Architect of Soviet military electronics who built the industry from scratch and led it for 20 years
Shokin liked to say: "Ford makes 'Ford' cars. So MEP should make 'Elektronika' products."
The founding father of the Soviet electronics industry, he laid the foundations of Soviet microelectronics as chairman of the State Committee for Electronic Technology (1961) and then as Minister of the Electronics Industry from 1965 to 1985. The city of Zelenograd, conceived under his direction, became the "Soviet Silicon Valley," yet during his tenure the microelectronics gap with the West steadily widened.
Career Timeline
- 1934–1938Engineer, shop chief, design bureau head in shipbuilding
- 1938–1943Chief engineer, People's Commissariat of Defence Industry → Shipbuilding Industry
- 1943–1949Head of Industrial Dept, Radar Council → Deputy Chair, Committee No. 3, Council of Ministers
- 1949–1955Deputy Minister of Communications Equipment → Radio-Technical Industry
- 1955–1961First Deputy Minister of Radio-Technical Industry → First Deputy Chair, State Committee for Radio-Electronics
- 1961–1965Chairman, State Committee for Electronic Technology, Council of Ministers of the USSR
- 1965–1985Minister of the Electronics Industry of the USSR
Related historical events
From Zelenograd to 'Shokingrad': Building the Soviet Silicon Valley
In 1958, construction began on a new city called "Sputnik" near Kryukovo station outside Moscow. Originally planned as a textile center, its destiny was transformed in 1962 by the intervention of Alexander Shokin. As Chairman of the State Committee for Electronic Technology, Shokin watched the West's rapid advance in integrated circuits with alarm and became convinced that the USSR needed its own dedicated microelectronics research-and-production complex.
Under Khrushchev's managerial system, however, it was forbidden to place research institutes and factories within the same organizational structure. To break through the bureaucratic wall, Shokin staged a small exhibition during a break in a Central Committee Presidium meeting in early 1962, capturing Khrushchev's interest with the promise of a television "the size of a cigarette pack." The decisive moment came in May 1962 in Leningrad. Shokin timed a demonstration for Khrushchev's shipbuilding visit, showing a desktop mini-computer and the world's smallest radio receiver, the "Era." Khrushchev, who kept the earpiece in throughout the visit, declared: "Microelectronics — this is the mechanical brain, this is our future." In August of that year, the joint Central Committee–Council of Ministers decree redirecting Sputnik toward microelectronics was signed; Khrushchev reportedly allocated four tons of gold to the project.
In January 1963, the city was named Zelenograd ("Green City"). Shokin personally oversaw construction, visiting the site weekly in boots and a padded jacket during the early phase, and walked through rye fields with architect Igor Rozhin to select building sites. He resisted the era's monotonous standardized architecture, pushed for experimental design, and in 1965 founded the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology (MIET) within the city to train the industry's workforce. Zelenograd grew into a unified scientific complex with six specialized research institutes, pilot production plants, and a computing center, becoming the backbone of Soviet defense electronics. By the time Shokin retired in 1985, grateful residents had unofficially nicknamed the city "Shokingrad."