Furtseva, Ekaterina

Born Nov. 24 (Dec. 7), 1910, in Vyshnii Volochek, in what is now Kalinin Oblast; died Oct. 24, 1974, in Moscow. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the CPSU from 1930.

The daughter of a worker, Furtseva graduated from the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology in 1941; in 1948 she graduated as a correspondence student from the Higher Party School Under the Central Committee of the ACP(B). From 1930 to 1933 and from 1935 to 1937 she engaged in Komsomol work. In 1942 she became a secretary of the Frun-zenskii urban district committee of the ACP(B) in Moscow; later she was named the committee’s first secretary. Furtseva was made second secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU in 1950 and was the committee’s first secretary from 1954 to 1957. She was appointed a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1956. Furtseva was named minister of culture in the USSR in 1960.

In 1952, Furtseva became a candidate member, and in 1956 a member, of the Central Committee of the CPSU. She was elected a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1956 and was a member of the Presidium from 1957 to 1961. She was a deputy to the third through fifth and to the seventh and eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Furtseva was awarded four Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.