Viktor Bakaev

Born Nov. 8 (21), 1902, in Bezhitsa, now Briansk Oblast. Soviet statesman; doctor of engineering sciences (1952). Member of the CPSU since 1919.

Bakaev was born into the family of a worker. He began work as the apprentice of a locksmith in 1913. In 1929 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. During the years 1929–36 he worked in the central maritime administration of the People’s Commissariat of Communications; later, of the People’s Commissariat of Water Transport (engineer, director of construction department, and chief of the central control of ports). From 1938 to 1942 he taught in institutions of higher education. From 1943 to 1945 he was commissioner of the State Defense Committee and the People’s Commissariat of the Fleet in charge of the unloading of military freight and food supplies in the port of Murmansk. From 1945 to 1952 he was deputy and from 1953 to 1954, first deputy minister of the ocean fleet of the USSR. He was first deputy minister of the sea and inland fleet of the USSR in 1953 and in 1953–54, deputy chairman of the bureau of transportation and communication under the USSR Council of Ministers. In 1954–69 he was minister of the sea fleet of the USSR. In January 1970 he retired. At the Twenty-second Congress (1961) and Twenty-third Congress (1966) of the CPSU he was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Bakaev was awarded three Orders of Lenin and other orders and medals.