Pyotr Masherov

In a poll conducted in June 2012, Masherov was ranked as Belarusians' ideal leader with 23.2% of the vote; behind him was President Alexander Lukashenko with 20.6% and President of Russia Vladimir Putin with 19.2%. In similar polls going further back, Masherov has also had significant popularity; in 2008, he was third behind Lukashenko and Putin at 23.5%. In 2004, he was second only to Putin with 32.7%. In 1996, he was overwhelmingly considered to be the most popular leader among Belarusians with 45.2% of people polled considering him to be an ideal leader.

Following Masherov's death, the newly created Masherov Avenue in Minsk was named in his honour before being changed in 2005 to its present name, Victors Avenue. In 2018 the Belarusian Left Party "A Just World" proposed renaming the Minsk Metro in Masherov's honour, explaining that it was due to his persistence that the metro was constructed.

Masherov's older brother Pavel became a major general during the Second World War and was part of the Soviet occupation force during the Allied occupation of Austria. Masherov's eldest daughter Natalia Masherova [be] later entered politics in an independent Belarus, serving as a member of the House of Representatives. She also ran in the 2001 Belarusian presidential election and placed well in polls, but withdrew following a tirade against her by incumbent president Alexander Lukashenko, saying that she did not intend for her campaign to become "confrontational".

While Masherov was in power numerous enterprises came into existence, including Grodno Azot and chemical plants in Novopolotsk and Gomel. One of the most well-known hallmarks of Masherov's time as First Secretary was the construction of the Minsk Metro; Gosplan originally intended to build a metro in Novosibirsk (plans which would eventually come to fruition in 1986). However, Masherov wrote to Brezhnev (or Kosygin, according to some accounts), and eventually received support for the construction of a metro in Minsk, in the process working his former rival Kiselyov.

Pyotr Mironovich Masherov (né Mashero; 26 February [O.S. 13 February] 1919 – 4 October 1980) was a Soviet partisan, statesman, and one of the leaders of the Belarusian resistance during World War II who governed the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia from 1965 until his death in 1980. Under Masherov's rule, Belarus was transformed from an agrarian, undeveloped nation which had not yet recovered from the Second World War into an industrial powerhouse; Minsk, the capital and largest city of Belarus, became one of the fastest-growing cities on the planet. Masherov ruled until his sudden death in 1980, after his vehicle was hit by a potato truck.

Masherov did much as First Secretary to modernise Minsk, the nation's capital. He pursued a rapid modernisation of the city, in the process destroying much of the original town which had survived the Second World War. He would later state that he regretted doing this and wished that it had been possible to create something similar to Warsaw Old Town on Niamiha Street. The Minsk Sports Palace was built, and Dinamo Stadium was renovated for the 1980 Summer Olympics. The Vileyka-Minsk water system was built as well, providing running water to most of Minsk.

On the evening of 4 October 1980, Masherov left the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, going to Zhodzina. Due to flaws which had been found in the ZIL which Masherov typically rode in, he instead elected to ride in the GAZ-13 which had been the vehicle driven previously. During the ride, Masherov was sitting in the front passenger seat and a security officer was sitting in the back seat. Near Smalyavichy, Masherov's vehicle suffered a head-on collision with a potato truck. Everyone in the GAZ-13 was instantly killed while the truck driver suffered severe injuries and was hospitalised. The Procurator General of the Soviet Union and the KGB conducted an investigation into the incident and found it to be an accident; the driver of the potato truck, Nikolai Pustovit, was declared guilty of a traffic safety violation resulting in the deaths of two or more people and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour. However, in 1982, Pustovit's sentence was reduced as part of a general amnesty, and in 1985 he was released.

Masherov's funeral was held on 8 October 1980, in Minsk. Tens of thousands of Minsk residents were in attendance, but Mikhail Zimyanin and Petras Griškevičius were the only high-ranking Soviet officials present following an instruction from the government banning any members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from attending.

Masherov was known for his welcoming demeanour and willingness to help others; western diplomats who had met him described him as "urbane and intelligent". He enjoyed ballet and theatre, and often visited performances. He also enjoyed reading, banya, and association football; he interrupted his vacation on the Black Sea to watch the 1980 Summer Olympics' qualifying matches for football, which were held in Minsk. Masherov was known to visit Białowieża Forest frequently, and was fond of flying; he flew 104 times in 1978 alone. Flights with Masherov began very early in the morning, typically around 4:00, and would last the entire day with many stops.

