Zhdanov, Andrei Aleksandrovich (1896–1948)

Soviet politician. As Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1934 onwards, he was largely responsible for formulating the ideology of Stalinism. During World War II, he played a leading role in the defence of the besieged city of Leningrad (now St Petersburg), 1941–44.

Zhdanov joined the Bolsheviks in 1915, took part in the October Revolution of 1917, and was appointed head of the party organization in Nizhniy Novgorod 1924–34. In 1939 he became a full member of the Politburo. He imposed socialist realism as a rigid doctrine on all writers and artists, and after World War II condemned all Western cultural influences. In 1947 he set up the Cominform organization to liaise between east European communist parties. On his death the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Mariupol was renamed Zhdanov in his honour; it reverted to its former name when communism collapsed in 1989.