Volodymyr Shcherbytsky
Volodymyr Vasylyovych Shcherbytsky (17 February 1918 — 16 February 1990) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician. He was First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1972 to 1989.
Contents
- 1 Early life and career
- 1.1 Russification
- 2 Other aspects of his rule and downfall
- 2.1 Chernobyl disaster
- 3 Suicide and legacy
- 4 Awards
- 5 Quotes
- 6 Notes
- 7 References
- 8 External links
Early life and career
Shcherbytsky meets Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi in Kyiv in 1982.Shcherbytsky graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Chemical Technology Ins*ute in 1941. After World War II, he worked as an engineer in Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske). From 1948 Shcherbytsky was a party functionary in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1948, he was appointed Second Secretary of Dniprodzerhynsk city communist party committee, soon after Leonid Brezhnev 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 Ukraine communist party Central Committee. 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, Shcherbytysky was shifted to the lesser job of First Secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk regional party committee. On October 16, 1965, after Brezhnev had risen to the supreme position as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist, Shcherbytsky was restored to his former position at the head of the Ukrainian government.
In May 1972, Shelest was suddenly dismissed and transfered to Moscow, a setback which he attributed to 'intrigue' by Brezhnev and Shcherbytsky, who replaced him as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, the highest political post in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic: First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. While his predecessor had maintained a degree of independence from Moscow and had given limited encouragement to native Ukrainian culture, Shcherbytsky was unfailingly loyal to Brezhnev, and conducted policy as if Ukraine were a province of Russia. He purged about 37,000 party anfd government officials who owed their appointments to Shelest, who was accused of being "soft" on Ukrainian nationalism and encouraging economic "localism". Ukraine's best known independently minded intellectual, Ivan Dziuba, was sentenced five years a Labour camp.
Russification
His rule of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was characterized by the expanded policies of re-centralisation and suppression of dissent accompanied by a broad *ault on Ukrainian culture and intensification of Russification. During Shcherbytsky's rule m* 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 ins*utions became a new method of political repression. Ukrainian language 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 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, their language - the language of the Revolution, of Lenin, 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". During Shcherbytsky's rule, Ukrainian-language education was greatly scaled back.
Other aspects of his rule and downfall
Shcherbytsky was an influential figure in the Soviet Union. In April 1971, he was promoted to membership of the Politburo, on which he remained a close ally of Leonid Brezhnev. His power base was arguably one of the most corrupt and conservative among the Soviet republics.
From 1972 to 1989, the economy of Ukraine continued to decline.
Grave of Volodymyr ShcherbytskyIn 1982, there was a rumour in the Kremlin that Brezhnev, whose health was failing, planned to relinquish the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party at the forthcoming Central Committee plenum and hand over to Shcherbytsky, but when Brezhnev died unexpectedly, his place was taken by Yuri Andropov.
Chernobyl disaster
After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Shcherbytsky was ordered by the new General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev to go ahead with the usual International Workers' Day parade on the Khreshchatyk in Kyiv on May Day, to show people that there was no reason for panic. He went ahead with this plan in order, knowing that there was danger of spreading radiation sickness, 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'."
On 20 September 1989, Shcherbytsky lost his membership of the politburo in a purge of conservative members pushed through by Mikhail Gorbachev. Eight days later he was removed from leadership of the Communist Party of Ukraine at a plenum in Kyiv personally presided over by Gorbachev.
Suicide and legacy
Shcherbytsky died on 16 February 1990 - one day before his 72nd birthday. It was revealed later that he had committed suicide, "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."
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 Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk) was renamed to Olena Blavatsky Street.
Awards
Volodymyr Shcherbytsky was twice awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour — 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 cl* (in 1985) and various medals.
Quotes
In 1985 Leonid Kravchuk, secretary of Communist Party of Ukraine regarding ideological matters, was preparing a report for Shcherbytsky for the next party committee gatherings following a plenum of the Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In this report Kravchuk mentioned the word perestroika. As soon as Shcherbytsky had heard the word, he stopped Kravchuk and asked:
What fool (durak) invented this word perestroika? Why rebuild the house? Is there anything wrong in the Soviet Union? We are fine! What is there to rebuild? It is necessary to improve, reorganize, but why, if the house is not falling apart, why does it need to be rebuilt?
— Volodymyr Shcherbytsky,Notes
References
External links
- Shcherbytsky Volodymyr Vasylyovych, from the Ukrainian Government Portal
- Nikitin, A. Vladimir Scherbitskiy: the last Ukrainian secretary (Владимир Щербицкий: последний украинский секретарь). Vzglyad. 6 December 2013
- Latysh Yu. Vladimir Shcherbitsky and his time