Ivan Alekseevich Likhachev

Born June 15, 1896, in Ozertsy, present-day Venev Raion, Tula Oblast; died June 24, 1956, in Moscow. Soviet state and managerial figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1917.

The son of a peasant, Likhachev was a worker at the Putilov Plant in St. Petersburg from 1908. He was a sailor in the Baltic Fleet in World War I (1914–18). From 1917 to 1921, Likhachev served in the Red Guards, as a commander in the Red Army, and in the Cheka. From 1921 to 1926 he engaged in professional work and studied at the Mining Academy and at the Electrical Mechanics Institute. Director of the Moscow Automobile Plant from 1926 to 1939 and from 1940 to 1950, Likhachev was the director of the Moscow Machine Building Plant from 1950 to 1953, people’s commissar of machine building in 1939, and minister of highway transport and highways of the USSR from 1953. Likhachev was elected a member of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) at the Eighteenth Party Congress (1939), a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twentieth Party Congress (1956) and a deputy to the first through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1948), five Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and medals. He is buried in Red Square at the Kremlin wall. In June 1956 the Moscow Automotive Plant was named after Likhachev.