| abstract | - Andrey Yanuarevich Vyshinsky (Russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский, Andrej Yanuar'evič Vyšinskij; Polish: Andrzej Wyszyński) (10 December [O.S. 28 November] 1883 – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat. Vyshinsky was an ethnic Pole born in the modern Ukraine in what was then the Russian Empire. He became interested in revolutionary ideas during his university days, eventually joining the Mensheviks. He participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution, was arrested, and sentenced to prison in 1908. While in Baku prison, he met Joseph Stalin. Upon his release, he became a successful lawyer in Moscow, where he also continued his activities as a Menshevik. After the Russian Revolution and end of the Russian Civil War, Vyshinsky changed his aligance to the Bolsheviks. Throughout the 1920s, Vyshinsky prosecuted participated in a number trials of "undesireables". In 1935, he was appointed State Prosecutor of the Soviet Union, and became the legal mastermind of the Great Purge. During World War II, Vyshinsky was given a number of diplomatic responsibilities, including bringing Latvia in the USSR. In 1945, he helped install a communist government in Romania. He was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, after having served as Deputy Foreign Minister under Vyacheslav Molotov since 1940. He also headed the Institute of State and Law in the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He died while in New York City in 1954.
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