Economist, Statesman. The last Stalin-Era Russian Commissar. Born in the Sabunchi District of Baku, Russian Empire (now Azerbaijan) to an oil driller, he graduated from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute in 1932 as a mining engineer. He completed his compulsary military service from 1935 to 1937, after which he held various engineering and administrative jobs in the petroleum industry. During World War II he was in charge of evacuating oil industry facilities to the eastern regions to save them from the Nazi invasion. He emerged from World War II with the title People's Commissar of the Oil Iindustry under Josef Stalin. Oil production under his direction almost quadrupled over the next decade. Appointed by Nikita Khrushchev as head of Gosplan (State Planning Committee) in 1955, he served two years. He then served in regional and industrial posts for a decade until he was invited by Leonid Brezhnev in 1965 to again run Gosplan; he stayed for 20 years until fired by Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought in his own younger team and new ideas. In 1963 he was given the Hero of Socialist Labor award and a passenger ship was named after him in 1995. Well respected in the petroleum industry, Baibakov was president of the board of trustees of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas and chairman of the All-Russian Association of Drilling and Service Contractors at the time of his death in Moscow.
Economist, Statesman. The last Stalin-Era Russian Commissar. Born in the Sabunchi District of Baku, Russian Empire (now Azerbaijan) to an oil driller, he graduated from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute in 1932 as a mining engineer. He completed his compulsary military service from 1935 to 1937, after which he held various engineering and administrative jobs in the petroleum industry. During World War II he was in charge of evacuating oil industry facilities to the eastern regions to save them from the Nazi invasion. He emerged from World War II with the title People's Commissar of the Oil Iindustry under Josef Stalin. Oil production under his direction almost quadrupled over the next decade. Appointed by Nikita Khrushchev as head of Gosplan (State Planning Committee) in 1955, he served two years. He then served in regional and industrial posts for a decade until he was invited by Leonid Brezhnev in 1965 to again run Gosplan; he stayed for 20 years until fired by Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought in his own younger team and new ideas. In 1963 he was given the Hero of Socialist Labor award and a passenger ship was named after him in 1995. Well respected in the petroleum industry, Baibakov was president of the board of trustees of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas and chairman of the All-Russian Association of Drilling and Service Contractors at the time of his death in Moscow.
Bio by: Fred Beisser
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