Nikolai Petrovich Gorbunov (Russian: Николай Петрович Горбунов; 21 June 1892 – 7 September 1938) was a Soviet politician, chemist, engineer and academic; at one time personal secretary to leader Vladimir Lenin.

Born in Krasnoye Selo, in Saint Petersburg, his parents were Pyotr Mikhailovich Gorbunov and Sofia Vasilievna Gorbunova.

[2] Gorbunov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour (b) in July 1917 and quickly started to work in the apparatus of the Soviet government with the recommendation of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich.

[3] Gorbunov was secretary of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and wrote of the period immediately following the Bolshevik seizure of power: In spite of the government's decrees and its demands that funds should be made available, the State Bank brazenly sabotaged.

[4]On 17 July 1918, Gorbunov received a coded telegram from Alexander Beloborodov, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, regarding the shooting of the former Tsar Nicholas II and his family, with instructions to pass on the message to Yakov Sverdlov without delay.