Pyotr Luchinsky
Petru Lucinschi
A politician who moved from Soviet party leadership to Moldova's presidency
In the 1996 runoff, backed by left and centrist forces, he defeated Mircea Snegur to win the presidency.
Pyotr Luchinsky rose through the party apparatus of the Moldavian Soviet republic and became a link between late Soviet republican politics and the making of the independent Moldovan state. He became first secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova's Central Committee in 1989 and served on the CPSU Politburo from 1990 to 1991. After independence, he was ambassador to Russia and speaker of parliament before winning the 1996 presidential election and serving as Moldova's second president from 1997 to 2001. His career shows how Soviet institutional continuity and the adjustment of a new state's sovereignty and foreign orientation could converge in one politician.
Career timeline
- 1960–1971Instructor, department head, secretary and first secretary of the Moldavian Leninist Komsomol Central Committee
- 1971–1976Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova Central Committee and member of its Politburo
- 1976–1978First secretary of the Communist Party's Chișinău City Committee
- 1978–1986Deputy chief of a department of the CPSU Central Committee
- 1986–1989Second secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan Central Committee
- 1989–1990First secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova Central Committee
- 1990–1991Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and member of its Politburo
- 1997–2001President of Moldova