Volodymyr Shcherbytsky

Grave of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky

An influential figure in the Soviet Union, a member of Soviet politburo since 1971, he was a close ally to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. His rule of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was characterized by the expanded policies of re-centralisation and suppression of dissent. While supporting Russification policies, he still allowed the Ukrainian language to keep circulating side-by-side with Russian in this traditionally bilingual republic. Scherbytsky's power base was arguably one of the most corrupt and conservative among the Soviet republics.[1]

On 20 September 1989, Shcherbytsky lost his membership of the politburo in a purge of conservative members pushed through by Mikhail Gorbachev.[2] Eight days later he was removed from leadership of the Communist Party of Ukraine at a plenum in Kiev personally presided over by Gorbachev.[3]

Shcherbytsky died on 16 February 1990 after a long illness.[4]

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 class (in 1985) and various medals.[5]

Taking office in 1972, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky greatly expanded the economy despite the challenges of Acceleration and Gorbachev. In his 17 years as First Secretary of the Ukrainian SSR the economic potential increased nearly fourfold. This was a massive increase in comparison to previous decades.[6] In addition, the raw volume of industrial production increased over five times what it was in 1972. It was not only heavy and light industry that expanded at this time. Agriculture also expanded as well. Agriculture production doubled while he was in charge and by 1989 the Ukrainian SSR was making more than 51 million tons of grain. This was more than a ton of grain produced per person at that time.

In 1985 Leonid Kravchuk who was a secretary of Communist Party of Ukraine about 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 his report Kravchuk mentioned a 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?

— Vladimir Shcherbitskiy, [7][8]

• 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