Nikita Salogor

Nikita Leontyevich Salogor (Russian: Никита Леонтьевич Салогор, Romanian: Nichita Leontie Salogor or Salagor, Ukrainian: Микита Леонтійович Салогор, romanized: Mykyta Leontiyovych Salohor; 15 August 1901 – 24 June 1982) was a Moldavian and Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia (PCM) in 1942–1946. Of Romanian Ukrainian or Moldovan roots, he had a kulak mother, whom he openly denounced later in life. Salogor's early career was in agricultural institutions of the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where he also advanced politically. Following the Soviet advance into Bessarabia in 1940, he joined the leadership of the Moldavian SSR. Immediately promoted to Junior Secretary of the PCM, he was co-opted on its Politburo in early 1941, and took part in a workforce recruitment drive, which is described by historian Ion Varta as connected to the deportation of native Romanians.

Shortly after the German attack on the Soviet Union, Salogor and other PCM leaders withdrew to Soviet Russia, but still sought to exercise command over partisan units organizing in Bessarabia. During this interval, Salogor was able to outmaneuver Piotr Borodin, taking up Borodin's position as First Secretary. He finally returned to Soviet Moldavia in March 1944, and joined the provisional government formed in Soroca. During and after the region's reconquest in August 1944, he involved himself in reconstructing the party structures and investigating the spread of anti-communist resistance. He also managed responses to the Moldavian famine, and set up the Moldavian State University.

Cultivating national communism and posthumously labelled a Moldovenist, Salogor advanced an irredentist project, hoping to increase the Moldavian SSR by incorporating the whole of Romanian Moldavia, as well as the Budjak and Bukovina (Greater Moldova). These proposals threatened the Ukrainian SSR's territorial integrity, and were as such vetoed by Nikita Khrushchev. Salogor lost his PCM positions shortly after, and sent to work as an agricultural manager in Krasnodar Krai. He was allowed to return in 1950, when Moldavian Premier Gherasim Rudi assigned him minor positions in his cabinet. His attempt to undermine PCM leader Nicolae Coval resulted in another demotion. He was only included on the Central Committee in the 1970s, by which time he was already retired and ailing.