Semen Skachkov

Born Jan. 16 (29), 1907, in Kharkov. Soviet state and party figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1977). Member of the CPSU since 1936.

The son of a worker, Skachkov graduated from the Kharkov Machine-building Institute in 1930. Between 1930 and 1945 he worked at a defense industry plant as deputy shop superintendent, shop superintendent, chief metallurgist, and party organizer of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). He served as the director of a series of plants of the Ministry of Transportation Machine Building of the USSR from 1945 to 1954 and was first deputy minister of transportation machine building of the USSR from 1954 to 1957. In 1957 and 1958, Skachkov was chairman of the Kharkov council of the national economy. In 1958 he became chairman of the State Committee on Foreign Economic Relations of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (renamed the State Committee of the USSR on Foreign Economic Relations in 1978). He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1961 to 1971 and became a member in 1971.

A deputy to the third through tenth convocations of the Soviet of the USSR, Skachkov has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, seven other orders, and various medals.