The nuclear physicist who demanded Chernobyl truth, hosted the meeting that dissolved the USSR, and called Gorbachev to tell him
Gorbachev asked, 'Have you thought about the international reaction?' I answered, 'Yeltsin is on the phone with Bush right now. Bush seems to be in favor!'
A nuclear physicist from Minsk, he was a professor at Belarusian State University and a specialist in radio electronics. In 1986, as a member of the Chernobyl investigation commission, he demanded the truth be made public against the Soviet cover-up and was removed, an experience that propelled him into politics. As chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet in 1991, he hosted Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk at the Viskuli hunting lodge for what was billed as a discussion of oil and gas supplies; when the conversation turned to dissolving the USSR, he was the first to say he would sign, and he was the one who telephoned Gorbachev to inform him the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The first head of state of independent Belarus, he was ousted in 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko's corruption allegations and spent his final decades in Minsk as an unyielding opposition elder.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1956Graduated, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, BSU
- 1963–1965Associate Professor, Nuclear Physics, BSU
- 1966–1970Vice-Rector for Research, Minsk Radio Engineering Institute
- 1971–1990Head, Nuclear Physics Department, BSU
- 1989USSR People's Deputy
- 1990–1991First Deputy Chairman, Supreme Soviet, BSSR
- 1991–1994Chairman, Supreme Soviet of Belarus (head of state)
- 1998–2018Chairman, Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly
Related historical events
- 1986The Chernobyl DisasterInvestigation commission memberAs a member of the 1986 accident investigation commission, he demanded the truth be made public against the Soviet cover-up.
- 1991The Novo-Ogaryovo Process and the New Union TreatyBelarus representativeAs Belarusian Supreme Soviet chairman, held out for confederation against Gorbachev's 'union state' at the 14 and 25 November State Council meetings, and refused to initial on the 25th. One of the three Belovezha Accords signatories on 8 December.
- 1991The August Coup and the Collapse of the USSRBelarusian chairman told Gorbachev USSR dissolvedHe hosted the Belovezh meeting at Viskuli, signed the accords, and personally called Gorbachev to inform him that the USSR was dissolved.
Denuclearization and the neutrality course
Shushkevich was among the first leaders to move toward giving up the nuclear weapons that remained on Belarusian soil after independence. The sources record that he pushed the withdrawal through without demanding preconditions or compensation. The reasons cited include the geographic reality that Belarus would have been destroyed in a nuclear exchange, the technical and financial burden of keeping the weapons operable, and the neutral, non-nuclear status declared in the republic's constitutional documents. After he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet, the parliament approved joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 1992 and resolved in April of that year to join the International Monetary Fund and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Belarus signed the Lisbon Protocol in 1992 and transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Russia, and in 1993 it went on to ratify START I and the protocol, committing to remain a non-nuclear state. Laws on defense, the state border, national minorities, cultural heritage and freedom of conscience were adopted in the same period. At the 11th emergency session in April 1993 Shushkevich proposed appealing to the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine to declare neutrality and form a belt of neutral states, and he also floated a referendum on Belarusian neutrality.