Leonid Ustrugov


Leonid Aleksandrovich Ustrugov was a Russian railway engineer. Minister of Railways in the government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak.

Family

His parents are unknown. In 1891, he was given the surname of the daughter of major Vera Gavrilovna Ustrugova, who adopted him.
He graduated from the Komissarovsky Technical School and the Saint Petersburg Institute of Railway Engineers with the title of engineer of communications and the rank of collegiate secretary.

Railway Engineer

Participated in the Russian Civil War. On the night of January 25–26, 1918, at a secret meeting of the Siberian Regional Duma, he was elected in absentia and without his consent by the Minister of Railways in the center-left anti-Bolshevik government of Peter Derber. In April 1918, at a meeting of shareholders of the Chinese Eastern Railway, he was elected a member of the provisional board of the CER, was a member of the so-called "Business Cabinet" headed by General Dmitry Horvat as Minister of Communications.
From November 4, 1918 – Minister of Railways of the Provisional All-Russian Government, from November 18, 1918 – Russian Government, acting under the Supreme Governor Alexander Kolchak. Since November 19, 1918, at the same time, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was considered one of the most competent members of the government of Alexander Kolchak, he had little interest in political issues. In March 1919, in Vladivostok, he signed an agreement on the management of the Trans-Siberian Railway with allies from the International Committee, which was supposed to improve throughput, increase and streamline the freight traffic of this railway. However, according to historians, a dual power arose between Ustrugov and the American engineer Stevens, which had a negative effect on the work of the highway.
In the autumn of 1919, he acted as head of military communications of the rear as an assistant chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Emigration, return, death

In 1920 he emigrated to China. He and his family lived in Harbin, in 1924–1935 he was the second rector of the Harbin Polytechnic Institute, where Russian emigrants received engineering education.
In 1935, at the invitation of the government, he and his family returned to the Soviet Union together with the employees of the CER – the Soviet citizens. For some time he worked in the specialty of the People's Commissariat of Communications in Moscow.
On October 7, 1937, he was arrested. On February 15, 1938, he was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to be shot on charges of espionage and participation in a counter-revolutionary organization. On the same day, he was shot and buried at the Kommunarka shooting ground. He was rehabilitated in May 1989 by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR.