given him. He then wrote to Stalin to say how he had marked the special day. In 1959 he accompanied Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on a trip to Europe and the United States. He became a member of the CPSU Central Committee in 1961, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1939, and was a member of the USSR Supreme Soviet. He was twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and later became vice president of the Union of Soviet Writers. He commented on the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial at the 23rd Congress by saying that the prison terms meted out to Sinyavsky and Daniel had been much too lenient compared to the "revolutionary understanding of what is right" during the 1920s, which turned part of the Soviet intelligentsia against him and resulted in two open letters by Lydia Chukovskaya and Yuri Galanskov addressed to Sholokhov. Late years Sholokhov almost stopped writing after 1969 and spent the late years at the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa. He used his Order of Lenin money to build a local school and his Nobel Prize to take the family on a road trip over Europe and Japan. In 1972 he became a vocal critic of Alexander Yakovlev, then a head of the Central Committee Propaganda Department, and his article "Against Antihistoricism" which attacked Russian nationalism; this resulted in a Politburo meeting and removal of Yakovlev from his position (he was then sent as an ambassador to Canada). Mikhail Sholokhov died on 21 February 1984, from laryngeal cancer. He was buried in the grounds of his house at the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa along with his wife Maria Petrovna Sholokhova (nee Gromoslavskaya, 1902—1992). Honours and awards Soviet Union Foreign Legacy An asteroid in main-belt is named after him, 2448 Sholokhov. Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities bears his name. His house at the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa was turned into the National Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. There are a number of monuments in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don. Grigory and Aksinya and Grigory and Aksinya in a boat sculptures in the Vyoshenskaya stanitsa and Rostov-on-Don, respectfully. The Moscow National Guard Presidential Cadets School is named after him. Selected publications Donskie Rasskazy, 1925 – Tales of the Don. Lazorevaja Step, 1926. Tikhii Don, 4 vol., 1928–1940 (The Quiet Don) – And Quiet Flows the Don (1934); The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940); Quiet Flows the Don (1966). A three-part film version, directed by