Demian Korotchenko

Born Nov. 17 (29), 1894, in the village of Pogrebki, now the village of Korotchenkovo, Shostka Raion, Sumy Oblast; died Apr. 7, 1969, in Kiev. Soviet statesman and party figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1964). Member of the CPSU from 1918. Son of a peasant.

Korotchenko was a worker on the railroad until 1915, when he became a soldier. After the February Revolution of 1917, Korotchenko was a member of a battery committee of soldiers’ deputies in Revel (Tallinn). He took part in partisan fighting against the German occupying forces in the Chernigov region in 1918. In 1919-20 he was engaged in political work in the Red Army. In 1921, Korotchenko began party work and from 1924 to 1928 was secretary of the Chernigov, and then Pervomaisk, district committees of the Communist Party of the Ukraine (Bolshevik). Korotchenko graduated from the course in Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). He was chairman of the Bauman raion executive committee (in Moscow) from 1931 to 1934 and was secretary of the Bauman and Pervomaiskü raion committees of the party from 1934 to 1936. Korotchenko was also secretary of the Moscow oblast committee of the ACP(B) in 1936-37, first secretary of the Western oblast party committee in 1937 and of the Dnepropetrovsk oblast party committee in 1937-38, and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR in 1938-39. In 1938, Korotchenko became a member of the Politburo and then of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CP of the Ukraine, and he was secretary of the Central Committee of the CP of the Ukraine (B) from 1939 to 1947.

Korotchenko was one of the organizers of the partisan movement in the Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. He was chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR from 1947 to 1954, and in January 1954 he became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was a delegate to the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth through Twenty-third Party Congresses and was elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Eighteenth through Twenty-third Congresses. Korotchenko was a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1952-53 and a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1957-61. Korotchenko was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the first through seventh convocations. He was awarded seven Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.