Gleb Krzhizhanovsky

Gleb Krzhizhanovsky
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Name	Gleb Krzhizhanovsky
Caption	Krzhizhanovsky in the 1920s
Birth date	24 January, 1872, 12 January
Birth place	Samara, Russian Empire
Death date	31 March 1959
Death place	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian / Soviet
Occupation	Bolshevik revolutionary, electrical engineer, economic planner
Known for	Chairman of GOELRO, First head of Gosplan
Party	Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) / Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Awards	Hero of Socialist Labour, Order of Lenin (five times)

Gleb Krzhizhanovsky was a pivotal Bolshevik revolutionary, a leading electrical engineer, and a chief architect of the Soviet Union's early economic planning and electrification. A close associate of Vladimir Lenin, he is best remembered for chairing the GOELRO commission, which produced the first unified national economic plan and became a symbol of Soviet modernization. His work laid the foundational administrative and ideological framework for the Five-Year Plans and the centralized planned economy.

Early life and education

Born into an intellectual family in Samara, his father was a nobleman and tsarist official. He displayed an early aptitude for science and mathematics, leading him to enroll at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute in 1891. It was in St. Petersburg that he became immersed in Marxist circles, joining a study group led by Vladimir Lenin himself in 1893. His dual path in engineering and revolutionary politics was cemented when he graduated as an engineer in 1894, the same year he formally joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

Revolutionary activity

His revolutionary activities led to his first arrest by the Okhrana in 1895, followed by exile to Siberia. During his exile in the Minusinsk district, he collaborated closely with other future Bolshevik leaders like Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov. After his release, he continued underground work for the RSDLP, contributing to the party newspaper Iskra and participating in the pivotal 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903. He remained an active organizer and propagandist through the 1905 Revolution and the subsequent period of tsarist reaction, often evading the Okhrana while applying his engineering skills in various cities across the Russian Empire.

Role in Soviet economic planning

Following the October Revolution, Krzhizhanovsky immediately applied his technical and organizational expertise to the new Bolshevik state. In early 1920, he was appointed by Vladimir Lenin to head the State Commission for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO). His work there directly led to his central role in establishing the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) in 1921, which he chaired until 1923 and again from 1925 to 1930. Under his leadership, Gosplan evolved from an advisory body into the powerful central institution responsible for drafting and overseeing the First Five-Year Plan, fundamentally shaping the Soviet industrialization drive.

GOELRO plan and electrification

The GOELRO plan, developed under Krzhizhanovsky's chairmanship and approved by the 8th Congress of Soviets in 1920, was the Soviet state's first long-term economic strategy. Famously summarized by Vladimir Lenin's slogan "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country", the plan aimed to construct a network of regional power stations to drive industrial growth. Key projects launched under this plan included the Kashira and Shatura thermal stations near Moscow and the ambitious Volkhov Hydroelectric Station, which utilized a design Krzhizhanovsky had worked on before the revolution. The successful implementation of GOELRO provided the technical and ideological blueprint for all subsequent Soviet economic planning.

Later career and legacy

After leaving the chairmanship of Gosplan, Krzhizhanovsky continued to hold significant scientific and administrative posts. He served as president of the Academy of Sciences' Energy Institute and was a founding member and long-time vice-president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He received numerous state honors, including the title Hero of Socialist Labour and five Orders of Lenin. His legacy endures as the principal engineer of the Soviet Union's electrification, and his name is commemorated in geographical features like the urban-type settlement in Moscow Oblast, as well as in scientific institutions such as the Energy Institute named after G.M. Krzhizhanovsky. Category:1872 births Category:1959 deaths Category:Russian revolutionaries Category:Soviet electrical engineers Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour