A graduate of the North Caucasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Mamsurov has also obtained a degree in history from the Academy of Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

He made his career in the Komsomol, "Communist Union of Youth", in the 1970s and advanced through the ranks of the CPSU in the 1980s.

[1] Mamsurov's official biography credits him with economic successes in the republic and describes him as a "centrist" politician with liberal views.

[1] Mamsurov's rule in North Ossetia coincided with a deterioration of the relations with the neighboring republic of Ingushetia with which Ossetians fought a war over the Prigorodny district early in the 1990s.

He has accused the Ingushetian authorities of deliberately stirring up the dispute between the two republics and waging an "information war" against North Ossetia.