An automation scientist who pressed technology toward economic reform
Vadim Trapeznikov was an electrical engineer and automation scientist who sought to change Soviet production technology and management together. He argued that automation could not take root while enterprises were bound by rigid plan indicators, and in 1964 he published a Pravda article criticizing directive economic management. The intervention connected automation research to the organization of enterprise activity and broadened the intellectual climate in which the Kosygin reform moved from debate toward implementation.
Career Timeline
- 1928–1933Researcher, All-Union Electrotechnical Institute
- 1933–1938Chief engineer of automation workshops, Orgenergo
- 1938–1941Head of the automation laboratory, Central Research Institute of the Cotton Industry
- 1941–1951Researcher and laboratory head, Institute of Automation and Telemechanics
- 1951–1987Director, Institute of Automation and Telemechanics
- 1960–1990Full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences; head of general control problems at Moscow State University
- 1965–1978First deputy chairman, State Committee for Science and Technology