Volodymyr Vasyliovych Shcherbytsky (17 February 1918 – 16 February 1990) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party from 1972 to 1989. A close ally of Soviet leader

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

, Shcherbytsky replaced reformist leader Petro Shelest in 1972 as part of a crackdown on the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Shcherbytsky ruled as a neo-Stalinist, overseeing Russification of Ukrainian society as well as a rapid shift to nuclear power, ultimately resulting in the 1986

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

. Shcherbytsky was removed in 1989 amidst widespread protests against his rule, and died months later.

Early life

Shcherbytsky was born in Verkhnodniprovsk on 17 February 1918 to Vasily Grigorievich Shcherbytsky (1890–1949) and Tatyana Ivanovna Shcherbitskaya (1898–1990), just two weeks after the Soviet takeover of the city during the Ukrainian–Soviet War. During his school years, he worked as an activist and a member of the Komsomol from 1931. In 1934, while still in school, he became an instructor and agitator for the district committee of the Komsomol. In 1936, he entered the Faculty of Mechanics at the Dnipropetrovsk Chemical Technology Institute. During his training, he worked as a draftsman, designer and compressor driver at the factories in Dnipropetrovsk. Shcherbytsky graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Chemical Technology Institute in 1941 and in the same year became a member of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

Military career

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shcherbytsky was mobilized into the ranks of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. Because he was a graduate with a major in chemical equipment and machinery, he was sent to attend short term courses at the Military Academy of Chemical Protection named after Voroshilov, which was evacuated from

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

in Uzbek SSR. After graduation, Shcherbytsky was appointed head of the chemical unit within the 34th Infantry Regiment of the 473rd Infantry Division in the Transcaucasian Front. In November 1941, the division was formed in the cities of

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

and Sumgayit in Azerbaijan SSR. On 8 January 1942, the division was renamed as 75th Rifle Division, and in April of the same year, Shcherbytsky and the division took part in the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. On the same year, he served in a tank brigade. In March 1943, Shcherbytsky was transferred to the chemical department at the headquarters of the Transcaucasian Front, where he served until the end of the war. In August 1945, the Transcaucasian Front was reorganized into the Tbilisi Military District and Shcherbytsky's last military assignment was as an assistant chief of the chemistry department of the district headquarters for combat training. In December 1945, he left the military service at the rank of captain.

Political career

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he worked as an engineer in Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske). From 1948 Shcherbytsky was a party functionary in the

. In 1948, he was appointed Second Secretary of Dniprodzerhynsk city communist party committee, soon after

had taken over the First Secretary of the regional party committee. He succeeded Brezhnev as regional party boss in November 1955. In December 1957, he was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU or KPU) is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 and claimed to be the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, which had been banned in 1991. In 2002 it held a "unifi ...

. In February 1961, he was appointed chairman of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers, the second highest post in the republic, but in June 1963, just after Petro Shelest had been appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Shcherbytysky was shifted to the lesser job of First Secretary of the

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

petrovsk regional party committee. On 16 October 1965, after Brezhnev had risen to the supreme position as

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. was the Party leader, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, country's dissoluti ...

, Shcherbytsky was restored to his former position at the head of the Ukrainian government.

First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine

In May 1972, Shelest was recalled from his post as head of the Ukrainian government, as part of a broader attack on the nationally-minded Ukrainian intelligentsia by the central Soviet government that had begun in January. He was instead transferred to Moscow and elected to be the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. As a result of this development, the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party elected Shcherbytysky as their new First Secretary; this was the highest political office in the Ukrainian SSR. While Shelest had pushed for increased Ukrainian autonomy from Moscow, and had been a supporter of increased Ukrainian cultural identification, Shcherbytsky was unfailingly loyal to Brezhnev, and conducted policy accordingly. Shcherbytsky's appointment was both a victory for the Soviet government and a personal victory for Brezhnev; Shcherbytsky was a member of Brezhnev's political clan, the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia, which was opposed to Shelest's Kharkiv Clan. In government, Shcherbytsky relied on a group of party cadres from both the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia and emerging Donetsk Clan, both of whom were more supportive of Russification than other political clans in Ukraine. The Kharkiv Clan was pushed out of government and marginalised. Ideologically, Shcherbytsky was a neo-Stalinist and hardline conservative. The first year of his rule was marked by a wide-reaching purge of the KPU and Ukrainian civil society. As a result of the purge, which was co-orchestrated by , 5% of the KPU's members were removed, and several leading Ukrainian intellectuals, among them anti-communist leaders Viacheslav Chornovil, Ivan Svitlychnyi, and Yevhen Sverstiuk, were arrested. Described by Peter Reddaway as the "heaviest single KGB assault", the intelligentsia interpreted the purge as an effort to undo Shelest's rule and reestablish Russian control over Ukraine. Ivan Dziuba's book '' Internationalism or Russification?'', which was critical of the role the Russian language played in the Soviet Union, was harshly criticised and suppressed by the Ukrainian government. Dziuba himself was later arrested and sentenced to five years of hard labour. Arrested dissidents were linked to the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, then operating abroad. The purge led to increased radicalism among the dissident movement, bringing many in the dissident movement to consider the outright separation of Ukraine from the Soviet Union rather than simply increased autonomy. Further purges continued throughout the 1970s, including against the Ukrainian academia and the filmmaking community. Through the

