Ekaterina Furtseva

Ekaterina Alekseyevna Furtseva (Russian: "Екатерина Алексеевна Фурцева"; November 24, 1910, Vyshniy Volochek - October 24, 1974, Moscow) was probably the most influential woman in Soviet politics and the first woman to be admitted into Politburo.

Until the 1940s, Furtseva worked as an ordinary weaver at one of Moscow's textile factories. Gradually, she became active in Komsomol affairs and rose to the position of Secretary of the Moscow City Council in 1950. Under Nikita Khrushchev, who sympathized with her, Furtseva was the first secretary of Moscow from 1954 to 1957.

In 1952, Furtseva attacked the leading filmstar, Boris Babochkin, who was famous since starring as Chapaev. This time Furtseva saw the actor starring in a stageplay, and was enraged by Babochkin's satirical portrayal of the Soviet communist leadership. Her angry article in the Soviet newspaper Pravda called for censorship of Babochkin, while Furtseva furthered her career in the Soviet elite. Then Furtseva personally ordered that all film studios and drama companies of the USSR should refuse Babochkin any jobs, keeping him unemployed.

In 1956 she was appointed the Secretary of the Central Committee and became the first woman to join the Politburo the next year. In this capacity, she sided with Khruschev in de-Stalinization during the Khrushchev's Thaw, and secured the downfall of Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov, and Lazar Kaganovich when they conspired to depose her patron.

At that period, she fell in love with Nikolay Firyubin, the Soviet ambassador in Yugoslavia. Furtseva scandalized the Soviet elite by her weekend trips abroad in order to meet her lover. As he married her and rose to become the Deputy Foreign Minister, they settled in Moscow, and their relations cooled down somewhat.

In 1960, the KGB recorded her telephone call to a friend denouncing Khruschev's policies. This affair led to her being ousted from the Politburo. In exasperation, she made her first attempt at suicide by cutting her veins. Furtseva's ostensible repentance gained her pardon and appointment to the honourable but powerless position of the Soviet Minister of Culture.

During the following 14 years, remembered as the Age of Furtseva, she exterted immense influence on Soviet culture, both repressive and beneficient. As she became increasingly interested in manipulating theatre and cinema, many remarkable actors and directors tried to secure her friendship in order to further their own careers. According to the most intimate of her friends (such as the singer Lyudmila Zykina), she also became addicted to alcohol. In 1974, she was implicated in illegal commercial dealings and, wishing to preclude the impending scandal and disgrace, committed suicide. Furtseva is buried at the Novodevichye Cemetery.