Vasilii Ivanovich Drozdenko

Born Jan. 14,1924, in the village of Khar’kovo, Talalaevka Raion, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Soviet party figure, diplomat. Member of the CPSU since 1944.

Drozdenko was the son of a peasant. He graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk Railroad Engineering Institute in 1949 and from the Higher Party School of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1959 (by correspondence). In the years 1942-45 he fought in the Great Patriotic War as a junior artillery commander. Holding Komsomol and party posts from 1948 on, Drozdenko was first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast committee of the Lenin Communist Youth League (LCYL) of the Ukraine from 1951 to 1952, secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of the Ukraine from 1952 to 1954, second secretary of the same body from 1954 to 1955, and first secretary from 1955 to 1960. He was first secretary of the Kiev city committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine (CPU) from 1960 to 1962, first secretary of the Kiev Oblast committee of the CPU from 1962 to 1966, and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU from 1966 to 1971. In March 1971 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the USSR to the Socialist Republic of Rumania. Drozdenko was elected a member of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU at the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961, a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-third Congress in 1966 and a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-fourth Congress in 1971. He was also a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Drozdenko has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, two other orders, and medals.