Panteleimon Ponomarenko

Who was Panteleimon Ponomarenko?

Panteleimon Kondrat'evich Ponomarenko was a general in the Red Army before becoming a Soviet administrator in Belarus and then Kazakhstan. He was born in Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

From 1938 to 1947, Ponomarenko was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belorussia, and from 1944 to 1948, also the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Byelorussia. During World War II, he led Communist partisan units within Nazi-occupied Belarus. He clashed with the Polish underground and gave orders for his troops to disarm them and execute the officers. In this aspect the forces under Ponomarenko's command initiated a limited cooperation with the Nazi occupation forces informing on members of the Polish underground.

From 16 October 1952 until 6 March 1953, Ponomarenko was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was made First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR in 1954 before becoming the Soviet ambassador to Poland between 1955 and 1957.

Ponomarenko also taught diplomacy and assisted in the creation of the National Jazz Orchestra in Minsk.