Rudenko, Roman

Rudenko, Roman [Руденко, Роман], b 18 July 1907 in Nosivka, Nizhyn county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 23 January 1981 in Moscow. Soviet jurist. He studied law at Kyiv University. From 1929 he worked in the Soviet legal system, in which he advanced from the position of investigator to those of procurator of Staline oblast (now Donetsk oblast) (1938–40), deputy procurator (1942–4) and procurator (1944–53) of the Ukrainian SSR (see Procurator’s office), chief Soviet prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials (1945–6), and USSR general procurator (1953–81). He was also a candidate member (1956–9) and full member (1961–81) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1953 he supervised the mass execution of striking political prisoners at the Vorkuta labor camps.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]