Petro Shelest

Petro Shelest was born in a Ukrainian peasant family in a village near Kharkiv in 1908. He studied engineering in Kharkiv, and held industrial jobs between 1932 and 1936. In 1928 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and in 1935 graduated from Mariupol Metallurgical Institute. He served in the Red Army from 1936 to 1937, but transferred to working for the Communist Party in 1937, as thousands of its members were caught up in the Great Purge. Between 1943 and 1954, Shelest was a chief manager of several large factories in Leningrad and Kyiv. From 1954 to 1963, he was respectively Second Secretary of the Kyiv city party committee, Second Secretary of the regional committee, and First Secretary of the Kyiv regional party committee.{{cite web |title=Народився Петро Шелест, партійний і державний діяч, перший секретар ЦК КП України |url=http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/node/4639 |publisher=Національна бібліотека України імені В. І. Вернадського |access-date=11 May 2022}}

After Shelest was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) in 1963, he set out to run Ukraine with a degree of independence from Moscow, and to develop the republic's economy and encourage Ukrainian culture.{{cite book |last1=Plokhy |first1=Serhii |title=The Gates of Europe, A History of Ukraine |date=2016 |publisher=Penguin |location=London |isbn=978-0-141-98061-4 |page=304}} It was during his tenure that construction began on the four nuclear plants at Chernobyl.

He antagonised the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who publicly upbraided Shelest during a visit to Hungary over late delivery of Ukrainian equipment, then remarked: "Look how glum he is - just as if a hedgehog had been rammed down his throat."{{cite book |last1=Tatu |first1=Michel |title=Power in the Kremlin |date=1969 |publisher=Collins |location=London |page=420}} In November 1964, when Khrushchev was removed from office, Shelest was promoted to full membership of the Presidium (later renamed the Politburo).

Shelest began his rule at a time of significant cultural shifts in Ukrainian society, as it began to increasingly distance itself from Russia and assert its unique identity.{{Cite book |last=Krawchenko |first=Bohdan |title=Ukraine After Shelest |publisher=University of Alberta |year=1983 |isbn=0-920862-26-8 |location=Edmonton |pages=1 |chapter=Preface |author-link=Bohdan Krawchenko}} Regarded within the party as a localist,{{Cite news |date=26 January 1996 |title=Petro Y. Shelest, 87, Ukraine Party Chief Ousted as 'Localist' |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/26/world/petro-y-shelest-87-ukraine-party-chief-ousted-as-localist.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=23 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215001746/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/26/world/petro-y-shelest-87-ukraine-party-chief-ousted-as-localist.html |archive-date=15 February 2020}} Shelest was viewed by various sectors of the public as either a supporter of increased Ukrainian autonomy within the Soviet Union or a typical Soviet bureaucrat. In a statement later attributed to him by historian Roman Solanchyk, Shelest said that he was "not Lazar Kaganovich" and did not rule under Ukraine in "the times of Stalin," noting himself as an opponent of hardliners.{{Cite book |last1=Krawchenko |first1=Bohdan |title=Ukraine After Shelest |last2=Solanchyk |first2=Roman |publisher=University of Alberta |year=1983 |isbn=0-920862-26-8 |location=Edmonton |pages=1–5 |chapter=Politics and the National Question in the Post-Shelest Period |author-link=Bohdan Krawchenko}} Historian Taras Kuzio has argued that Shelest was the leader of a revived national communist sect of the Communist Party of Ukraine after the group had previously been destroyed in the Great Purge. According to Kuzio, the national communist group was later led by Leonid Kravchuk, who oversaw the transition from Soviet to independent Ukraine.{{Cite news |last=Kuzio |first=Taras |author-link=Taras Kuzio |date=12 August 2010 |title=Russophile agenda rising once again |work=Kyiv Post |url=https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/russophile-agenda-rising-once-again-78132.html |access-date=23 December 2023}}

