Shitikov, Aleksei Pavlovich

Born Mar. 1 (14), 1912, in the village of Gorka, in what is now Kologriv Raion, Kostroma Oblast. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the CPSU since 1939.

The son of a peasant, Shitikov graduated from the Gorky Agricultural Institute in 1936 and from the Higher Party School Under the Central Committee of the ACP(B) in 1941. In 1936 he began working as an animal specialist for the raion department of agriculture and became first secretary of the Ardatov raion committee of the Komsomol in Gorky Oblast. Shitikov served in the Soviet Army and fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. From 1945 to 1948 and again from 1950 to 1952 he held a position in the apparatus of the Khabarovsk Krai Committee of the ACP(B). From 1948 to 1950 he was secretary of the Kamchatka oblast committee of the ACP(B), and from 1952 to 1955 he served as first secretary of the oblast committee of the CPSU in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Between 1955 and 1957, Shitikov was secretary and second secretary of the Khabarovsk Krai Committee of the CPSU, and from 1957 to 1970 he served as first secretary of the committee.

In 1970, Shitikov became chairman of the Soviet of the Union, one of the chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1961 he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Shitikov served as a deputy to the fourth through tenth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He became chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the USSR in 1970 and chairman of the Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation in 1971.

Shitikov has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.