Tevosian, Ivan

(also Ivan Tevadrosovich Tevosian). Born Jan. 4, 1902, in the city of Shusha, in what is now Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, Azerbaijan SSR; died Mar. 30, 1958, in Moscow. Soviet state and party figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1943). Member of the CPSU from 1918.

Tevosian, the son of a tailor, became secretary of the underground city raion committee of the RCP(B) in Baku in 1919. He was a delegate to the Tenth Congress of the RCP(B) and helped suppress the Kronstadt Anti-Soviet Rebellion of 1921.

Tevosian graduated from the Moscow Mining Academy in 1927, after which he became an engineer and later chief engineer at the Elektrostal’ Plant in Moscow Oblast. Between 1931 and 1936 he directed the merger of plants of high-grade steels and ferrous alloys to form the Spetsstal’ Plant. From 1936 to 1939 he was supervisor of the main administrative board and first deputy people’s commissar of the defense industry of the USSR. From 1939 to 1940 he was people’s commissar of the shipbuilding industry of the USSR. Between 1940 and 1948, Tevosian served as people’s commissar and later as minister of ferrous metallurgy of the USSR. In 1948 and 1949 he was minister of the metallurgy industry of the USSR. Tevosian was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 1949 to 1956 and minister of ferrous metallurgy of the USSR from 1950 to 1953. In 1956 he was appointed Soviet ambassador to Japan.

Tevosian was a delegate to the Sixteenth through Twentieth Congresses of the CPSU. He was a member of the Central Control Commission from 1930 to 1934 and became a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1939. He was a deputy to the first through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded five Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals. Tevosian is buried on Red Square, at the Kremlin wall.