Under Masherov's rule, the Belarusian agricultural industry, which had typically been at the forefront of the economy, expanded far beyond its traditional production levels. Masherov took power with the ambitious goal of expanding the Belarusian grain harvest from the 2.3 million tons it had been producing to 9-10 million tons, stating that Belarus would need to feed itself, as well as other republics within the Soviet Union. His efforts proved moderately successful; by 1977 the grain harvest had increased to 7.3 million tons.

Masherov was mentioned as a possible candidate for multiple positions within the Soviet government. Prior to his death he was a candidate member of the Politburo, and it has been stated by some such as the Washington Post that he intended to become Premier following the death of his mentor, Kosygin. More radically, it has been suggested by Moskovskij Komsomolets that Masherov was intended to be a possible successor to Brezhnev as General Secretary of the CPSU, backed up by a reformist "Komsomol Group" which also included Mikhail Zimyanin. The alleged group was opposed to the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia, Brezhnev's clique within the CPSU. Such a claim was also supported by a 1977 CIA report which cast Masherov as a leading member of a "Belorussian Faction" which Brezhnev viewed as a serious threat to his rule. However, others have disputed this, including Masherov's sister Olga, who has said that Brezhnev and Masherov maintained an amicable personal and political relationship.

Masherov raised eyebrows in 1974 when he appointed biologist Viktor Shevelukha as secretary of agriculture in the Central Committee of the CPB. Though Shevelukha was known at the time as a devoted socialist and was a member of the CPSU, he was not a politician, as many appointments were at the time, but a professional in the agricultural field. Many of Masherov's other appointments regarding such matters were also professionals rather than politicians. This happened largely due to the enthusiastic support of Fyodor Kulakov, who was Secretary of the Central Committee's Agricultural Department; the agreement of the Central Committee was required for any appointments who were not already party officials.

Masherov had a complicated relationship with Mikhail Suslov, Second Secretary of the CPSU and the party's primary ideologue. Suslov allegedly sabotaged Masherov's attempts to move upwards by inviting him to the 24th Congress of the CPSU in 1971 and requesting that he give a speech criticising Eurocommunism. This was despite the attendance of Eurocommunist politicians, including Georges Marchais and Dolores Ibárruri (head of the French Communist Party and honorary president of the Spanish Communist Party respectively), and caused a diplomatic incident which dealt a serious blow to any further political aspirations of Masherov. However, according to a 1977 CIA report, Masherov, as well as his political allies Mazurov and Zimyanin, had backing from Suslov, as well as Premier Alexei Kosygin, in opposition to the establishment of Brezhnev's cult of personality.

During the late 1970s, Masherov needed to have a kidney removed. It was originally desired that the operation be carried out in Minsk, but at the insistence of his wife it was carried out in Moscow instead, as she felt that it would be safer there. According to his personal physician, Nikolai Manak, Masherov did not drink, but smoked often, and suffered from high blood pressure due to stress.

Masherov had been Second Secretary of the CPB under Kirill Mazurov since 1962. Therefore, when Mazurov retired from his position as First Secretary to become First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union in 1965 it was logical for Masherov to succeed him. However, the Soviet government put forward Tikhon Kiselyov as a possible successor to Mazurov. This effort fell flat when Masherov's allies within the CPB (most of whom were former partisans) backed him up, and he was appointed as First Secretary on 30 March 1965.

Masherov's primary policy as First Secretary of the CPB was expansion of Belarusian industry. Coming into office the same year as the 1965 Soviet economic reform (popularly known as the Kosygin reform), Masherov established himself as one of its supporters and enacted it in Belarus. Uniquely among the SSRs, there were frequently public discussions on the economic situation in Belarus, including openly stating issues with the economy.

Born to a peasant family in what is today the Vitebsk Region during the early stages of the Russian Civil War, Masherov was a teacher in mathematics and physics in his youth. Following his father's arrest and death during the Great Purge, Masherov joined the Red Army following the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, and rose to the rank of major general. With the end of the Second World War, Masherov turned to politics; becoming First Secretary of the Brest Regional Committee in 1955 and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia ten years later.

