Leonid Kostandov

Born Nov. 14 (27), 1915, in Kerki, in the present-day Turkmen SSR. Soviet statesman. Became a member of the CPSU in 1942. The son of an office worker.

Kostandov began his career in 1930 as a worker in a cotton mill. In 1940 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Machine-Building. From 1940 to 1953 he worked at the Chirchik Electrochemical Combine in the Uzbek SSR, serving as an engineer, shop superintendent, chief engineer, and director of the combine. From 1953 to 1958 he was administrative head of the Ministry of Chemical Industry of the USSR. From 1958 to 1961 he was vice-chairman and, from 1961 to 1963, first vice-chairman of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the Chemical Industry. In 1963-64 he served as chairman of the State Committee for Chemical and Oil-Refining Machine-Building under Gosplan (State Planning Committee) and, in 1964-65, as chairman of the State Committee for the Chemical Industry under Gosplan, both posts conferring ministerial status. Since October 1965, Kostandov has been minister of the chemical industry of the USSR. At the Twenty-third Congress of the party (1966) he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and at the Twenty-fourth Congress (1971) he was made a full member. He also was a deputy to the seventh through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1951) and the Lenin Prize (1960), as well as two Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and medals.