Andrey Januaryevich Vyshinskiy – November 22, 1954) was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
jurist and
diplomatA diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organisation. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
. He is mostly known as a state prosecutor of Stalin's show trials. He served as the
Soviet Foreign MinisterThis page lists foreign ministers of Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation:-Heads of Posolsky Prikaz, 1549-1699:*Ivan Viskovatyi 1549-62*Andrey Vasilyev 1562-1570*Brothers Vasily and Andrey Shchelkalov 1570-1601*Afanasy Vlasyev 1601-05...
from 1949 to 1953.
Biography
Vyshinsky was born into a Polish
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
family in
OdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .Odessa was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240...
, who later moved to
BakuBaku , sometimes known as Baqy, Baky, Baki or Bakou, is the capital, the largest city, and the largest port of Azerbaijan and all the Caucasus. Located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, the city consists of two principal parts: the downtown and the old Inner City...
. He became a
MenshevikThe Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
in 1903 and in 1917 he undersigned an order to arrest Lenin according the decision of the
Russian Provisional GovernmentThe Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. In September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire officially dissolved the newly created Directorate, and the...
.. In 1920, he joined the Bolsheviks.
Vyshinsky was one of the architects of the
HolodomorThe Holodomor refers to the famine of 1932–1933 in the Ukrainian SSR during which millions of people were starved to death due to Soviet policies. There were no natural causes for starvation and in fact, Ukraine - unlike other Soviet Republics - enjoyed a bumper wheat crop in 1932...
. He carried out administrative preparations for a "systematic "drive" against harvest-wreckers and grain-thieves."
In 1935 he became
Prosecutor General of the USSRThe Procurator General of the USSR , was the highest functionary of the Office of Public Procurator of the USSR, responsible for the whole system of offices of public procurators and supervision of their activities on the territory of the Soviet Union.The office of procurator had its historical...
, the legal mastermind of
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
's
Great PurgeGreat Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of...
. He is widely cited for the principle that "confession of the accused is the queen of evidence". His monograph that justifies this postulate,
Theory of Judicial Proofs in Soviet Justice, was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1947. He was the prosecutor at the
Moscow TrialsThe Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed. After Nikita Khrushchev's revelations in the 1950s, the Moscow Trials are today universally acknowledged as show trials in which the verdicts were...
of the
Great PurgeGreat Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of...
, lashing its defenseless victims with vituperative, sometimes cruelly witty rhetoric:
During the trials Vyshinsky
misappropriatedIn law, misappropriation is the intentional, illegal use of the property or funds of another person for one's own use or other unauthorized purpose, particularly by a public official, a trustee of a trust, an executor or administrator of a dead person's estate or by any person with a responsibility...
the house and money of Leonid Serebryakov, one of the defendants of the infamous
Moscow TrialsThe Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed. After Nikita Khrushchev's revelations in the 1950s, the Moscow Trials are today universally acknowledged as show trials in which the verdicts were...
, who was later executed
In June, 1940, Vyshinskiy was sent to the Republic of Latvia to supervise establishment of puppet government and incorporation of country into USSR, and later arranged for a communist regime to assume control of Romania in 1945. Later he was among the main accused during the investigation of the occupation of the Baltic states by U.S. Congress Kersten Committee in 1953
He was responsible for the Soviet preparations for the
trial of the major war criminals by the International Military TribunalThe Nuremberg trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II....
.
The positions he held include those of vice-premier (1939–1944), deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs (deputy foreign minister effective 1946) (1940–1949), Minister for Foreign Affairs (1949-1953), Academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1939, and permanent representative of the Soviet Union to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
He died while in New York and was buried near the
Red SquareRed Square is the most famous city square in Moscow, and arguably one of the most famous in the world. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
.
Scholarship
Vyshinsky was the director of the Soviet Academy of Science's
Institute of State and LawThe Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences is the largest scientific legal center in the Russian Federation. The ISL is part of the Philosophical, Sociological, Psychological, and Law Department of RAS...
. In fact, until the period of Destalinization, the Institute of State and Law was named in his honor.
During his tenure as director of the ISL, Vyshinsky oversaw the publication of several important monographs on the general theory of state and law.
External links