Andrey Vyshinsky Article Index for
Andrey
Shopping
Andrey
 

Information About

Andrey Vyshinsky




Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский) (– November 22 , 1954 ), also spelt '''Vishinsky''', '''Vyshinski''', was a Soviet jurist and later Diplomat . He served as the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953 . Vyshinsky spoke some English and excellent French.

He became a Menshevik in 1903 and joined the Bolsheviks in 1920 .

In 1935 he became Procurator General Of The USSR , the legal mastermind of Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge . He put a "theoretical" legal base under the treason trials. The cornerstones of Vyshinsky's theory were:

  • Criminal law is a tool of the Class Struggle

  • "Confession is a queen over all sorts of evidence".


His monograph that justifies these postulates, ''Theory of Judicial Proofs'' (''Теория судебных доказательств''), was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1947.

He presided at the major Show Trials of the Great Purge , lashing its defenseless victims with vituperative, sometimes cruelly witty rhetoric.

The positions he held include those of vice-premier ( 19391944 ), deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs ( 19401949 ), Minister for Foreign Affairs (1949-1953), Academician of the Soviet Academy Of Sciences from 1939 , and permanent representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations .


EXTERNAL LINKS