Alexei Shakhurin

Aleksey Shakhurin (russian: Алексе́й Ива́нович Шаху́рин; – July 3, 1975) was a Soviet statesman, and Minister of Aviation Industry during World War II.

Biography

Aleksey Shakhurin became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1925.

He was a delegate to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party in 1939 and was elected a member of the party’s Central Committee.

He became Minister of Aviation Industry between 1940 and 1946, an played an important role in the reorganisation of the Soviet Air Force during World War II.

The experience of the Spanish Civil War and the Winter War against Finland had shown that the USSR's flight material was out of date compared to foreign designs. Since the beginning of 1939, intensive work has therefore been carried out to develop new, more modern types of aircraft, new design offices were opened and new plants were built. His Deputy Minister was Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev. Thanks to these measures, the Soviet Union had already begun testing and introducing new models when the war against the German Reich began.

Production of types such as the Yak-1 and MiG-3 fighter and the Il-2 attack aircraft had started just a few months before the start of the fighting and only a few specimens had been put into service, but the industry was able to increase dramatically its output during the course of the war, so that the material superiority of aircraft over the German opponent was secured. Shakhurin was also responsible for evacuating the aircraft industry in the west of the Soviet Union and its suppliers to the east of the Soviet Union.

In 1946, Shakhurin was dismissed from his post on charges that inferior aircraft had been produced during his term and was sentenced to seven years in prison. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was rehabilitated from all charges in 1953 and reinstated as Deputy Minister for the Aviation Industry in August of the same year.
Later, he was vice-chairman of the State Committee on Foreign Economic Relations of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

He retired in 1959.
He was awarded, amongst others, the title of Soviet Hero of Socialist Labour.«О присвоении звания Героя Социалистического Труда т.т. Шахурину А. И., Дементиеву П. В., Воронину П. А., Третьякову А. Т.» от 8 сентября 1941 года
// Ведомости Верховного Совета Союза Советских Социалистических Республик : газета. — 1941. — 13 сентября (№ 39 (154)). — С. 1.

References

Sources

Soviet Encyclopedia
3rd Edition, ed. A. M. Prokhorov 1978, Publishing House Soviet Encyclopedia

Global Security
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shakhurin, Aleksey
1904 births
1975 deaths
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union
Heroes of Socialist Labour
State University of Management alumni
First Secretaries of the Gorky Regional Committee of the CPSU