Brezhnev-era chief price administrator who oversaw every official price in the USSR for 11 years
The man who set every price in the USSR for 11 years left behind a memoir titled The Magic of Numbers, or Russia Unclaimed.
As Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Prices (Goskomtsen) from 1975 to 1986, Nikolai Glushkov oversaw the entire system of wholesale and retail prices in the Soviet command economy for over a decade. Born into a peasant family in Vyatka Governorate, he began working as a village bookkeeper at age 14 and rose through financial management at the Norilsk mining-metallurgical combine, one of the largest Gulag-industrial complexes, before serving in the Krasnoyarsk Sovnarkhoz and as Deputy Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. His tenure at Goskomtsen coincided with the 'era of stagnation,' when official prices remained frozen for decades while repressed inflation and chronic shortages accumulated, making the management of this contradiction a politically sensitive task. After retirement, his posthumously published memoir bore the title The Magic of Numbers, or Russia Unclaimed.
Career Timeline
- 1932Bookkeeper, chemical-forestry producers' cooperative
- 1936–1940Senior accountant → chief accountant, consumer cooperatives system
- 1940–1944Senior auditor, Severonikel Combine; deputy chief accountant, Norilsk Combine
- 1944–1949Chief accountant → head of finance, Norilsk Mining-Metallurgical Combine
- 1949–1952Head of finance, Yeniseistroi Main Administration
- 1952–1957Director, Mining Administration, USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy
- 1957–1963Department head → head of finance-economics → deputy chairman, Krasnoyarsk Sovnarkhoz
- 1963–1965First deputy chairman, Krasnoyarsk Sovnarkhoz
- 1966–1973Head of Main Planning-Economic Administration, USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy
- 1973–1975Deputy Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR
- 1975–1986Chairman, USSR State Committee for Prices (Goskomtsen)