Smirnov, Leonid

Born Apr. 3 (16), 1916, in Kuznetsk, in what is now Penza Oblast. Soviet state and party figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1961). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

The son of a worker, Smirnov graduated from the Novocherkassk Industrial Institute in 1939. He began working in 1930, as an electrician in Rostov-on-Don. From 1939 to 1961 he worked for the Ministry of Armaments of the USSR, serving as head of a shop, head of a steam electric power plant, chief electric power engineer, director of a scientific research institute, plant director, and head of the Central Board of the State Committee for Defense Technology. From 1961 to 1963 he was deputy chairman and then chairman of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Defense Technology, holding the rank of minister of the USSR. In March 1963 he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Smirnov was a delegate to the Twentieth and Twenty-second through Twenty-fifth Congresses of the CPSU and has been a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1961. He was a deputy to the sixth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Smirnov has been awarded the Lenin Prize (1960), three Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals. [23–1823–]