Roman Rudenko

Roman Rudenko
Роман Руденко
Rudenko opens the Soviet prosecution at the International Military Tribunal
Procurator General of the Soviet Union
In office 1 July 1953 – 23 January 1981
Premier	Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin Nikita Khrushchev Alexei Kosygin Nikolai Tikhonov
Preceded by	Grigory Safonov
Succeeded by	Alexander Rekunkov
Personal details
Born	7 August [O.S. 25 July] 1907 Nosivka, Nezhinsky Uyezd, Chernihiv Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	January 23, 1981(1981-01-23) (aged 73) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1926–1981)
Profession	Lawyer, civil servant

Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Russian: Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко, Ukrainian: Роман Андрійович Руденко; 7 August [O.S. 25 July] 1907 – 23 January 1981) was a Soviet lawyer and statesman.

Procurator-General of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became Procurator-General of the entire Soviet Union after 1953. He is well known internationally for acting as chief prosecutor for the USSR at the 1946 trial of the major Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg. He was also chief prosecutor at the "Trial of the Sixteen" (Polish Underground leaders) held in Moscow the year before. At the time he served at Nuremberg, Rudenko held the rank of Lieutenant-General within the USSR Procuracy.

In 1961 Rudenko was elected to the CPSU Central Committee. In 1972 he was awarded the Soviet honorary title of Hero of Socialist Labour.

Ukrainian SSR to 1953

Rudenko was one of the chief commandants of NKVD special camp Nr. 7, a former Nazi concentration camp, until its closure in 1950. Of the 60,000 prisoners incarcerated there under his supervision, at least 12,000 died due to malnutrition and disease.

In October 1951, as Procurator-General of the Ukrainian SSR, he personally led prosecution in the trial of OUN member Mykhailo Stakhur who in October 1949 killed the writer Yaroslav Halan.

Soviet Union 1953–1981

After the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria in 1953, Rudenko was a judge at the closed trial at which Stalin's last secret police chief was sentenced to death.

In 1960, he acted as the chief prosecutor in U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers' espionage trial.

As Procurator General of the Soviet Union, Rudenko played a major role in devising measures to deal with the growing dissident movement within the USSR.

Roman Rudenko on a commemorative Russian stamp

In 1967, he and then KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny submitted proposals as to how to deal with those defending the writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky during and after their trial, without provoking a strong reaction abroad or within the country. This included mention of the "mental illness" suffered by several prominent dissidents. One measure, proposed jointly with Yuri Andropov in late 1972, was to reduce the number of arrests and convictions by reinforcing the issue of "prophylactic" warnings to individuals, cautioning them that their activities could lead to prosecution under Articles 70 and 190¹ of the RSFSR Criminal Code.

Further reading

• Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1984, ISBN 0-88184-032-7
• Александр Звягинцев. «Руденко». Молодая гвардия, 2007 г. ISBN 978-5-235-03081-7