Vasily Garbuzov

Soviet economist and politician

Vasily Fyodorovich Garbuzov (Василий Федорович Гарбузов; 20 June 1911 – 12 November 1985) was a Soviet economist and politician. He served as Minister of Finance from 1960 until his death in November 1985.

Vasily Garbuzov was born on 20 June 1911 in Belgorod to a Russian working class family. In 1925 he started working as an apprentice carpenter at a sawmill in Kharkov. In 1933 he graduated from the Kharkiv Financial and Economic Institute, and in 1936 completed his post graduate studies. After school, Garbuzov started working as a teacher, and later became the Acting Head of the Department of Political Science. In 1938, he joined the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). During the Great Patriotic War his main task was evacuating areas from the approaching German Army. From 1941 onwards, he worked as a senior inspector, and later, as a deputy chief of administration in the People's Commissariat for Finance of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic. Two years later, he became a Consultant of the Secretariat of Finance of the People's Commissariat for Finance. After the war he returned to teaching, this time at the Kiev Institute of Finance and Economics. Garbuzov became of Head of the Department of Political Science, then deputy director and beginning in 1944, the Director of the Kiev Institute. Before becoming Minister of Finance, Garbuzov was the Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1950 to 1952, and in 1952, became a deputy. In the following year, he was promoted to the First Deputy Minister of Finance. In May, he took over for Arseny Zverev as Minister of Finance, he would hold this position until his death in 1985. He was replaced by Boris Gostev in the post. Vasily Garbuzov died in Moscow on 12 November 1985. A small memorial plaque has been raised on the house in which he lived before his death. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.