People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 2 Government and administration 1 Economy, finance and planning 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 2 Soviet Unionstate 1

All 2 affiliations

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 2 Soviet Unionstate 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 2
Citizenship(set)
Any Soviet Union 193 China 40 Germany 39 France 38 Russia 38 Hungary 32 Poland 24 East Germany 15 Czechoslovakia 13 United Kingdom 12 Italy 11 United States 11 Romania 10 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 9 Spain 8 Bulgaria 7 Cambodia 7 Estonia 7 Mongolia 6 Yugoslavia 6 Angola 5 Vietnam 5 Yemen 5 Afghanistan 4 Azerbaijan 4 Cuba 4 Finland 4 Georgia 4 Turkey 4 Albania 3 Congo - Brazzaville 3 Czechia 3 Japan 3 Laos 3 Latvia 3 Lithuania 3 Austria 2 Belarus 2 Ethiopia 2 Greece 2 India 2 Indonesia 2 Korea 2 Madagascar 2 Moldova 2 Mozambique 2 Portugal 2 South Africa 2 Ukraine 2 Argentina 1 Belgium 1 Brazil 1 Chile 1 DR Congo 1 Egypt 1 Ghana 1 Grenada 1 Iran 1 Kazakhstan 1 Kyrgyzstan 1 Netherlands 1 Peru 1 Tanzania 1 Turkmenistan 1 Uzbekistan 1
Background
Any Moldova 2
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The last generation1985–1991 2
Political and party leadership Citizenship: Moldova Clear all

Grigore Isidorovich Eremei

Grigore Isidorovici Eremei
Soviet Union Soviet communism Moldova Moldovan 1935–2024 ○ Natural causes

The final head of Soviet Moldavia's Communist Party

He called the 1991 banning of the Communist Party “an illegitimate act.”

Grigore Eremei was a Moldavian party and state official whose career reached its decisive moment at the end of the Soviet system. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia in 1991, he occupied the republic's leading party post while the Union was breaking apart and Moldova moved toward independence. After the party was dissolved, he continued in public life as a Moldovan diplomat and parliamentarian, linking a Soviet political career to the institutions of the independent republic.

Career timeline
  • 1952Began working as a village secondary-school librarian
  • 1954–1956Served in the Soviet Army
  • 1966–1970First Secretary of the Kotovsk district party committee
  • 1970–1980Deputy and First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Moldavian SSR
  • 1980–1990Chairman of the Moldavian republican council of trade unions
  • 1989–1991People's Deputy of the USSR
  • 1991First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia and member of the CPSU Politburo
  • 1994–1998Moldovan Ambassador to Romania

Pyotr Luchinsky

Petru Lucinschi
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism Moldova Moldovan 1940–

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