He later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kiev Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931.

Thereafter, as a member of the collective leadership, Podgorny formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika) alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.

After Kosygin's standing was damaged in the wake of the Prague Spring crisis in 1968, Podgorny emerged as the second-most powerful figure in the country behind Brezhnev.

As a protégé and close companion of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, he travelled with him to the United Nations headquarters in 1960.

[5] According to historian Ilya Zemtsov, the author of Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik: The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika, Brezhnev began starting a conspiracy against Khrushchev when he found out that he had chosen Podgorny, and not himself, as his potential successor.

Due to this risk, Brezhnev allied himself with Alexander Shelepin, the KGB chairman, to oppose both Podgorny and Kosygin.

In an article in Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta from February 1965, the newspaper criticised the Kharkiv Party organisation which Podgorny had previously headed, but also its management of the economy.

By indirectly criticising Podgorny, the article raised doubts about his qualifications as a leading member of the Soviet leadership.

To make matters even worse for Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov, who had kept outside of the conflict, sided with Brezhnev, and called his views "revisionist".

Later in December 1965, Podgorny relinquished his seat in the Secretariat, and took Mikoyan's place as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

[12] Factionalism within the Soviet leadership in the 1960s led Podgorny to become more active; he held several speeches in Moscow and went on numerous state visits at the expense of Brezhnev and Kosygin's popularity.

There was speculation in Soviet society that Podgorny was trying to replace Kosygin as Premier, or even Brezhnev as General Secretary, due to his increasing presence in the late 1960s.

[citation needed] In 1971, the 24th Party Congress affirmed Brezhnev's and Kosygin's status as the leadership's current highest-ranking figures but Podgorny nevertheless showed that he remained a major player in Soviet politics by leading delegations to China and North Vietnam later that year.

[13] As Brezhnev adopted more liberal positions, Podgorny attracted support among hardline communists by opposing his conciliatory stance towards Yugoslavia, disarmament deals with the West, and pressuring of East Germany into conceding to the Berlin negotiations.

[citation needed] Additionally, when Podgorny and Kosygin actually agreed on something Brezhnev would find himself in the minority, and forced to follow their decisions.

[15] Ultimately, the collective leadership was rendered powerless in the late 1970s when Brezhnev achieved all but complete control over the Politburo.

[16] In 1967, just before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, Podgorny delivered an intelligence report to Egyptian Vice President Anwar Sadat which claimed, falsely, that Israeli troops were massing along the Syrian border.

Brezhnev's backers were unable, and did not even try, to remove Podgorny from the head of state post at the 1970 Central Committee plenum.

[14] In the early 1970s, Brezhnev strengthened Podgorny's position at the expense of Premier Kosygin by giving the Presidium executive powers.

[citation needed] Chernenko's solution to this dilemma was to make it law that the Party leader could also become the Chairman of the Presidium.

[23] According to Robert Vincent Daniels, Podgorny was, before his removal, the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union, behind Brezhnev but ahead of Premier Kosygin.

He was seen at the 61st anniversary reception of the October Revolution at the Grand Palace of the Kremlin in November 1978 by Tokichiro Uomoto, the Japanese Ambassador to the Soviet Union.