Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov
(
Russian
:
Никола?й Константи?нович Байбако?в
; 6 March 1911 – 31 March 2008) was a
Soviet
statesman and economist who served as
Minister of Oil Industry
from 1944?1956 and 1948?1955, and Chairman of the
State Planning Committee
from 1955?1957 and 1965?1985. He was awarded a
Hero of Socialist Labour
in 1981.
Biography
[
edit
]
Born in
Sabunchu
, near
Baku
,
Russian Empire
, Baibakov finished
secondary school
in 1928 and entered the
Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute
, from which he graduated in 1931 as a
mining engineer
, and worked for the oil industry in Azerbaijan. In 1935, he was drafted into the
armed forces
, in the Far East.
[1]
After completing his military service, in January 1937, he returned to Azerbaijan and received rapid promotion during the
Great Purge
. After a few months, he was appointed chief of the oilfield production department in Azerbaijan, then in January 1938, was transferred to
Kuibyshev
(Samara) as head of the association for oil production in east Russia.
[2]
In 1940-44, he was Deputy People's Commissar for Oil
[3]
under
Lazar Kaganovich
.
In 1941-42, Baibakov was responsible for evacuating oil industry facilities from Baku,
Kuban
and the
North Caucasus
to the eastern regions during the
Nazi
invasion
.
[4]
He was in
Tuapse
just before it was overrun by the Germans, and it was reported that he had been killed, though he had escaped through woods, under heavy fire.
[5]
Baibakov was appointed to the
Narkomat
as People's Commissar for Oil, in November 1944.
[6]
In 1948-68, he was Minister for Oil in the South and Western Regions. in 1948-55, he was USSR
Minister of Oil Industry
. He was a member of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, 1952-61.
In May 1955, USSR State Planning Committee, commonly known as
Gosplan
, was divided into two. and Baibakov was appointed chairman of the part responsible for long term planning, which retained the name, Gosplan. The historian, Robert Conquest, interpreted this as a maneouvre by
Nikita Khrushchev
to undermine his main rival,
Georgy Malenkov
in the struggle to succeed the former dictator,
Joseph Stalin
, with Baibakov being promoted because he was 'pliable', and not linked to either faction.
[7]
But he did not hold the post for long, evidently having clashed with Khrushchev, who had supplanted Malenkov as chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. In May 1957, he was sidelined to the post of Chairman of the
RSFSR
Gosplan. In March 1958, he was appointed head of the
Krasnodar
regional economic council - a further demotion which meant that he lost his seat on the Central Committee, though in his memoirs he referred to this period as one he remembered "with special warmth."
[8]
Despite having lost favour with Khrushchev, Baibakov evidently had powerful allies, probably including
Alexei Kosygin
, who was First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers as well as being a former Chairman of Gosplan. On 10 March 1963, Baibakov was brought back to Moscow as Chairman of the State Committee on Chemistry, but in January 1964, the committee was divided into three, and Baibakov was given the chairmanship of the least important of the successor bodies, the State Committee on Petroleum Extraction.
[9]
In September 1965, after Kosygin had replaced Khrushchev as head of government, Baibakov was reinstated as Chairman of the USSR Gosplan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He also had his membership of the Central Committee restored. He remained in this post for almost 20 years.
After stepping down in 1985, he continued to work as a state councillor in the
Presidium
of the
Council of Ministers
until 1988. Then he was appointed head of the oil and gas section of the Academic Board of the Oil and Gas Institute with the
Russian Academy of Sciences
.
[4]
He died in 2008 in
Moscow
.
[10]
Honours and awards
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References
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External links
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