Architect of Soviet science administration, from Lenin's personal secretary to Academy permanent secretary
When State Bank director Shipov was arrested and brought to Smolny, Gorbunov was "obliged, as a mark of special courtesy and greatly to my annoyance, to let him have my bed while I slept on chairs."
Nikolai Gorbunov was a Bolshevik technocrat who built the early administrative apparatus of the Soviet government as Secretary of Sovnarkom and Lenin's personal secretary from November 1917. As rector of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (1923–1929) and permanent secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1935–1937), he was a pivotal link in science administration, actively backing Nikolai Vavilov's plant explorations and the creation of VASKhNIL. He led the Pamir expedition (1932–1935), organizing the 1933 first ascent of Stalin Peak, the USSR's highest summit, and joined climber Yevgeny Abalakov in the final assault. Arrested in 1938 in the 'climbers' case' during the Great Purge, he was executed and rehabilitated in 1954.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1917–1920Secretary of Sovnarkom RSFSR, personal secretary to Lenin
- 1918–1919Chairman, Scientific-Technical Dept, VSNKh RSFSR
- 1919–1920Political commissar, 14th & 13th Armies, Southern Front
- 1920–1930Administrator of Affairs, Sovnarkom USSR
- 1923–1929Rector, Bauman Moscow State Technical University
- 1932–1935Head, Tajik-Pamir Expedition, Sovnarkom USSR
- 1935–1937Permanent Secretary, USSR Academy of Sciences
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionBuilder of the early Soviet administrationFrom November 1917, he built the Soviet government's early administrative apparatus as Secretary of Sovnarkom and Lenin's personal secretary.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign Interventionpolitical commissar
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeScience administrator targetedLenin's former secretary and a senior Academy of Sciences administrator, he was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938.
Falsified death records and the postwar restoration of the truth
Gorbunov's death long could not be recorded as it happened. The death certificate issued to his family in January 1947 gave the date as 30 October 1944, the cause as cardiac decline, and no place of death. That date appeared unchanged in the Academy of Sciences personnel register published in 1974, and the 1984 chemists' register even "corrected" the place of death to Chilima in Arkhangelsk Oblast. The 1972 edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia distorted both dates, giving 21 June and 7 September 1937, and the 1937 death year persisted in the 1985 Great Encyclopedic Dictionary.
That he was arrested on 19 February 1938 as part of the "climbers' case," expelled from the Academy on 29 April 1938, placed on an execution list signed by Stalin and Molotov, and shot at Kommunarka near Moscow on 7 September 1938 was not immediately made public even after his rehabilitation on 13 March 1954. The exact execution date became known only on 12 August 1988, when the Supreme Court answered an inquiry from his son Andrei Gorbunov. His burial place was established years later through the work of Memorial as the Kommunarka NKVD special facility.