It was not long before Masherov turned from the Komsomol to the CPB. The move was allegedly the suggestion of then-First Secretary of the CPB Nikolai Patolichev, who was impressed by Masherov's activities as head of the Komsomol in Belarus. On 1 August 1955, Masherov was elected as First Secretary of the Brest Regional Committee of the CPB.

Following the end of the war, Masherov turned to politics within the Komsomol; from July 1944 he served as First Secretary of both the Molodechno and Minsk regions, and in October 1947, Masherov was declared First Secretary of the Komsomol of the Byelorussian SSR. According to the memoirs of Vladimir Velichko, who served as personal assistant to Masherov in the 1970s, Masherov participated in both the reconstruction of Molodechno and campaigns against the cursed soldiers of the Polish Home Army.

He would be wounded another time and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1943, while at the front. Around the same time, he was promoted to commissar of the Konstantin Rokossovsky Partisan Brigade, leading the brigade as it relocated to Vileyka. In September 1943, Masherov was promoted yet again, this time to the position of First Secretary of the Vileyka Underground Regional Committee of the Komsomol. In 1944, Masherov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his services as the "first organiser of the partisan movement in the Rasony district of the Vitebsk Region, which later grew into a popular uprising and created a huge partisan land of 10 thousand square kilometres".

In 1941, with the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Masherov volunteered to join the Red Army. Shortly afterwards, in August 1941, he was captured during fighting near Nevel and taken aboard a prisoner train, along with his mother. Masherov escaped captivity after jumping out of the train while it was moving through Rasony district, suffering bruises and scratches, and walked to Rasony, where he remained.

Following his escape, Masherov began forming the Komsomol underground in Rasony, an early part of what would later grow into the Belarusian resistance during World War II. From December 1941 to March 1942, he continued his work on the kolkhoz, as well as his teaching activities, while at the same time organising the partisans in Rasony. In this time period, the partisans recruited supporters and gathered equipment. One of their caches was at the dentist's office in Rasony; the dentist was Polina Galanova, who would later become Masherov's wife. Using the nickname of Dubnyak, Masherov was one of the leaders of the Belarusian partisan movement. Starting in April 1942, Masherov was commander of the N. A. Shchors partisan detachment. He was elected as leader by the partisans, a move later agreed to by the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement. As commander, he declared one of his former students the detachment's chief of staff. In the first battle involving the detachment, Masherov was wounded and chose to recover in the apartment of one of his former students, despite the objections of his fellow soldiers.

From 1939 until 1941, Masherov worked as a teacher of physics and mathematics at the secondary school in Rasony. He proved to be popular among the students and was respected in the area. Masherov also supervised the work of the school's drama circle and would even star in some plays, such as Alexander Ostrovsky's The Forest.

Tragedy struck the family in 1937, when Miron was arrested on charges of "anti-Soviet agitation" and sentenced to ten years of corrective labour during the Great Purge. He died shortly afterwards. He would later be rehabilitated for lack of evidence, but Pyotr and Pavel were forced to become the family's breadwinners.

In 1933 Masherov moved to Dvorishche, in Rasony District, where his older brother Pavel was a teacher in history and geography. Returning to school, he completed secondary education in 1934 and went to the Vitebsk State University where he studied to be a teacher in physics and mathematics. He was very active in sports during his studies, participating in both skiing and skating. Masherov graduated in 1939 and became a teacher the same year.

According to the memoirs of Masherov's sister Olga, during the early 1930s the family lived hand-to-mouth, both due to harsh weather conditions and incompetency on the recently formed kolkhoz. The Mashero family was assisted by Pyotr's sister Matryona, who lived in Vitebsk and transferred bread and sugar to Shirki.

Pyotr Mironovich Mashero was born on 26 February 1919 in the village of Shirki, Sennensky Uyezd, in the Western Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. According to family legend his great-grandfather was a soldier in the army of Napoleon who settled in modern-day Belarus rather than returning to France. Pyotr's father was Miron Vasilyevich Mashero and his mother was Daria Petrovna Lyakhovskaya. Pyotr had seven siblings, of whom four survived to adulthood.