A supporter of the Sixtier cultural movement and the Khrushchev Thaw, Shelest's policies brought greater prominence to the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture in public life, with the party echelons actively supporting such developments. An ultimately-unrealised 1965 plan, later leaked through samizdat, called for Ukrainian to eventually replace Russian as the language of instruction in higher education. The extent to which Shelest personally was involved in supporting the Sixtiers and other nationally minded Ukrainians, many of whom later formed the core of Ukraine's Soviet dissidents, remains in dispute.{{Cite book |last1=Krawchenko |first1=Bohdan |title=Ukraine After Shelest |last2=Solanchyk |first2=Roman |publisher=University of Alberta |year=1983 |isbn=0-920862-26-8 |location=Edmonton |pages=4 |chapter=Politics and the National Question in the Post-Shelest Period |author-link=Bohdan Krawchenko}} Shelest's policy of greater autonomy for Ukraine was also reflected in economic spheres, as he sought to decentralise economic management to the republican level.{{Cite web |title=Ukraine under Shelest |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/Ukraine-under-Shelest |access-date=23 December 2023 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica}} He also argued for Ukraine to become economically sovereign from the broader Soviet Union in 1965, a move which alarmed Soviet leadership.{{Cite journal |last=Kuromiya |first=Hiroaki |date=January–February 2005 |title=Political Leadership and Ukrainian Nationalism, 1938-1989 |journal=Problems of Post-Communism |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=42|doi=10.1080/10758216.2005.11052191 }} However, he was criticised by Ukrainian intellectuals such as Viacheslav Chornovil for his role in the 1965–1966 Ukrainian purge, which led to the arrest of several Sixtiers.{{Cite news |last=Kurlander |first=David |date=14 March 2022 |title='Like a Cold Serpent': Vyacheslav Chornovil and Cold War Ukrainian Dissidence |url=https://cafe.com/article/like-a-cold-serpent-vyacheslav-chornovil-and-cold-war-ukrainian-dissidence/ |access-date=14 May 2024 |work=CAFE}}

The core intention of Shelest's policies was to improve the popularity of the Communist Party among Ukrainians, following the extreme unpopularity of Stalinist rule in Ukraine. Such plans had fruitful results: by 1971 KPU membership was 2.5 million, and annually increasing at double the rate of the Union average.

Geographically, Shelest was associated with the city of Kharkiv, and part of the Kharkiv Clan. This further helped to establish animosity with Leonid Brezhnev and Shelest's eventual successor Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, who were both members of the rival Dnipropetrovsk Mafia. Shelest was the last Ukrainian leader from the Kharkiv Clan, and the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia dominated Ukrainian politics until being replaced by the Donetsk Clan in the 2000s.{{Cite web |last=Musiyezdov |first=Oleksiy |date=2 February 2022 |title=National and Geopolitical Identities and Attitudes to Decommunisation in Dnipro and Kharkiv |url=https://www.e-ir.info/2022/02/02/national-and-geopolitical-identities-and-attitudes-to-decommunisation-in-dnipro-and-kharkiv/ |access-date=23 December 2023 |website=E-International Relations}}

In 1968, Shelest played a major role in deciding how the Soviet government should respond to the Prague Spring, the sudden loosening of political control in communist Czechoslovakia, which created an atmosphere that spilled over into west Ukraine. He was the only other Politburo member beside Leonid Brezhnev to take part in every meeting between Soviet and Czech communist leaders during that year.{{cite web |last1=Veselý |first1=Luboš |title=The Ukrainian Factor of the Prague Spring? Petro Shelest and the Czechoslovak Year 1968 in the Light of Documents of the Ukrainian Security Service |url=https://sd.usd.cas.cz/pdfs/sod/2020/11/04.pdf |access-date=11 May 2022}}

Addressing the Central Committee of the CPSU on 17 July 1968, Shelest accused the Czechoslovak communist party leadership of persecuting communists while making no attempt to control "right-wing opportunists". He claimed:

{{blockquote|The Czechoslovak comrades babble on about their wholehearted support for “democratic socialism.” But they disregard the fact that our country, the first country in the world in which socialism triumphed, has already been living and prospering for more than 50 years in accordance with socialist laws.{{cite web |title=July 17, 1968 Speech by P. Shelest at the CPSU CC Plenum |url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/117295.pdf?v=58c2c92714fddb99b12860e50dfeb0f0 |website=Wilson Center digital archive |access-date=12 May 2022}}|}}

During negotiations on 30 July 1968, he berated the Czechoslovak delegation, complaining that "Your TV shows, your radio programmes, your newspapers and magazines distributed into our regions closest to your borders make our people ask questions which are full of embarrassment". Shelest went on to insult František Kriegel, a senior Czechoslovak communist and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, calling him a "Galician Jew". The Czechoslovak party leader, Alexander Dubček, walked out, and later lodged a complaint about Shelest's comment and tone.

