Mezhlauk, Valerii Ivanovich

Born Feb. 7 (19), 1893, in Kharkov; died July 29, 1938. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from July 1917. Son of a teacher.

Mezhlauk graduated from the history and philology faculty of the University of Kharkov in 1914 and from its law faculty in 1917. He joined the revolutionary movement in 1907. Mezhlauk was a member of the Kharkov committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) and of the city’s soviet and military revolutionary committee in 1917. From 1918 to 1920 he served as provincial military commissar in Kazan; people’s commissar of finance of the Donets-Krivoi Rog Republic; a member of the regional committee of the Ukrainian CP (Bolshevik) of the Donbas; a member of the Donets Military Staff; a member of the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) of the Fifth, Tenth, Fourteenth, and Second armies; a member of the RMC of the Southern Front; people’s military commissar of the Ukraine; and a member of the RMC of the Tula Fortified Region. In 1920-24, Mezhlauk was commissar of the Moscow-Baltic, Moscow-Kursk, and Northern railroads; deputy chief commissar of transportation; and a member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Transportation.

In 1924-31, Mezhlauk served as a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council on the National Economy (VSNKh) of the USSR, chief of the Central Board of the Metal Industry, and vice-chairman of the VSNKh of the USSR. He was first vice-chairman of Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the USSR from 1931 to 1934. Mezhlauk was vice-chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, vice-chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR, chairman of Gosplan of the USSR (from 1934), people’s commissar of heavy industry of the USSR (from February to October 1937), and again vice-chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and chairman of Gosplan of the USSR. He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee at the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses of the Party and a member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) at the Seventeenth Congress. He was also a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. He was the author of works on the socialist economy. Mezhlauk was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.