Chervonenko, Stepan

Born Sept. 3 (16), 1915, in the village of Okop, in what is now Poltava Oblast. Soviet diplomat and party figure; candidate of philosophy (1949). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

The son of a peasant, Chervonenko graduated from the T. Shevchenko Kiev State University in 1936 and was director of a secondary school from 1937 to 1941. He served in the Soviet Army and fought in the Great Patriotic War from 1941 to 1944. From 1944 to 1948 he was associated with the teachers’ institute of the Cherkassy Pedagogical Institute, serving at various times as instructor, head of the subdepartment of Marxism-Leninism, and director.

Chervonenko was on the staff of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine from 1949 to 1956 and was secretary of the Central Committee from 1956 to 1959. He was the USSR’s ambassador to the Chinese People’s Republic from 1959 to 1965 and to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1965 to 1973. In 1973 he became ambassador to France. He was made a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1961 and was a deputy to the fifth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Chervonenko has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.