Petro Shelest was born in a peasant Ukrainian family in a village near Kharkiv in 1908. In 1928 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in 1935 graduated from Mariupol' Metallurgical Institute.
Between 1943 and 1954 Shelest was a chief manager of several large factories in Leningrad and Kiev. Between 1954 and 1962 he was the mayor of Kiev 1962 and became secretary of the Ukrainian Communist party. Soon he was promoted to the top position of first secretary of the Communist party of Ukrainian SSR and led it between 1963 and 1972. During his tenure and well-controlled encouragement, there occurred a brief but strong flowering of Ukrainian regional culture. In 1972 he became deputy chairman of Sovmin (Soviet of the Ministers in USSR). Awarded Hero of Socialist Labor honorary title in 1968. In 1973 Petro Shelest was forced into retirement by Leonid Brezhnev.
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Last updated on Monday June 02, 2008 at 05:50:27 PDT (GMT -0700)
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