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.
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