CPU secretary who oversaw the anti-alcohol campaign in Ukraine and testified that Ligachev ordered the Massandra wine library destroyed
I poured the contents of the third, fourth, fifth glass and so on under the table. The secretary sitting next to me whispered: 'Listen, my trousers are soaked and there's vodka in my shoes!'
A metallurgical engineer by training, he joined party work in 1957 and rose through first secretary posts in Kramatorsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Nikolaev before serving 16 years as a secretary of the CPU Central Committee from 1971. When Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign began in 1985, Pogrebnyak oversaw its implementation in Ukraine; he later testified that Yegor Ligachev demanded the destruction of Massandra's 150-year wine library and that only Vladimir Shcherbitsky's intervention with Gorbachev saved it. In 1987 he was dispatched to Lviv as first secretary amid rising nationalist sentiment, serving until 1990, and after the Soviet collapse chaired the Ukraine-Poland society while publishing memoirs.
Career Timeline
- 1957–1960Second Secretary, Kramatorsk City Committee
- 1960–1962First Secretary, Kramatorsk City Committee
- 1963–1964First Secretary, Poltava Industrial Oblast Committee
- 1966–1969First Secretary, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Committee
- 1969–1971First Secretary, Nikolaev Oblast Committee
- 1971–1987Secretary, CPU Central Committee (trade, anti-alcohol campaign)
- 1987–1990First Secretary, Lviv Oblast Committee