World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseMaksim Zakharovich Saburov was born in Druzhkivka, Russia (now Donets'ka, Ukraine). He joined the Communist Party in 1920. In 1921, he became the Secretary of the Bachmut Komsomol Committee, a role he would hold until 1926. Between 1923 and 1926, he studied at the Sverdlov Communist University in Moscow, Russia. Between 1926 and 1931, he studied engineering at the Bauman Institute of Menachics and Machine in Moscow. In 1933, he became the head of the Technological Bureau of a factory in Moscow, eventually becoming the head of a division in the Stalin Novokramatorsk Machine Plant. In 1937, he joined a state ministry for industry. In 1938, he became a minister for industry in the State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union. In 1940, he was named the First Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee; a year later, he became the chairman. Between 1942 and 1949, he assumed various roles in government, including Deputy Chairman of Council of People's Commissars, First Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee, and Deputy Chairman of Council of Ministers. Returning to power in 1949, he presided over the implementation of the Fifth Five-Year Plan. In 1953, he was removed from power at the State Planning Committee, serving as the Minister of Machinery in the mean time before resuming his role at the committee's helm once again three months later. In the mid-1950s, he played a role in the planning of the Sixth Five-Year Plan. In 1957, Saburov was implicated in a failed politcal action to depose Nikita Khrushchev by the Anti-Party Group (headed by Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and others), and was relegated to roles of lesser importance. He served as the Deputy Chairman of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance until 1961, then managed a factory in Syzran in Central Asia. He retired in 1966 and passed away in 1977.

Maksim Saburov Timeline