Kliment Voroshilov - Retirement

Retirement

After Khruschev removed most of the old Stalinists, like Molotov and Malenkov from the party, Voroshilov's career began to fade. On 7 May 1960, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union granted Voroshilov's request for retirement and elected Leonid Brezhnev chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (the head of state). The Central Committee also relieved him of duties as a member of the Party Presidium (as the Politburo had been called since 1952) on 16 July 1960. In October 1961, his political defeat was complete at the 22nd party congress when he was excluded from election to the Central Committee.

Following Khrushchev's fall from power, Soviet leader Brezhnev brought Voroshilov out of retirement into a figurehead political post. Voroshilov was again re-elected to the Central Committee in 1966. Voroshilov was awarded a second medal of Hero of the Soviet Union 1968. He died in 1969 in Moscow and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The KV series of tanks, used in World War II, was named after Voroshilov. Two towns were also named after him: Voroshilovgrad in Ukraine (now changed back to the historical Luhansk) and Voroshilov in the Soviet Far East (now renamed Ussuriysk after the Ussuri river), as well as the General Staff Academy in Moscow. Stavropol was called Voroshilovsk from 1935 to 1943. Voroshilov was nominated honorary citizen of the Turkish town of Izmir in November 1933; in Izmir also a street was named after him (1951 renamed "Plevne Bulvarı").