Aleksey Shakhurin (; – July 3, 1975) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

statesman, and Minister of Aviation Industry during World War II.

Biography

Aleksey Shakhurin became a member of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

in 1925.
He was a delegate to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party in 1939 and was elected a member of the party's Central Committee. He became Minister of Aviation Industry between 1940 and 1946, and played an important role in the reorganisation of the

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

during World War II.
The experience of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

and the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

against Finland had shown that the USSR's flight material was out of date compared to foreign designs. Since the beginning of 1939, intensive work has therefore been carried out to develop new, more modern types of aircraft, new design offices were opened and new plants were built. His Deputy Minister was

Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev (; 22 August 1989) was a Soviet aeronautical engineer. He designed the Yakovlev military aircraft and founded the Yakovlev Design Bureau. Yakovlev joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1938. Biography ...

. Thanks to these measures, the Soviet Union had already begun testing and introducing new models when the war against the German Reich began.
Production of types such as the

Yak-1 The Yakovlev Yak-1 () was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. The Yak-1 was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings; production began in early 1940.Angelucci and Matricardi 1978, p. 239. The Yak-1 was a man ...

and

MiG-3 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 () is a Soviet fighter- interceptor used during World War II. It was a development of the MiG-1 by the OKO (opytno-konstruktorskij otdel — Experimental Design Department) of Zavod (Factory) No. 1 in Moscow to rem ...

fighter and the

Il-2 The Ilyushin Il-2 (Russian language, Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a Ground attack aircraft, ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the World War II, Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' (C ...

attack aircraft had started just a few months before the start of the fighting and only a few specimens had been put into service, but the industry was able to increase dramatically its output during the course of the war, so that the material superiority of aircraft over the German opponent was secured. Shakhurin was also responsible for evacuating the aircraft industry in the west of the Soviet Union and its suppliers to the east of the Soviet Union. In 1946, in what became known as the

Aviators Affair The Aviators Affair was a 1946 purge of the Soviet air force and the Soviet aircraft industry following accusations that, during World War II, Soviet fighter planes had been of poor quality. It resulted in the arrests and sentencing of about fifte ...

, Shakhurin was dismissed from his post on charges that inferior aircraft had been produced during his term and was sentenced to seven years in prison. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was rehabilitated from all charges in 1953 and reinstated as Deputy Minister for the Aviation Industry in August of the same year. Later, he was vice-chairman of the State Committee on Foreign Economic Relations of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He retired in 1959. He was awarded, amongst others, the title of Soviet

Hero of Socialist Labour The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an Title of honor, honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievem ...

.«О присвоении звания Героя Социалистического Труда т.т. Шахурину А. И., Дементиеву П. В., Воронину П. А., Третьякову А. Т.» от 8 сентября 1941 года
// Ведомости Верховного Совета Союза Советских Социалистических Республик : газета. — 1941. — 13 сентября (№ 39 (154)). — С. 1.

References

Sources

Soviet Encyclopedia
3rd Edition, ed. A. M. Prokhorov

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...

, Publishing House Soviet Encyclopedia
Global Security
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shakhurin, Aleksey 1904 births 1975 deaths Communist Party of the Soviet Union members People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union Heroes of Socialist Labour State University of Management alumni First secretaries of the Gorky Regional Committee of the CPSU