Financial Fraud by High-Ranking Party Officials in the Voroshylovhrad Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR, Early 1970s

Party, Trade Union, and Sports Affairs in the Luhansk Oblast

The cases I want to discuss are far from typical for the period of Communist Party rule in Ukraine and the former USSR. However, this does not imply that Luhansk or its first secretary of the oblast committee of the Communist Party, Volodymyr Shevchenko, were particularly worse than their counterparts elsewhere. The difference lies in the fact that someone decided to hold him accountable.

Recently, the newspaper Fakty, known for publishing articles about former Communist Party and Soviet figures—particularly Volodymyr Shcherbytskyi, the first secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee—mentioned the Luhansk football team, Zoria. The article claimed that suitcases of money were taken to its competitions, used to bribe those who could influence outcomes. This allegedly contributed to Zoria’s achievement of becoming the USSR champion. It was suggested that Shevchenko was removed from his post as first secretary of the Luhansk Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine because of this scandal. However, that is not the full story, although such incidents were indeed documented in court cases.

A more accurate account would highlight that bribes were collected under the guise of funding sports, while enormous amounts of public money were embezzled in the process. Today, Ukraine is often labeled as one of the most corrupt countries. Supporters of the Communist era argue that such practices did not exist under Soviet rule, claiming that party officials of the time were above such acts. But this narrative is false. The main difference lies in scale and visibility: the Soviet Union lacked the vast sums of money available today, and officials could not buy extravagant mansions abroad. The country was “closed off” from the rest of the world. When Gorbachev opened it, the Soviet system crumbled, making its collapse inevitable.

So, what exactly happened in Luhansk during the 1970s? Rumors abounded about how it all started and why it was Luhansk, in particular, that became the focus of these events.

A large commission was dispatched to Luhansk to audit money transfers by local enterprises. They uncovered bizarre expenditures, such as a payment of 300 karbovanets to a restaurant at Luhansk airport “for the purchase of chairs.” It seemed unlikely these funds were for sports equipment; instead, they were more likely used to host departing “executive” visitors in the restaurant.

Numerous payments to stores for items like stationery and sports goods were also identified. Later, it emerged that these funds were either withdrawn in cash or used to purchase luxury goods for the bosses. A portion of the money ended up at the Oblast Committee, where it was handed over to the leadership—most frequently to the second secretary.

The second secretary meticulously recorded these transactions, even noting how much was passed on to the first secretary. During his court interrogation, he produced a notebook as evidence and boldly declared he would not go to prison alone without implicating the first secretary.

However, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee intervened, preventing the first secretary—and even his wife—from being questioned in court. The first secretary was merely suspended, while the second secretary was expelled from the party. Lower-ranking officials faced harsher consequences of imprisoning. All three secretaries of the Stakhanov City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, for instance, were imprisoned after a large amount of cash was discovered in their safe. This money had been funneled through stores by mines and other large enterprises. The head of the Stakhanov State Bank even kept a list of enterprises whose transfers were to be approved without question. When asked why he allowed these illegal transactions, he admitted that refusing such orders would have cost him his position the very next day. (Such was the extent to which party bosses wielded power over the law).

In addition to embezzling funds, these officials exploited public resources for personal gain, such as refurbishing cars at factories (of course, free of charge) and then selling them.

When the investigation into this corruption began, I happened to be on a business trip to Stakhanov. A party meeting was convened urgently, and we waited for hours for the chairman of the court to return. When he did, he was visibly shaken by the revelations. I remember him saying that these individuals had already created their own version of communism and returning them to socialism—or even to the labor camp system—would be exceedingly difficult.

In this case, I was supposed to defend the driver of the first secretary of the city committee, who had been implicated in the illegal sale of cars. I had planned to argue that he was simply following orders from his superior. Alas! I was barred from participating in the case. The reason given was an order from the head of the investigation team (the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Ukrainian SSR for Investigative Affairs) not to allow Jewish lawyers to participate. Outraged, I confronted the Presidium of the Bar Association, sarcastically accusing them of fearing I might leak case details to Israel. They will find out about it without me, and before me, even though it is the first case of this scale, and they have surrounded it with complete secrecy. But secrecy surrounded the case so thoroughly that even court employees were denied access to the courtroom, and traffic was blocked in the vicinity of the Regional Court.

