Ivan Ivanovich Chugunov (24 September [7 October] 1907, selo Shatki, Nizhny Novgorod Province — 10 February 1972, Gorky) was a Soviet state and party official, chairman of the Gorky Oblast Executive Committee in 1955–1962 and 1964–1972. For nearly fifteen years he was the top official of the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Region.[1]

Biography and career before Gorky

He was born into a peasant family in the selo of Shatki (now an urban-type settlement and district center of Nizhny Novgorod Region).[2] From 1923 he worked as a clerk at the Shatkovsky volost executive committee, then as an accountant and board member of a rural cooperative, and as an employee of district and regional consumer unions in Arzamas. In 1929–1932 he served in the Red Army as a private, junior commander, and political officer. He studied concurrently: in 1932–1933 at the Gorky Planning Institute, and from February 1933 to 1937 in the physics and mathematics faculty of Gorky State University.[1]

After graduating from Gorky State University in 1937, he worked as an assistant in the Department of Theoretical Mechanics and as deputy rector of the university. From December 1937 he held party positions at the Krasnodar Krai Committee of the VKP(b): head of the schools department, deputy department head, department head, and secretary of the krai committee. From July 1941 to June 1946 he served as deputy head of the personnel directorate of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army. After the war he returned to the Krasnodar Krai Committee as secretary (1946–1949), then became first deputy chairman of the Krasnodar Krai Executive Committee (1949–1951). In 1951–1955 he was first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Mari ASSR, and in 1955 an inspector of the Central Committee of the CPSU.[1]

Leadership of Gorky Oblast

In September 1955 Chugunov was appointed chairman of the Gorky Oblast Executive Committee — the executive body of the Oblast Soviet of Working People's Deputies. In December 1962, during Khrushchev's division of party organs into industrial and agricultural branches, he headed the Organizational Bureau of the Gorky Oblast Committee of the CPSU for Agricultural Production, and from January 1963 became first secretary of the Gorky Rural Oblast Committee of the CPSU. Following the restoration of unified oblast committees in December 1964, he again took up the post of chairman of the oblast executive committee and led it until his death on 10 February 1972.[1][2]

Chugunov was a delegate to the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956). He was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 5th through 8th convocations (1958–1972) and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of the 2nd and 3rd convocations (1947, 1951).[2]

Awards and legacy

He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner (1944), the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of the Red Star (1943), the medals "For the Defence of the Caucasus," "For the Defence of Moscow," "For Victory over Germany," "For Victory over Japan," "For Valiant Labour," and the jubilee medal marking the 100th anniversary of V. I. Lenin.[2]

He is buried at Bugrovsky Cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod. According to the regional press, residents of the city carried his coffin The Kremlin to the cemetery.[1] A memorial plaque was installed on the building at Minina Street, 1 (Nizhegorodsky District), where he lived; the unveiling took place in October 2007. A bust of him has been erected in the urban-type settlement of Shatki.[2]

Sources

  1. opentextnn.ru — September 1955 – December 1962, December 1964 – February 1972. Chugunov Ivan Ivanovich — OPEN TEXT (archive)
  2. names52.ru — Chugunov Ivan Ivanovich (archive)