Khruschev was not a "Soviet infantry soldier" during the Great Patriotic War. Before it, he had become the party boss of the Ukraine after several more senior predecessors were shot during the purges. During the war, he was a political commisar, i.e. Stalin's man to watch the generals, in the Ukraine; in particular he was the commisar of the Stalingrad Front in 1942. After the Soviet's retook the Ukraine, he was appointed Premier in addition to his post as Party Secretary. He was responsible for the collectivization in the parts of the western Ukraine that had belonged to Poland before the war, and for the repression of the Ukrainian nationalist partisans.