Lapin Viktor Gerasimovich (1886 – November 7, 1937) was a civil engineer and production organizer, chief engineer of Avtostroy and technical director of the Gorky Automobile Plant during its construction and early years of operation. One of the key figures in the building of [1]
Origins and Education
He was born in 1886 in the village of Denisovo — in Ryazan Governorate according to some sources, in Ivanovo Governorate according to others. Accounts of his family differ: some sources describe him as the son of a timber merchant, others as a native of a poor peasant family. He studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate's 1st Men's Gymnasium. He received two higher engineering degrees: he graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Liège (Belgium) and from the Mechanical Faculty of the Higher Technical College in Moscow.[1]
Work at Avtostroy and GAZ
Lapin established his professional reputation during the earliest stages of the plant's construction. When excavators digging the foundation pits for the forge shop struck grey quicksand that halted further work, the prominent professors brought in from the capital refused to accept responsibility. Lapin proposed and implemented his own engineering solution, which earned high praise from his contemporaries.[1]
The memoirist G. M. Zelberg described him as a man who combined the qualities of an outstanding engineer with those of a superb organizer: one who could swiftly devise a plan to solve a problem and clearly distinguish between those who needed close supervision and those who should be given broad autonomy.[1] In 1934, under a USSR Central Executive Committee decree of March 27, Lapin was among ten organizers of the plant's construction to be entered on the Honor Board in the GAZ museum and was awarded the Order of Lenin. This Order of Lenin was among the earliest conferrals of that decoration — Lapin belonged to the first cohort of holders of the Order of Lenin.[3][1]
Later Career and Arrest
After GAZ, Lapin moved to work under Ivan Likhachev, director of the Moscow automobile plant, where he continued to introduce technical innovations; according to the recollections of contemporaries, his dream was the full automation of production. He subsequently became director of the Moscow machine-tool plant Krasny Proletariy.[1]
On September 5, 1937, Lapin was arrested on charges of espionage on behalf of German intelligence. Two months later he was tried and shot at the Butovo firing range in Moscow. On November 28, 1989, he was rehabilitated on the grounds that no crime had been committed.[1]
Sources
- names52.ru — At GAZ, Lapin worked from 1931 to 1934 in the position of chief engineer (technical director) of the Nizhny Novgorod, and subsequently the Gorky, Automobile Plant
- lib-avt.ru — Lapin Viktor Gerasimovich — Centralized Library System of the Avtozavodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
- lib-avt.ru — The History of GAZ in Faces — Centralized Library System of the Avtozavodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod (archive)