Aleksandra Pavlovna Biryukova (born 1929) was the highest ranking woman politician in the U.S.S.R. from 1986 to 1990, serving as a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and as a deputy prime minister for two years.

In the summer of 1989, Aleksandra Biryukova, a deputy premier of the Soviet Council of Ministers, traveled to Western Europe where in one week she bought $165 million worth of consumer goods. Some might say it was everyone's dream come true--a chance to go abroad and buy everything you want. But Biryukova had an important governmental assignment--to buy much needed consumer goods for the former U.S.S.R., items such as pantyhose, toothpaste, and other simple necessities taken for granted in Western society. Her buying trip was symptomatic of the grave problems of the Soviet economy. In traditional Soviet style, the minister herself was sent on...