Arnold Veimer

Born June 7 (20), 1903, on the Viimsi Estate, now within the city limits of Tallin. Soviet state figure; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR (1967). Member of the CPSU since 1922. Born into the family of an agricultural worker.

Veimer joined the revolutionary movement in 1919 and was sentenced to a life term of forced labor in 1924. In May 1938 he was released in a general amnesty. In 1940 he participated in the reestablishment of the Soviet regime in Estonia and was elected a deputy to and chairman of the State Duma, which later became the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR. In August 1940 he became people’s commissar of light industry of the Estonian SSR and in 1941 a member of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of Estonia. He graduated from the department of economics of the University of Tartu in 1941. In 1944, Veimer became chairman of the Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars), in 1946 chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Estonian SSR, in 1951 director of the Institute of Economics and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR, in 1957 chairman of the Sovnarkhoz (Council of the Economy) of the Estonian SSR, and in 1965 vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Estonian SSR. He has been president of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR since 1968.

Veimer is the author of works on the economy of the Estonian SSR, including Problems of the National Economyof the Estonian SSR (1947), Integrated Development andSpecialization of the Industry of the Estonian EconomicAdministrative Region (1961), Development of the Industryof the Estonian SSR in a Seven-year Period (1959-1965) (1967), and The Socialist Industrialization of the EstonianSSR (1958). He was a deputy to the first through third, fifth, and sixth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Viemer has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and medals.