Russia’s Most Powerful Woman, Mrs Furtseva

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28329, 15 July 1957, Page 2

Russia’s Most Powerful Woman, Mrs Furtseva

[By

SUSAN VAUGHAN]

London. As a result of the sensational changes at the Kremlin/ Mrs Ekaterina Furtseva, 47-year-old mother of two children, has become, politically, the most powerful woman in the world. She is the first woman to be elected to the party presidium, the ruling hierarchy, and significantly she was given the task of announcing the recent changes

to a mass meeting of Communist Party members. There have been other signs in recent years that Mrs Furtseva is a favourite in Krelmin circles. She has been allowed abroad: to Paris, to Bulgaria, to China, and last year to Britain, where she was received by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. This year she was chosen to make the traditional Lenin birthday speech in Moscow—an honour that has never been given to a woman before. Mrs Furtseva started work as a weaver and joined the Communist Party at the age of 20. But it was not until 1952 that she joined the exclusive ranks of the Kremlin leaders. Then she was appointed secretary of the Central Committee of the Moscow Communist Party. Mrs Furtseva is a short, buxom and business-like woman, wife ol a Russian diplomat. She is usually dressed -severely in a plain black two-piece suit with plain white blouse, low-heeled shoes and black stockings. She wears her hair in a bun, and uses makeup only on very special occasions. Her post as central committee secretary was held by both Malenkov and Khrushchev before they came to power. So it is not impossible that Mrs Furtseva will one day assume the highest of all Russian offices.