Activities and affiliations

Legislature and state representation Soviet Union 1934–2022 ○ Died

The communist propagandist who became Ukraine's first president and signed the Soviet Union out of existence

It was a long road we walked to Belavezha. It was not by accident; it was our deliberate choice because we had no other option.

A party man who spent three decades climbing the propaganda and ideology apparatus of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Kravchuk pivoted to 'national communism' after becoming chairman of the Supreme Soviet in 1990. At the Novo-Ogaryovo negotiations he insisted on a confederation, not a federation, and delayed the signing of the new Union Treaty until September; after the August 1991 coup collapsed, he presided over Ukraine's Declaration of Independence on 24 August. Elected Ukraine's first president on 1 December 1991, he signed the Belavezha Accords with Yeltsin and Shushkevich a week later, formally ending the Soviet Union. His presidency saw the surrender of Ukraine's nuclear arsenal and a deep economic slump, but he stepped down after a peaceful electoral defeat and remained active in politics as a deputy.

Legislature and state representation Soviet Union 1937–2010 ↓ Arrested · amnestied 1994

First and only Vice President of the USSR and the face of the August 1991 coup

To KGB chairman Kryuchkov during the August 1991 coup: 'Understand my character—if even one person dies, I won't be able to live.'

After serving as First Secretary of the Gorky Oblast Komsomol and chairman of the USSR Committee of Youth Organizations (1968–1980), Yanayev became VTsSPS chairman, a Politburo member and CC Secretary in 1990. That December Gorbachev forced through his election as the USSR's first vice president. In August 1991, as the face of the GKChP, he declared himself acting president citing Gorbachev's 'illness'. The coup failed within three days and he was arrested. Amnestied in 1994, he published the memoir Last Battle for the USSR and spent his remaining years in academia.