Vladimir Petrovich Zatonskii

Born July 27 (Aug. 8), 1888; died July 29, 1938. Soviet statesman and party figure, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1929). Became a member of the Communist Party in 1917.

Zatonskii was born in the village of Lysets, in present-day Dunaevtsy Raion, Khmel’nitskii Oblast; he was the son of a volost (small rural district) clerk. He graduated from Kiev University in 1912 and taught physics at Kiev Polytechnical Institute. He joined the Menshevik wing of the RSDLP in 1905 and was arrested for his revolutionary activity. Zatonskii broke with the Mensheviks after the February Revolution of 1917 and became a member of the Kiev committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) in May 1917. He was one of the leaders of the October armed uprising in Kiev and a member of the revolutionary committee. Zatonskii became chairman of the Kiev committee of the RSDLP(B) in November 1917. At the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in December 1917 he was elected a member of the government of the Ukrainian SSR; he headed the Secretariat (People’s Commissariat) for Education. Zatonskii was elected chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukraine at the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in March 1918. He was a member of the Organization Bureau for the Convocation of the First Congress of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine, where he was elected to the Central Committee. In 1919-20, Zatonskii was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth armies, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front, and a member of the All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his part in the liquidation of the Kronstadt mutiny.

Zatonskii became people’s commissar for education of the Ukrainian SSR in 1922. He was engaged in military duties in 1924-25. Zatonskii was secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(B) of the Ukraine from 1925 to 1927. He was chairman of the Central Control Commission of the CP(B) of the Ukraine and people’s commissar for the Workers’ and Peas-ants’ Inspection of the Ukrainian SSR from 1927 to 1933 and was people’s commissar for education of the Ukrainian SSR from 1933 to 1938. Zatonskii was elected to the Central Committee and to the Central Control Commission of the CP(B) of the Ukraine, as well as to the Politburo of the party’s Central Committee. He was a delegate to the Tenth through Seventeenth Congresses of the ACP (Bolshevik). He was elected a member of the Central Control Commission of the ACP(B) at the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses and a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) at the Seventeenth Congress. Zatonskii was on the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and on the Presidium of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.