Petro Shelest

Petro Yukhymovych Shelest was a Ukrainian Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party from 1965 until his removal in 1972. Ideologically a social moderate and a national communist, he oversaw a widespread liberalisation of Ukrainian society as part of the Khrushchev Thaw and Sixtier movement that led to increased visibility of the Ukrainian language and culture in public life. In 1972, Shelest was removed by Leonid Brezhnev and replaced with Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, who undid much of Shelest's reforms and oversaw intensive Russification of Ukrainian society.