Perhaps this case is not directly related to court cases, but I cannot help but once again say that anti-Semitism existed at the state level under Soviet rule. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee directly monitored the proceedings. I later learned about their deliberations from the second secretary of the oblast committee, who was a witness in another case involving the first secretary of the Kirovsk city committee, Kashkariov.

Could the prosecutor have issued such discriminatory orders on his own? Absolutely not. In the evening, I called my friends in Moscow and told them the story. They reassured me very convincingly, saying: “There is a scandal in their party house. You are a stranger in this house. Why do you want to take part in a scandal in someone else’s house?” Indeed, how could I forget that we were strangers to them?

The second case involved Kashkariov, the first secretary of the Kirovsk city committee. It seemed law enforcement had long awaited an opportunity to act against him. His arbitrary decisions, such as dismissing officials at whim or removing the police chief for allegedly glancing at his romantic partner, a head of Kirovsk restaurant, had earned him many enemies.

When an invention was developed at a mine in Kirovsk, and the authors were not even nominated for the state prize (then called the Lenin Prize), the original inventor’s name was removed, and Kashkarev replaced it with his own. At the same time, he sincerely believed that the truth was on his side, as he was exercising party leadership.

Today, when I hear that state leaders hold the titles of Doctors of Sciences or even Academicians, I am reminded of Kashkarev’s “laureate” status. Instead of detailing his governance style, one could simply note that the city of Kirovsk was colloquially referred to as “Kashkarevka.”

This case began with his romantic partner. She told how she collected money from employees to buy him gifts and how she offered bribes. To ensure the employees wouldn’t suspect her of keeping the money for herself, she would purchase a gold watch, give it to him, and then send the employees to see him wearing it as proof.

That was the initial reason for his arrest. Later, further evidence surfaced, including misappropriation of funds, illicit transfers of money to shops, and irregularities with the salaries of dismissed Komsomol workers.

The issue stemmed from the fact that miners were unwilling to leave their well-paying jobs to become secretaries of the city committee of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine (LKSMU), where the salaries were much lower. To address this, they continued receiving their miners’ salaries, while the money they were supposed to earn as city committee employees was handed over to Kashkarev. Sometimes, this money was delivered to the party’s oblast committee under the guise of being “for sports.”

Kashkarev admitted to receiving about 10,000 karbovanets in this way, while the second secretary of the oblast committee acknowledged receiving around 3,000 karbovanets. 

But is it really about the amount? Who pocketed how much did not change the essence of the case.

I defended these two secretaries of the Komsomol city committee in this case. When they approached me, I initially refused, telling them why I was not allowed to participate in the first case.

They took their complaint to the chairman of the regional court, who permitted my involvement and asked me to set aside the “ridiculous misunderstanding” of the earlier case and focus on defending the defendants.

Listening to the testimony in court was excruciating. Witnesses detailed how Kashkarev’s romantic partner led to his downfall and how the head of the department of the Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine described various gifts delivered to the Oblast Committee.

Kashkarev felt the trial was unfair. During a recess, he remarked, “I thought the court at least upheld justice.” Unable to stay silent, I replied, “Now you’re talking about justice?”

In the end, Kashkarev was sentenced to 12 years in prison for large-scale embezzlement of public funds. The Komsomol city committee secretaries, Fedichev and Katrushko, received suspended sentences. As I had argued in my defense, all damages and court costs were to be recovered from Kashkarev, absolving the secretaries of financial liability.

I am attaching my defense speech.¹

¹Not published. See: Nemyrynska, N. Y. About Court Cases and a Little About Myself. Kharkiv: Human Rights, 2014, 258–265.