He wore the same draped coat, gray raincoat, and old-fashioned suit. He always wore galoshes in chilly weather. But no one could accuse Mikhail Andreyevich of being dirty. Once at one meeting, Brezhnev even joked: “Why don’t we chip in, comrades, for a new suit for Mikhail Andreevich?” Suslov accepted the criticism of his comrades and the next day came in a new suit.
And for what purposes, you may ask, did he spend his salary as a member of the Politburo? “It’s for charity. I transferred them to orphanages and hospitals. I bought books for the library in my homeland.” He helped build the memorial at Piskarevskoye Cemetery.