Gleb Krzhizhanovsky

Who was Gleb Krzhizhanovsky?

Gleb Maximilianovich Krzhizhanovsky was a Soviet economist and a state figure. Born to a family of Polish descend he became an Academician of USSR Academy of Sciences and a Hero of Socialist Labour.

In his early life Krzhizhanovsky worked as an engineer in St Petersburg where he became involved in Marxist circles. He was a close friend and colleague of Lenin and, in 1895, was one of the co-founders, with Lenin, of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. His activities with this group led to his imprisonment in Butyrka prison, where he wrote the Russian text of the Polish revolutionary song Warszawianka.

In 1910 he oversaw the construction of a power station near Moscow and proposed the idea of a hydroelectric plant in Saratov.

In 1920 appointed as a Chief of Russia Electrification Commission, was in the lead of some parts of GOELRO plan, gave a report of this plan on the VIII Congress of Soviets.