Founder of Soviet non-ferrous metallurgy and Gosplan chairman
When Guinness certified his 46-year ministerial record in 1988, Lomako had already been retired for two years, living quietly in Moscow.
A metallurgical engineer who founded the Soviet non-ferrous metallurgy industry and served 46 years in ministerial posts. He built the foundations of the aluminium and titanium industries, supplied uranium for the atomic bomb project during the war, and as Gosplan chairman led the recentralization of the planned economy.
Career Timeline
- 1937–1939Director of the Kolchugino non-ferrous metals processing plant
- 1939–1940Deputy Commissar, head of aluminium, magnesium and electrode industry
- 1940–1948Commissar then Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy; wartime evacuation and uranium supply
- 1948–1950First Deputy Minister of the Metallurgical Industry under the merged ministry
- 1950–1953, 1954–1957Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, expanding aluminium and rare-metal production
- 1957–1961Chairman of the Krasnoyarsk Sovnarkhoz, managing regional economic reform
- 1962–1965Deputy Premier and Gosplan chairman, leading planning recentralization
- 1965–1986Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy under Brezhnev, launching diamond and titanium production
Related historical events
Wartime Evacuation and Uranium — The Hidden Architect of the Atomic Bomb
Immediately after Germany invaded in 1941, Lomako, as People's Commissar for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, directed the mass evacuation of western industrial facilities to the Urals. He relocated plants producing aluminium, nickel, lead, and other defence-critical metals to the east under wartime conditions, earning his first Order of Lenin in 1942.
Lomako's most historically decisive contribution, however, came through uranium. On 28 September 1942, Stalin signed State Defence Committee secret decree No. 2352, "On the Organisation of Work on Uranium." The document placed Lomako personally in charge of supplying uranium from his commissariat's mining and refining operations to the atomic nucleus laboratory, the future Kurchatov Institute. In wartime Soviet bureaucracy, uranium fell under the Non-Ferrous Metallurgy Commissariat, meaning the atomic bomb project's first critical supply chain ran through Lomako's hands.
In December 1944, the State Defence Committee transferred uranium mining to the NKVD, and Lomako was appointed responsible for the handover, working with NKVD supervisor Avraami Zavenyagin. Though uranium production subsequently moved into the NKVD system, Lomako's commissariat had sustained the atomic project's supply chain through its first two crucial years. He remains an essential but little-known figure in the prehistory of the Soviet nuclear programme.
Uranium Supply and the Soviet Atomic Project
Pyotr Lomako provided the decisive material foundation for the Soviet atomic bomb project in its earliest phase. On September 28, 1942, Stalin signed State Defense Committee secret decree No. 2352ss, "On the Organization of Works on Uranium." Under this document, Lomako was made personally responsible for supplying uranium from his Commissariat of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy to the atomic nucleus laboratory.
The Soviet Union was at war with Germany, and uranium was an extremely scarce strategic resource. Lomako secured uranium ore from existing mines in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia and organized stable supply routes to evacuated research facilities. In December 1944, when GKO decree No. 7102ss transferred uranium ore mining from the Commissariat of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy to the NKVD, Lomako was appointed responsible for the handover, working alongside Avraami Zavenyagin.
Lomako's uranium supply formed the material basis for the research and development that culminated in the successful test of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb, RDS-1, in 1949. After the war, as Minister of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, he continued to expand the production system for rare metals and specialized materials essential to the nuclear weapons and atomic energy industries.