On 3 August, Shelest secretly met the hard-line Slovak communist Vasiľ Biľak, who handed him a letter inviting the Soviet government to send in troops to move to restore the dictatorship. This was used as a pretext for the Warsaw Pact invasion on 20 August.

In 1968, Shelest was awarded the "Hero of Socialist Labor" title.

By 1972, the Soviet government, under Brezhnev, had grown irritated by Shelest's continued support for Ukrainian culture. Beginning in January, Moscow launched a sweeping crackdown on Ukrainian civil society, including mass arrests. In May, Shelest was removed and replaced by Shcherbytsky as First Secretary.{{Cite web |last1=Markus |first1=Vasyl |last2=Senkus |first2=Roman |title=Shelest, Petro |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CH%5CShelestPetro.htm |access-date=23 December 2023 |website=Encyclopedia of Ukraine}} For the next eleven months, Shelest served as Deputy Premier in Moscow before being dismissed again and demoted to leadership of a factory outside the Soviet capital. The public cause of his removal was reported to be health problems.{{Cite web|url=http://fialkov.multima.net/books/Dolya-pravdy/raw-text/index.html|title=Юрий Яковлевич Фиалков — "Доля правды"|date=2014-02-02|access-date=2018-01-06|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202093703/http://fialkov.multima.net/books/Dolya-pravdy/raw-text/index.html|archive-date=2014-02-02}}

Western observers originally assumed that he had been sacked because of his hard line views on foreign policy. Reputedly, he vehemently opposed the visit of U.S. President Richard Nixon, who arrived in Moscow on 22 May 1972. But in April 1973, he was publicly attacked by Shcherbytsky, while an unsigned article in the Ukrainian press denounced a book by Shelest, O Ukraine, Our Soviet Land, published in 1970, as containing 'ideological errors', 'factual errors' and 'editorial blunders' that were likely to encourage Ukrainian nationalism.{{cite journal |last1=Tillett |first1=Lowell |title=Ukrainian Nationalism and the Fall of Shelest |journal=Slavic Review |date=December 1975 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=752–768 |doi=10.2307/2495726 |jstor=2495726 |s2cid=164168281 |doi-access=free }}

Shelest himself blamed his downfall on 'intrigues' by Shcherbytsky and Brezhnev. In his memoirs, he criticized their style of government as "autocratic" and "non-communist".

From 1973 to 1985, Shelest worked as a manager of an aircraft design bureau near Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was able to revisit Ukraine, after an absence of nearly 20 years. He visited Ukraine several times and delivered lectures about his tenure as leader of Ukraine. He died in Moscow in 1996.

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{{reflist}}

• {{cite web|last=Shapoval|first=Yuri|title=Petro Shelest, 100th anniversary of the birth of one of Ukraine's most spectacular political figure|url=http://www.day.kiev.ua/196753/|publisher=Den'|access-date=27 April 2011}}
• {{cite web|last=Nahaylo|first=Bohdan|title="National deviationist" Petro Shelest reappears after 15 years as non-person|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/16317906/The-Ukrainian-Weekly-198827|publisher=The Ukrainian Weekly|date=3 July 1988|access-date=27 April 2011|archive-date=31 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130831080244/http://www.scribd.com/doc/16317906/The-Ukrainian-Weekly-198827|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite web|last=Kuzio|first=Taras|author-link=Taras Kuzio|title=Nation must break vicious cycle|url=http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/94936/|publisher=Kyiv Post|date=20 January 2011|access-date=27 April 2011}}

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{{succession box | title=1st Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine | before=Nikolai Podgorny | after=Volodymyr Shcherbytsky | years=1963–1972}}

{{succession box | title=1st Secretary of the Communist Party of Kyiv Oblast | before=Hryhoriy Hryshko | after=Vasyl Drozdenko | years=1957–1962}}

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{{Communist Party of Ukraine}}

{{24th Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union}}

{{23rd Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union}}

{{22nd Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union}}

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Category:1908 births

Category:1996 deaths

Category:Pryazovskyi State Technical University alumni

Category:Ukrainian people in the Russian Empire

Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour

Category:Party leaders of the Soviet Union

Category:People from Kharkiv Oblast

Category:Deputy heads of government of the Soviet Union

Category:Politicians from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

Category:Soviet politicians

Category:Candidates of the Presidium of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Presidium of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Politburo of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Politburo of the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:20th-century Ukrainian politicians

Category:First secretaries of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)

Category:Burials at Baikove Cemetery