Helsinki Accords The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...

the dissident movement reemerged and strengthened its position despite continuous attacks by Shcherbytsky's government. Shcherbytsky was also an influential figure in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

's larger government. In April 1971, he was promoted to membership of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

, on which he remained a close ally of Brezhnev. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott have argued that Shcherbytsky's rule was among the most corrupt and conservative among the Soviet republics.

Russification

His rule of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was characterized by the expanded policies of re-centralisation and suppression of Soviet dissidents, accompanied by a broad assault on

Ukrainian culture The culture of Ukraine is composed of the material and spiritual values of the Ukrainian people that has formed throughout the history of Ukraine. Strong family values and religion, alongside the traditions of Ukrainian embroidery and Ukrainian ...

and intensification of Russification. During Shcherbytsky's rule mass arrests were carried out that incarcerated any member of the intelligentsia that dared to dissent from official state policies. The expirations of political prisoners' sentences were increasingly followed by re-arrest and new sentences on charges of criminal activity. Incarceration in psychiatric institutions became a new method of political repression.

Ukrainian language Ukrainian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language, first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of t ...

press, scholarly and cultural organisations which had flourished under Shcherbytsky's predecessor Shelest were repressed by Shcherbytsky. Shcherbytsky also made a point of speaking Russian at official functions while Shelest spoke Ukrainian in public events. In an October 1973 speech to fellow party members Shcherbytsky stated that as an " internationalist"

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

were meant to "express feelings of friendship and brotherhood to all people of our country but first of all against the great Russian people, their

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

, their

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

- the language of the Revolution, of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, the language of international intercourse and unity". Shcherbytsky also claimed that "the worst enemy of the Ukrainian people" is "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism and also international

Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

".Bohdan Nahaylo
The Ukrainian Resurgence
C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999, pages 39 and 40 During Shcherbytsky's rule, Ukrainian-language education was greatly scaled back. Shcherbytsky also took aim at the usage of Ukrainian. Under his leadership, all meetings of the KPU were conducted in Russian, and Ukrainian education was further Russified. By the time of Brezhnev's death, fewer books had been published in Ukrainian throughout his rule than during the rule of Stalin, a process owed in part to Shcherbytsky.

Downfall

Following Brezhnev's death, he was replaced as General Secretary at first by Yuri Andropov and

Konstantin Chernenko Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko ( – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1984 until his death a year later. Born to a poor family in Siberia, Chernenko jo ...

before the ascension of

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

. Gorbachev's liberal rule contrasted heavily with Shcherbytsky's hardline principles, and remaining Brezhnev loyalists either retired from their positions or were removed by Gorbachev. Shcherbytsky's removal was originally planned by Gorbachev, owing to the former's hardline rule. However, he decided to allow him to remain in office for several more years in order to keep the Ukrainian nationalist movement subdued. Shcherbytsky was likewise a strong opponent of Gorbachev, saying in one instance: An advocate of increased nuclear power, Shcherbytsky's position was significantly impacted by the 1986

. After the disaster, Shcherbytsky was ordered by Gorbachev to go ahead with the annual

International Workers' Day International Workers' Day, also called Labour Day in some countries and often referred to as May Day, is a celebration of Wage labour, labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement and occurs every yea ...

