Grigori Arutinov (known as Grigor Harutiunian in Armenian) was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia for sixteen years (1937-1953), the longest tenure in the history of Soviet Armenia, coinciding with the Stalinist repression and World War II.

Arutinov was born in Telavi, in eastern Georgia, on November 7, 1900. He was admitted to the local Russian gymnasium in 1911 and joined the Bolshevik party in 1919.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia (1921), he became the head of the propaganda department of the Telavi district committee of the Communist Party. He studied at the Karl Marx Institute of National Economy in Moscow (1922–1924).