Born in Nizhni Novgorod into the family of an office worker. Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. Worked in the CheKa and the All-Russia National Economic Council, and in 1927-1930 was the director of the Moscow Electric Factor)'. For fulfilling the first five-year plan ahead of schedule Bulganin was awarded the Order of Lenin.
After the administrative division of Moscow and the Moscow Region he was elected chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Soviet. The 1930s were characterised by a rapid increase in industrial construction, housing and public buildings. In 1931 the construction of the Moscow Underground was begun an enterprise which received special attention from the Moscow leadership. On 15 May 1935 the first line of the city underground was put into service. In the summer of 1935 the General Plan for the reconstruction of Moscow was adopted which would define the general direction of the development of city infrastructure for a long time. Already by 1938 the greater part of the historical city centre was rebuilt, trolley-buses made their appearance and the network of bus and tram connections was expanded. The opening of the Moskva-Volga Channel connected the capital of the USSR with the White, Baltic and Caspian seas and Moscow became one of the world's forerunners with regard to the level of per capita water consumption. Universal literacy, the provision of free medical services and the abolition of child homelessness were achieved.
At the same time these were also the very years when party pressure on the activities of all Soviet bodies began increasing. The secretaries of the Moscow City Party Committee, first L.M. Kaganovich and there after N.S. Khrushchev, became the true "party governors" of the capital, exerting decisive influence on the policies of the Moscow Soviet and its Executive Committee. On the initiative of Kaganovich many architectural monuments were destroyed, churches and monasteries closed on a massive scale, and streets and squares renamed. In August 1933, for example, the Secretariat of the Moscow City Party Committee and the Presidium of the Moscow City Executive Committee after discussing the question of "the demolition of constructions hampering street traffic", took the following decision: within a period of one-two months to demolish the Church of Nikola the Great Cross on Ilyinka Street, the Varvarka Gates and the Sukharevskaya Tower. The territory within the Garden Ring suffered especially. Because of the numerous arrests of specialists in city economics and Soviet workers in 1936-1937 the house-building programme was virtually ruined.
In July 1937 Bulganin was appointed as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation. From 1938 to 1941 he was chairman of the board of the State Bank and deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the Battle for Moscow he was a member of the Western Front Military Council and from 1944 Deputy People's Commissar of Defence and member of the State Defence Committee. Then he became Minister of Defence of the USSR and chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. From 1958 to 1960, when he retired on pension, he was chairman of the Stavropol Territory National Economic Council. A Hero of Socialist Labour, Marshal of the Soviet Union and deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
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