Baibakov, Nikolai

Born Feb. 22 (Mar. 7), 1911, in the village of Sabunchi, now part of Baku. A Soviet statesman and a doctor of technical sciences (1966). Member of the CPSU since 1939.

Baibakov was born into the family of a worker in the oil fields. In 1932 he graduated from the Azerbaijan Petroleum Institute. He worked in the oil fields of Baku, and from 1935 to 1937 he served in the Soviet Army. Beginning in 1937 he did managerial work in the petroleum industry of Baku and Kuibyshev. From 1940 he was a deputy people’s commissar, and from November 1944 he was a people’s commissar for the USSR petroleum industry. In 1946–48 he was minister of the petroleum industry for the southern and western regions of the USSR. From 1948 to 1955 he was minister of the petroleum industry of the USSR. In 1955–57 he was chairman of the State Commission on Long-range Planning of the National Economy of the USSR Council of Ministers. In 1957–58 he was chairman of the State Planning Commission of the RSFSR and the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. In 1958–63 he was chairman of the sovnarkhoz (council of the economy) of the Krasnodar economic region and subsequently of the Northern Caucasus economic region. In 1963–64 he was chairman of the State Committee on Chemistry under the USSR Gosplan (State Planning Commission) and thus a minister of the USSR. In 1964–65 he was chairman of the State Committee for the Petroleum Industry under the USSR Gosplan, also a ministerial position. Beginning in 1965 he was deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and chairman of the USSR Gosplan. He was a member of the CPSU Central Committee in 1952–61 and again from 1966. He was a deputy to the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1963, and has been decorated with four Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and a number of medals.