parade on the Khreshchatyk in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, in an effort to show people that there was no reason for panic. He went ahead with this plan, knowing that there was danger of spreading radiation sickness and even taking his own grandson Volodya to the celebrations. But he arrived late, and complained to aides: "He told me: 'You will put your party card on the table if you bungle the parade'." The continually-worsening state of the Ukrainian economy, particularly in the industrial Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, also undermined his popularity. Gorbachev's campaign of Glasnost, which called for increased openness regarding political matters, led to a beginning of widespread expressions of discontent at the status of the Ukrainian economy beginning in 1986. Political groups in opposition to Shcherbytsky's rule began to form in 1987, and the next year, protests against his government began in the western Ukrainian city of

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

. In July 1989, a series of strikes by coal miners in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, spurred by strikes in Siberia, began. Shcherbytsky's government replied by discrediting the strikes in state media and downplaying their significance. As the strikes increased in intensity, so, too, did their demands, as increasing amounts of miners demanded Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union and the resignation of Shcherbytsky, as well as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR Valentyna Shevchenko. The People's Movement of Ukraine, a Ukrainian nationalist political movement inspired by the Lithuanian Sąjūdis, was also founded in September 1989 by dissident leader Chornovil, and gathered far-reaching support from its early days. In the face of the strikes and continued pressure to step down from Moscow, Shcherbytsky was quickly removed from all of his offices. On 20 September 1989, Shcherbytsky lost his membership of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in a purge of conservative members pushed through by Gorbachev. Eight days later, upon the personal intervention of Gorbachev, he was removed as First Secretary of the KPU and replaced by Vladimir Ivashko, who took a more conciliatory line towards the growing protests. His removal, however, was not enough to stem the rapidly-growing discontent with the Soviet system in Ukraine, which continued to grow until Ukraine achieved independence two years later.

Death and legacy

Shcherbytsky died on 16 February 1990 - one day before his 72nd birthday, which also when he was supposed to testify in the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR about the events related to the Chernobyl disaster. Although the official version claims that the cause of death was pneumonia, it was alleged that he had committed suicide by shooting himself with his carbine, "unable to deal not only with the end of his own career but also with the end of the political and social order he had served all his life" and had left a suicide note explaining to his wife how to deal with cash, medals and small arms that were kept in the family home. He was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv. In 1994 the first

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...

of independent Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk in interviews stated his views about Shcherbytsky’s positive legacy. In January 2003

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine is a government post of the Cabinet of Ukraine. In the absence of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, prime minister of Ukraine, the first vice prime minister performs his or her duties as the acting prime minist ...

on humanitarian policy Dmytro Tabachnyk signed a ( first Yanukovych Government) resolution to celebrate Shcherbytsky’s 85th anniversary with the erection of a monument in

. A street named after Shcherbytsky in Kamianske was renamed to Viacheslav Chornovil Street in 2016 due to Ukrainian decommunization laws. In the same year, a street named after him in

(formerly Dnipropetrovsk) was renamed to Olena Blavatsky Street. In Shcherbytsky's birthplace Verkhnodniprovsk a bust depicting him was dismantled on 18 January 2024.

Personal life

Shcherbytsky was married to Ariadna Gavrilovna Shcherbitskaya, née Zheromskaya (1923–2015) on 13 November 1945. The couple had two children; son Valery (1946–1991), who died due to alcohol and drug addiction just one year after Shcherbytsky's death, and a daughter Olga (1953–2014), who died at a hospital in Kyiv after a serious and prolonged illness. He also had numerous grand and great-grandchildren. Olga was married to Bulgarian businessman Borislav Dionisiev, who then was a soldier in the Bulgarian People's Army and a Consul General of Bulgaria in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

. The couple had a daughter before divorcing in an unknown date.

Awards

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky was twice awarded the

Hero of Socialist Labour The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an Title of honor, honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievem ...

— in 1974 and 1977. During his public service he also received numerous other civil and state awards and recognitions, including the Order of Lenin (in 1958, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1977, 1983 and 1988), the Order of October Revolution (in 1978 and 1982), the Order of the Patriotic War, I class (in 1985), the Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" (in 1944) and various medals. He was also awarded the Order of Victorious February by the Government of Czechoslovakia (in 1978).

Notes

References

External links