Fyodor Kulakov

Fyodor Kulakov
Фёдор Кулаков
Kulakov in 1972
Head of the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee
In office 16 November 1964 – May 1976
Preceded by	Vasily Polyakov
Succeeded by	Vladimir Korlov
First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the Communist Party
In office 25 June 1960 – 16 November 1964
Preceded by	Nikolai Belyaev
Succeeded by	Leonid Efremov
Full member of the 24th, 25th Politburo
In office 9 April 1971 – 17 July 1978
Member of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th Secretariat
In office 29 September 1965 – 17 July 1978
Personal details
Born	(1918-02-04)4 February 1918 near Penza, Penza Governorate, Soviet Russia
Died	17 July 1978(1978-07-17) (aged 60) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Citizenship	Soviet
Nationality	Russian[1]
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1940-1978)
Profession	Agronomist[1]

Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov (Russian: Фёдор Давыдович Кулаков) (4 February 1918 – 17 July 1978) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War.

Kulakov served as Stavropol First Secretary from 1960 until 1964, immediately following Nikita Khrushchev's ouster. During his First Secretaryship in Stavropol, Kulakov met Mikhail Gorbachev; Kulakov became Gorbachev's mentor, and when he left his Stavropol First Secretaryship to enter national politics, Gorbachev took over his former office. Kulakov was elected to several important seats in the 1960s. In 1971, he was elected to the Politburo. He became a leading figure of Soviet leadership, and impressed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to such an extent that Western commentators believed that Kulakov would become Brezhnev's successor. This did not happen since Kulakov died in 1978, four years before Brezhnev.