The longest-serving industrial minister who made the USSR the world's top machine-tool producer
When American Bryant precision grinding machines finally reached the USSR in 1972 — twelve years after an earlier deal had been blocked — Kostousov said: 'I waited twelve years for these machines.'
Anatoly Kostousov was one of the longest-serving industrial ministers in Soviet history, presiding over the machine-tool and instrument-building industry from 1949 to 1980 and turning the USSR into the world's top producer of machine tools. Born into a peasant family, he started in the Komsomol, graduated from the Moscow Machine-Tool Institute, and rose through engineering posts at plants in Leningrad, Krasnodar, and Novosibirsk. Under his tenure, Soviet metal-cutting machine-tool output led the world from 1962, and the industry built its own CNC production base in the 1970s. When American Bryant precision grinders finally arrived in 1972 after a twelve-year wait, his remark that he had waited that long captured the stubborn resolve with which he pursued domestic capability amid technological dependence.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1933–1939Leningrad Sverdlov Machine-Tool Plant: engineer → deputy director
- 1939–1946Chief engineer, Krasnodar Sedin Plant → Novosibirsk Tyazhstankogidropress
- 1946–1949Deputy Minister of Machine Tool Building, USSR
- 1949–1953Minister of Machine Tool Building, USSR
- 1954–1957Minister of Machine Tool & Instrument Building Industry, USSR
- 1957–1959Chairman, Moscow Oblast Sovnarkhoz
- 1959–1965Chairman, State Cttee for Automation & Machine Building → Machine Building Cttee under Gosplan
- 1965–1980Minister of Machine Tool & Instrument Building Industry, USSR