Pavel Postyshev

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Pavel Postyshev on a Soviet Stamp. Note incorrect death year

Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (Russian: Павел Петрович Постышев) (September 18, 1887 Ivanovo-Voznesensk - February 26, 1939, Kuibyshev) was a Soviet politician, seen as a man, who presented Soviet children with New Year tree in the Soviet Union and Russia^[1] and as one of the people responsible for the Holodomor.

Postyshev was a member or Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party since 1904, then member of Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Siberia. In 1923 Postyshev was reassigned from his job in the Far Eastern Republic to supervise organization of the Communist Party committee in Kiev Governorate (guberniya) in central Ukraine . In 1925 Postyshev became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine. In 1926–30 he became a member of Politburo and Organizational Bureau of Ukraine's Bolshevik Party.

In his role of secretary of the Kharkiv Oblast and city Party committees Postyshev organized the purge of Trotskyists and Ukrainian national-communists as well as industrialization and collectivization campaigns in the region.^{[citation needed]} In July 1930 he was promoted to position of secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Moscow and put in charge of propaganda and organization.

In January 1933 Postyshev was once again sent to Ukraine as Stalin's personal representative, along with thousands of political appointees from Russia. Upon Postyshev arrival to Ukraine he was elected second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine and first secretary of the Kharkiv city and Kharkiv oblast Party organizations. From July 1934 to January 1937 he was in charge of the Kiev oblast Party organization. As second secretary he was the real power in Ukraine, overshadowing Stanislav Kosior, the first secretary.

Postyshev is known for reviving New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union; the famous letter by him was published in Pravda on December 28, 1935, where he asked for installing New Year trees in schools, children's homes, Young Pioneer Palaces, children's clubs, children's theaters and cinema theaters^[2].

During the catastrophic famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine, widely considered to be organized by the Soviet authorities, Postyshev's mission was to eliminate all opposition to collectivization and forcible requisition of grain and to crush the Communists who defended Ukrainization and the republic's economic, political, and cultural rights.^{[citation needed]} He oversaw a major Russification drive in Ukraine, as Ukrainian intelligentsia was decimated, and approcimately 80 % of the Ukrainian cultural elite had been "eliminated", executed or imprisoned. During the Great Purge in Ukraine almost 100,000 members were expelled from the Party, many of whom were subsequently arrested on trumped-up charges and executed.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1930s Postyshev became popularly known as the ‘hangman of Ukraine.’^{[citation needed]} Having acquired a taste for power Postyshev began to develop his own cult of personality and to consolidate his position in the republic by making some concessions to Ukrainian national sentiments in 1935–6. This development raised Stalin's suspicions. In 1937 Postyshev was removed from Ukraine and appointed first secretary of the Kuibyshev Oblast Party Committee. He was arrested in January 1938 and executed a year later.^{[citation needed]}

Under the influence of Nikita Khrushchev Postyshev was rehabilitated in 1956.