Born in Moscow into the family of an office worker. Became a member of the CPSU in 1926. In 1926-1928 he worked for the Komsomol. From 1928 he worked in the Central Labour Institute and finished the engineering faculty of the Industrial Academy. In 1938 he became an instructor at the organisational section of the Central Committee of the АН-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In November of 1938 he is elected Second Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee.
In the summer of 1941 he headed the building of defence constructions in the Smolensk, Orel and Kalinin regions and was one of the leaders of the defence of Moscow, carrying out several assignments of the Slate Defence Committee with regard to the restructuring of industry.
At the end of 1944 he replaced V.P. Pronin as chairman of the Moscow City Executive Committee and in May 1945, after the death of A.S. Shcherbakov, he simultaneously headed the Moscow City Party Committee and the Moscow Regional Party Committee, and in 1946 became secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Uniting under his own auspices the party and Soviet leadership of the city at the same time, he directed his main efforts at the conversion of the city economy onto a peaceful track, finding employment for the soldiers who had returned from the front, and caring for the war invalids. In the very first after-war years industrial and home-building was expanded, a series of high-rise buildings were erected, the fourth underground line built, and the Saratov-Moscow gas pipeline brought into working. Appointed chairman of the governmental committee for the preparation of the celebration of Moscow's 800th anniversary, he undertook significant work to organise this jubilee, which was widely celebrated both in the Soviet Union and beyond. G.M. Popov delivered a speech at a solemn session of the Moscow Soviet in September 1947, at which the decree was announced according to which the city of Moscow was awarded the Order of Lenin.
By 1948 the capital had in many fields returned to pre-war levels and a new long-term plan for the development of the city economy was being worked out. Popov displayed enviable independence, bravely criticised ministers and did not always co-ordinate measures planned by the city authorities with the government. This predetermined the end of his career. The pretext was an anonymous letter addressed to Stalin, in which Popov was slanderously accused of creating almost a terrorist organisation. Although the slandering did not work fully, the increasingly powerful "young leader" was released from all his posts for "ignoring the political aspects of work" and "administrative and economic deviation".
In the following years Popov was factory director, minister, ambassador to Poland, again factory director. In 1946-1950 he was elected deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
|
RUS
ENG
