Ivan Alexeyevich Likhachev

Ivan Alexeyevich Likhachev was born in 1896 into a peasant family from the Tula region. He spent his childhood in Ozerentsy village in Venyov district. At twelve, he began working as a fitter in a small workshop, later earning the prestigious “title” of a Krasny Putilovets worker. His life then developed rapidly. During the revolution he was a sailor on the Baltic Front and joined the Bolshevik Party in the memorable year of 1917. Answering the revolution’s call, he served heroically in the Cheka for three years and then worked in trade unions. In 1926, aged thirty, he became the “Red” director of Moscow’s AMO automobile plant, which used primitive production methods.

Under his leadership, the plant became Moscow’s largest enterprise. In the early years it began producing the legendary three-tonne ZIS-5 truck and later luxury limousines. During the four harsh years of the Great Patriotic War, he established four branches, including the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, known for UAZ, and the Ural Automobile Plant, known for Ural. After the war, he carried out a third reconstruction of the factory, first introducing the ZIS-150 and ZIS-151, then the ZIS-110 limousine and ZIS-15 bus. His name is also associated with production of the USSR’s first ZIS refrigerators.

Likhachev applied his organisational abilities first as the USSR’s minister of road transport and railways and later as the Russian SFSR’s minister of road transport. This leader from the people received the Stalin Prize for his work. His many honours included the Order of the Patriotic War, First Class, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and five Orders of Lenin. He died on 24 June 1956. His ashes rest in the Kremlin Wall on Red Square. The name of this outstanding figure in Soviet vehicle manufacturing lives on in the Likhachev Plant, the enterprise to which he devoted his life.