Afanasii Melnichenko

Mel’nichenko, Afanasii Kondrat’evich

 

Born July 22, 1923, in the village of Lozovatka, in what is now Kirovograd Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Soviet state and party figure. Candidate of pharmaceutical sciences (1963). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

The son of a peasant, Mel’nichenko graduated from the Odessa Pharmacy Institute in 1950. He worked in the public health system of the Ukrainian SSR in 1940 and 1941 and from 1944 to 1952. He served in the Soviet Army from 1941 to 1944 and took part in the Great Patriotic War. Between 1952 and 1964, Mel’nichenko held various positions in the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR. He served as head of a department and deputy head of the Central Board; he became secretary of the party committee of the ministry in 1953 and director of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Pharmacy in 1959.

Between 1964 and 1970, Mel’nichenko was first secretary of the Lenin raion committee and head of a department of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU. He served as deputy chairman of the Moscow soviet from 1970 to 1975. He was appointed minister of the medical industry of the USSR in 1975. In the following year he was named a member of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU. He was a deputy to. the tenth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Mel’nichenko has been awarded three orders and various medals.