In the Soviet Union

Masol was a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine.^[4] In 1972, he became deputy chairman of the state planning committee in Ukraine at the invitation of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Vladimir Shcherbitsky. Shcherbitsky had intended to make him deputy minister for oil but decided that there was a more urgent vacancy on the committee. Masol later became chair of the committee and a member of the commission in charge of decontamination following the Chernobyl disaster. Masol became Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers on 16 January 1979.^[5]

He served as Head of the Council of Ministers (equivalent of today's Prime Minister) of the Ukrainian SSR from 1987 until 17 October 1990, when he was forced to resign and was replaced by Vitold Fokin.^[1][6] He was forced into resignation by Ukrainian student protests and hunger strikes known as the Revolution on Granite.^[1][7] Masol was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991.^[4]

In independent Ukraine

President Leonid Kravchuk's appointment of Masol as Prime Minister of Ukraine on 16 June 1994^[1] with his image of "an advocate of state-controlled economy" was seen as a surprise and a pre-election concession to the communist-dominated Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament).^[8] Masol was once again reinstated by President Leonid Kuchma.^[1] Masol was against most of Kuchma's reform plans and openly so; he sometimes mobilized the Verkhovna Rada against Kuchma.^[1] Masol resigned on 1 March 1995, but continued to attend meetings of the Verkhovna Rada.^[1] Masol's two periods in this office saw the beginnings of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of a new political system in Ukraine.^[9]