Council of the National Economy of the Gorky Economic Administrative Region (Gorky Sovnarkhoz) was a body of territorial industrial management that operated from 1957 to 1965. It was created during a reform that abolished the sectoral ministries and directly controlled the enterprises of the Region.
Creation
The sovnarkhoz was established in 1957: from June 1, seventy economic administrative regions appeared in the RSFSR, and Gorky was one of them. The sectoral ministries were abolished at the same time, and the management of industry was transferred to the local level.
Nikolay Nikolayevich Smelyakov became its first chairman — he headed the sovnarkhoz until December 1957.
What Was Under Its Authority
Enterprises from a range of industries came under the sovnarkhoz's management — from aircraft manufacturing to shipbuilding, including the Gorky Aircraft Plant and Krasnoye Sormovo.
It was organized into sectoral departments under a common governing council. Researchers note that its declared role as coordinator of the region's industry was in practice largely reduced to paperwork.
Abolition and Archive
The reform of the party bodies in 1962–1963 redistributed part of the sovnarkhoz's powers, and in 1965 the system was finally wound down — the sectoral ministries were restored.
The documents of the Gorky Sovnarkhoz are held in the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. They have been declassified since 2016: by the time of the publication of the announcement, the archival service had opened access to forty-one case files from 1957–1962.
Sources
- archive-nnov.ru — State Archival Service of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Another Set of Documents of the Gorky Sovnarkhoz Has Been Declassified and Made Available (archive)
- cyberleninka.ru — CyberLeninka — The Gorky Council of the National Economy, 1957–1965: The Mechanism of Managing Industrial Enterprises (archive)