Beshchev, Boris Pavlovich
Beshchev, Boris Pavlovich
Born July 17 (30), 1903, in the village of Velikoe, Gavrilov-Iam Raion, Yaroslavl Oblast. Soviet statesman, Hero of Socialist Labor (1959). Member of the CPSU since 1927.
Beshchev was born into a worker’s family. He was graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Railroad Transport Engineers in 1935. He worked as an engineer and senior assistant to the manager of a railroad station and then in the People’s Commissariat of Railroad Transportation (NKPS). In 1937 he became director of the Ordzhonikidze railroad and in 1940 director of the October railroad. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 he headed the administration of the northwestern region of the NKPS, was a NKPS representative on the Leningrad front, and was director of the V. V. Kuibyshev railroad. In 1944 he was appointed deputy people’s commissar and then deputy minister of railroad transportation. Since 1948 he has been minister of railroad transportation of the USSR. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1952. Beshchev was a deputy to the fourth through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded six Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.