduced in size.

Following the death of Stalin, Shvernik was removed as titular president of the USSR and replaced by Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...

 on March 15, 1953. Shvernik returned to his work as the chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. In 1956, after his work in the Pospelov Commission

Pospelov Commission

Pospelov Commission was a commission of the CPSU Central Committee Presidium headed by Pyotr Pospelov whose findings had laid the basis and the contents of Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" On the Personality Cult and its Consequences According to Khushchev's speech, "the commission was...

, which was the basis of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" denouncing Stalinism

Stalinism

Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

, Khrushchev recommended Shvernik for the post of chairman of the Party Control Committee and later put him in charge of rehabilitating

Rehabilitation (Soviet)

Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...

 the victims of Stalin's purges (Shvernik Commission

Shvernik Commission

Shvernik Commission was an informal name of the commission of the CPSU Central Committee Presidium headed by Nikolay Shvernik for the investigation of political repression in the Soviet Union during the period of Stalinism. Other members were Alexander Shelepin, Zinovy Serdyuk, Roman Rudenko, Olga...

). In 1957, Shvernik again became a full member of the Presidium and remained on the body until he retired in 1966.