Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (russian: Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко, – January 23, 1981) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
lawyer and statesman.
Procurator-General of the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became Procurator-General of the entire
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
after 1953. He is well known internationally for acting as chief prosecutor for the USSR at the 1946 trial of the major
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
war criminals in
Nuremberg. He was also chief prosecutor at the "
Trial of the Sixteen
The Trial of the Sixteen ( pl, Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of var ...
" (Polish Underground leaders) held in Moscow the year before. At the time he served at Nuremberg, Rudenko held the rank of Lieutenant-General within the USSR Procuracy.
In 1961 Rudenko was elected to the
CPSU Central Committee. In 1972 he was awarded the Soviet
honorary title
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
of
Hero of Socialist Labor
The Hero of Socialist Labour (russian: links=no, Герой Социалистического Труда, Geroy Sotsialisticheskogo Truda) was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It repre ...
.
Ukrainian SSR to 1953
Rudenko was one of the chief commandants of
NKVD special camp Nr. 7, a former Nazi concentration camp, until its closure in 1950.
Of the 60,000 prisoners incarcerated there under his supervision, at least 12,000 died due to malnutrition and disease.
In October 1951, as Procurator-General of the Ukrainian SSR, he personally led prosecution in the trial of
OUN member Mykhailo Stakhur who in October 1949 killed the writer
Yaroslav Halan
''
, pseudonym = Comrade Yaga, Volodymyr Rosovych, Ihor Semeniuk
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Dynów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland)
, death_date =
, death_place = Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine)
, resting_place ...
.
Soviet Union 1953-1981
After the arrest of
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolsheviks ...
in 1953, Rudenko was a judge at the closed trial at which Stalin's last secret police chief was sentenced to death.
In 1960, he acted as the chief prosecutor in
U-2 pilot
Gary Powers's espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
trial.
As
Procurator General of the Soviet Union
The Procurator General of the USSR (russian: Генеральный прокурор СССР, Generalnyi prokuror SSSR) was the highest functionary of the Office of the Public Procurator of the USSR, responsible for the whole system of offices ...
, Rudenko played a major role in devising measures to deal with the growing dissident movement within the USSR.
In 1967, he and then KGB chairman
Vladimir Semichastny
Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny (russian: Влади́мир Ефи́мович Семича́стный, January 15, 1924 – January 12, 2001) was a Soviet politician, who served as Chairman of the KGB from November 1961 to May 1967. A pro ...
submitted proposals as to how to deal with those defending the writers
Yuli Daniel
Yuli Markovich Daniel ( rus, Ю́лий Ма́ркович Даниэ́ль, p=ˈjʉlʲɪj ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ dənʲɪˈelʲ, a=Yuliy Markovich Daniel'.ru.vorb.oga; 15 November 1925 — 30 December 1988) was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident ...
and
Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (russian: Андре́й Дона́тович Синя́вский; 8 October 1925 – 25 February 1997) was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident known as a defendant in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1965.
Sinyav ...
during and after their trial, without provoking a strong reaction abroad or within the country. This included mention of the "mental illness" suffered by several prominent dissidents. One measure, proposed jointly with
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
in late 1972, was to reduce the number of arrests and convictions by reinforcing the issue of "prophylactic" warnings to individuals, cautioning them that their activities could lead to prosecution under
Articles 70 and 1901 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.
Joint KGB-Procurator-General's Memorandum to Central Committee, 16 November 1972 (Pb 67/XVI), Bukovsky Archive online
References
Further reading
* Robert E. Conot, ''Justice at Nuremberg'', Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1984,
* Александр Звягинцев. «Руденко». Молодая гвардия, 2007 г.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rudenko, Roman Andreyevich
1907 births
1981 deaths
People from Chernihiv Oblast
People from Chernigov Governorate
Second convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Heroes of Socialist Labour
Prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg
Soviet jurists
20th-century jurists
Prosecutors of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic