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 USSR

Chairman, State Committee for Prices

Nikolav Glushkov (pronounces glooshKOFF), a former administrator of the Soviet nonferrous metallurgical industry, was made Chairman of the State committee for Prices in August 1975. The post had been vacant for over a year; his predecessor, Vladimir Sitnin, had been released in mid-1974. Glushkov may be a protégé of Vladimir Dolgikh, a Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Secretary for heavy industry, with whom he served in the Krasnoyarsk region of the USSR during the 1960's.

The responsibility of the State Committee is to establish prices, in coordination with the State Planning committee (Gosplan), for the main products of heavy industry, for major types of food and clothing and for certain other consumer goods. The committee was set up in 1965 in connection with a national economic reform that sought, among other things, to rely more heavily on prices as a stimulus toward greater economic efficiency, technological progress and higher product quality. Initially attached to Gosplan, the State Committee for Prices was upgraded to direct subordination to the Council of Ministers in late 1969.

Service in Siberia

Nothing is currently known concerning Glushkov's education or early career; even his age is unrecorded. He was first identified in the Soviet press in 1961 as deputy chairman of the Krasnoyarsk (Central Siberia) Council of the National Economy (sovnarkhoz), part of a system of regional economic supervisory bodies that existed during 1957-65. Glushkov served on the Krasnoyarsk Sovnarkhoz until at least 1964, by which time he had become its first deputy chairman. During this period he was probably associated with Dolgikh, who then worked in the Krasnoyarsk region as director of the Noril'sk Mining and Metallurgical Combine.

By 1968 Gluzhkov had moved to Moscow and had become chief of the Main Economic Planning Administration of the Ministry of Nonferrous Metallurgy. In 1974 he was made a Deputy Minister. In that capacity he met at least three times with representatives of US firms for talks on joint metallurgical projects in the Soviet Union. These projects included the