Mykhailo Poloz

Mykhailo Poloz (Михайло Полоз) was a politician, diplomat, statesman of Ukraine, and a participant at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Biography
Mykhailo Poloz was born on December 23, 1891 in Kharkiv, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire into a noble family of excise officials. Upon graduation from a realschule, Poloz studied at the Moscow City Shanyavsky National University (1910–12) and the Petrovskaya-Rozumovskaya Agricultural Academy (1912–15). During World War I in 1915, he underwent training at a flying school and as a praporshchik (warrant officer) fought on the Romanian Front.

Already in 1906, Poloz had become a member of the Kharkiv Student Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries and by 1908 he had been arrested for the first time. In 1917 as a member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, Poloz was elected to the Central Council of Ukraine, was a member of the Ukrainian Military General Committee and part of the peace delegation of Ukraine to the Brest-Litovsk treaty negotiations. In 1918, during the advance of Muravyov's Soviet forces, he was arrested for collaborating with the Bolsheviks and sentenced to be shot, but was rescued by Cossacks.

Being a member of the UPSR's left faction after its split, Poloz joined the Ukrainian Communist Party of borotbists as one of its leaders. During the Skoropadsky administration, Poloz worked underground preparing for the anti-Hetman uprising. In 1920, he joined the Communist Party of Ukraine.

With the establishment of the Soviet regime, Poloz worked in the presidium of the Ukrainian Council of National Economy and headed the administrative-financial commission at the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1921, Poloz became the plenipotentiary representative of the Ukrainian SSR in Moscow (1921–23). He thereafter headed the Gosplan of Ukraine (1923–25) and the People's Commissariat of Finance (1925–30). In 1930-34, Poloz was a Deputy Chairman of the Budget Commission of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union.

As an aviation specialist, Poloz laid the foundations for the development of civil aviation in Ukraine. From 24 December 1927, he headed the Ukrainian committee for the protection of natural landmarks. In that position, Poloz did much for the protection of cultural and natural landmarks.

On 12 January 1934, Poloz was arrested in Moscow by State Political Directorate agents. An investigation was conducted at first in Moscow. The case was then transferred to Kharkiv and later to Kiev. On 4 June 1934, Poloz was found guilty of links with the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and sentenced to 10 years in correctional labour camps. On 9 October 1937, the Special triumvirate sentenced Poloz to capital punishment (Vysshaya Mera Nakazaniya (VMN) in Russian). On 3 November 1937, Poloz was shot in the Sandarmokh forest in the Karelian ASSR.

On 8 March 1957, Poloz was rehabilitated.