Grigory Petrovsky
A Ukrainian revolutionary who helped forge the Soviet Union, then presided over the brutal collectivization that starved his homeland.
1878–1958 (age 80)·Soviet Ukrainian politician·Birthday: February 3·The Gilded Age
Biography
Grigory Petrovsky's life was a journey from underground radical to a key architect of Soviet power. Born in what is now Ukraine, he became a metalworker and a committed Bolshevik, enduring tsarist prison and exile. After the 1917 revolution, his loyalty was rewarded with the ceremonial but prominent position of head of state for Soviet Ukraine, a role he held for nearly two decades. His signature is on the foundational treaties that created the USSR and took Russia out of the First World War. However, his tenure is inextricably linked to the enforcement of Stalin's agricultural policies in the Ukrainian countryside. As a senior official, he was complicit in the forced collectivization that led to the Holodomor, the catastrophic famine of the early 1930s. His fall from grace came during the Great Purge, when he was removed from all posts, narrowly escaping execution. He lived out his days in obscurity, a symbol of both the revolutionary promise and the devastating reality of early Soviet rule in Ukraine.
The Gilded Age
1860–1882
Born during or after the Civil War, they built industrial America — the railroads, the steel mills, the first skyscrapers. An era of massive wealth, massive inequality, and the belief that the future belonged to whoever could build it fastest.
Grigory was born in 1878, placing them squarely in The Gilded Age. The events that shaped this generation — world wars, depression, and rapid industrialization — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When Grigory Was Born
The biggest hits of 1878
Grigory's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1878Born
President: Rutherford B. Hayes
1883Started school
President: Chester A. Arthur
1891Became a teenager
President: Benjamin Harrison
1894Could drive
President: Grover Cleveland
1896Could vote
First modern Olympic Games held in Athens
President: Grover Cleveland
1899Turned 21
President: William McKinley
1908Turned 30
Ford Model T goes into production
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1918Turned 40
World War I ends; Spanish flu pandemic kills millions
President: Woodrow Wilson
1928Turned 50
Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin; Mickey Mouse debuts
President: Calvin Coolidge"Ol' Man River" — Paul WhitemanBest Picture: Wings
1938Turned 60
Kristallnacht and the escalation toward WWII
Gas: $0.20/galHome: $2,850Min wage: $0.25/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"Begin the Beguine" — Artie ShawBest Picture: You Can't Take It with You
1948Turned 70
Israel declares independence; Berlin Blockade begins
Gas: $0.26/galHome: $7,450Min wage: $0.40/hrPresident: Harry S. Truman"Twelfth Street Rag" — Pee Wee HuntBest Picture: Hamlet
1958Turned 80
NASA founded
Gas: $0.31/galHome: $11,050Min wage: $1.00/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"Volare" — Domenico ModugnoBest Picture: Gigi
Key Achievements
- Served as the ceremonial head of state of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1919 to 1938.
- Was one of the signatories of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in 1922.
- Signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, which ended Russia's involvement in World War I.
Did You Know?
He began his working life as a turner in a railway workshop.
A statue of him in Dnipro, Ukraine, was toppled in 2016 as part of decommunization laws.
His son, also named Grigory, was a test pilot who died in a plane crash in 1940.
“The factory floor taught me that the worker's hand must guide the state.”
