Frol Romanovich Kozlov was a Soviet
statesmanA statesman or stateswoman or statesperson is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...
,
Hero of Socialist LaborHero of Socialist Labor was an honorary title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. It was the highest degree of distinction for exceptional achievements in national economy and culture...
(1961).
He was elected a candidate member of the Presidium (as the Politburo of the
Central CommitteeThe Central Committee, abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Its full name was Центральный комитет Коммунистической партии Советского Союза = ЦК КПСС; Tsentralnyy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza = TsK KPSS, or...
of the
Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the ruling and only legal political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the...
was then called) on 14 February 1957 and served as a full member from 29 June 1957 until he was relieved of his duties on 16 November 1964, following the ousting of his mentor,
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
a month earlier.
In July 1959, he visited the secretive
Bohemian GroveBohemian Grove is a campground located at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, belonging to a private San Francisco-based men's art club known as the Bohemian Club...
encampment in northern
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
.
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/frus/frus58-60x1/09soviet3.html
He was for many years thought to be Khrushchev's likely successor as the dominant figure in the Soviet hierarchy of power. This was clearly what Khrushchev had intended, but even before his mentor's removal from office in October 1964 Kozlov's position in the Soviet hierarchy had been undermined by the effects of his
alcoholismAlcoholism is a term with multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions. In common and historic usage, alcoholism is any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, despite health problems and negative social consequences...
; in 1963 he had ceased to be Secretary of the Party. At the time of his resignation in November 1964, Kozlov was already seriously ill after a
strokeA stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage...
and died two months later. He was buried in the
Kremlin Wall NecropolisThe Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow emerged in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on the Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
, which indicates that he was not in deep disgrace under Brezhnev (later, neither Khrushchev nor Mikoyan were allowed to be buried there).