Siarhei Prytytski (, Siarhiej Prytycki , Sergey Pritytsky, ; February 1, 1913, Harkawicze - June 13, 1971, Minsk) was a Belarusian Soviet statesman. Having started as a Communist activist in Western Belarus (then part of the Second Polish Republic), after the Soviet invasion of Poland he became a high-ranking politician in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Childhood Prytytski was born on February 1, 1913, in Harkawicze () in the Polish-Belarusian borderlands, then part of the Russian Empire, as the third son of a school watchman. In 1914 his family fled to Nizhny Shkaft, Penza Oblast, Russia from the approaching front of the First World War. Activism and imprisonment in West Belarus In 1931 Prytytski became Secretary of the youth branch (Komsomol) of the illegal Communist Party of West Belarus in Krynki in the Second Polish Republic. In 1932 he became member of the party and was elected secretary of the local party branch in Hrodna In 1933 Prytytski was for the first time arrested by Polish authorities and put into a prison in Hrodna, but soon released. In 1933 - 1934 he was a member of the local committee of the CPWB Komsomol in Slonim and led strikes of forestry workers in the area. In 1934 - 1935 he studied at the CPWB school in Minsk, East Belarus, USSR. In 1935 he became Secretary of the local youth branch of the CPWB in Slonim. Prytytski made a widely publicized unsuccessful assassination attempt on a Polish agent provocateur Jakub Strelczuk in the Polish court at Wilno on 27 January 1936, shooting from two Nagant revolvers. The operation was planned and organized by the leader of the West Belarusian Komsomol Mikalai Dvornikau, who also was the backup of the main executor. After the shooting, Prytytski was arrested and sentenced to death. The death sentence provoked wide international protest in West Belarus, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and the United States. Following the protests, the Polish authorities changed the sentence to life imprisonment. In September 1939, after the Soviet invasion of Poland, Prytytski was freed. He was elected into the People's Assembly of West Belarus and made a presentation demanding West Belarus to join the Soviet Union. Career in the USSR After the reunification of West Belarus with the Belarusian SSR, in late 1939 Prytytski was made deputy head of the executive committee of the newly established Belastok Voblast. After Germany's attack on the USSR