Pavlo Kyrylovich Prokopenko (18 November 1930-16 July 2016) was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR from 1968 to 1975. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1991, and he became an independent politician in the following years.
Biography[]
Pavlo Kyrylovich Prokopenko was born in Poltava, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union on 18 November 1930, the son of a miller. Prokopenko attended Moscow State University from 1951 to 1954, and he received a degree in economics. Prokopenko joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, and he became a party official in Poltava. In 1968, Prokopenko was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, representing Poltava. Prokopenko was a member of the pacifist faction of the CPSU, arguing that Ukrainian men need not die in useless wars. In 1975, Prokopenko left the Supreme Soviet to become the head of the CPSU in Poltava Oblast, and he was responsible for organizing party programs in the region. In 1990, Prokopenko resigned as CPSU leader in Poltava, and he quit the CPSU in early 1991 as the USSR began to crumble. Prokopenko became an independent politician after Ukraine broke away from the USSR, and he favored social democracy as the ideology of the new Ukraine. Prokopenko died in Kiev in 2016.