First People's Commissar for Construction, who built wartime industry from the ground up
When Stalin named him first People's Commissar for Construction in 1939, Ginzburg disclosed his party reprimand. Stalin replied: 'People with tuberculosis live and work perfectly well — live with the reprimand.'
First to unify Soviet construction into a single state apparatus. Born in Minsk to a Jewish family, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, studied at MVTU, designed the structures of Lenin's Mausoleum, and headed construction under Ordzhonikidze at the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. As the inaugural People's Commissar of Наркомстрой in 1939, he brought the nation's scattered construction capacity under unified command; when war came, he directed the emergency relocation of defense plants to Siberia, the 75-day construction of the Chebarkul steelworks, and the laying of a 30-km underwater gasoline pipeline across Lake Ladoga, all under enemy fire. He remained central to Soviet construction until 1970, serving as minister of military construction, construction materials, and chairman of Stroybank.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1917–1919Secretary of Zhizdra Soviet, 8th Army political dept.
- 1919–1921Commissar, Military-Economic Academy
- 1927–1932MVTU lecturer; head of construction group, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection
- 1932–1937Head of Glavstroyprom, People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (under Ordzhonikidze)
- 1937–1938Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry
- 1938–1939Chairman, Committee for Construction Affairs, Council of People's Commissars
- 1939–1946First People's Commissar for Construction, USSR
- 1946–1947Commissar then Minister of Construction of Military and Naval Enterprises
- 1947–1950Minister of Construction Materials Industry
- 1963–1970Chairman of Stroybank
Related historical events
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationHead of Construction Directorate of People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarPeople's Commissar for ConstructionAs head of Narkomstroy throughout the war, he personally directed the construction of Siberian defense plants, the 75-day Chebarkul steelworks, and a 30-km gasoline pipeline across Lake Ladoga.
From reinforced-concrete structural engineer to construction administrator
Ginzburg began not as a bureaucratic administrator but as a structural engineer. A student at the Penza real school in 1915–1917, he served as secretary of the Zhizdra Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in Kaluga province in 1917–1918, head of the information department of the Moscow provincial executive committee in 1918, head of the registration and distribution department and RCP(b) secretary of the political department of the 8th Army in 1918–1919, and military commissar of the Military Economic Academy in 1919–1921. He graduated from the Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU) as a structural designer in 1926 and taught as associate professor of the reinforced-concrete structures department there from 1927 to 1932.
Beginning in 1923, while still a student, he worked on the buildings of the All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft-Industrial Exhibition in Moscow, and he took part in the construction of the Central Airfield at Khodynka and of reinforced-concrete hangars at Ochakov and Nikolayev. In 1924, at the invitation of A. V. Shchusev, he designed the structures of Lenin's Mausoleum, and from 1926 to 1930 he was an assistant engineer on the construction of the Central Telegraph building. He led the construction group of the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate in 1929–1932, and after a 1930 trip to Germany where he studied the use of thin-walled reinforced-concrete shells in construction, he translated a German work on thin-walled reinforced-concrete domes and vaults.
This technical career formed the basis on which he moved to the summit of all-union construction administration: head of Glavstroyprom of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry in 1932–1937, deputy people's commissar of heavy industry in 1937–1938, and chairman of the Committee for Construction Affairs under the Council of People's Commissars in 1938–1939. He sat on the presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, on the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry, and chaired the commission that drafted the first technical specifications; he also edited the fourth volume of the handbook for designers of industrial structures and the journal Construction Industry. He attended the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of 26 January to 10 February 1934 as a delegate with consultative voice, and he was a member of the Party's Central Control Commission in 1930–1934. In recognition of the academic and technical foundations he laid in construction, he became an associate professor in 1927, a full member of the USSR Academy of Construction and Architecture in 1957, and an Honoured Builder of the RSFSR in 1966.