121

p An army has to be fed, clothed, shoed, transported and armed. In this respect, the demands of the Second World War were much greater than of any other war before it. The armies were of many millions, using a great variety of arms and vast numbers of vehicles. To defeat Hitler Germany and her allies militarily, they had first to be defeated economically.

And it was economically that the Great Patriotic War began most unfavourably for the Soviet Union. Having continuously primed for war through nine years and conquered a number of European countries, nazi Germany possessed considerably greater military-economic resources. This may be seen from the following table.

Output of Key Strategic Materials in Fascist Germany and the USSR in 1940 (million = tons)  [121•1  Item Germany proper (1937 frontiers) Germany, her satellites and occupied countries Soviet Union Goal a5I-9 39i -a 153-7 Steel I9-I 30-9 18.3 Oil I.I 7-7 3I-I

p Although Germany was far behind in oil, it had a wellgeared synthetic fuels industry and possessed considerable 122 stocks of oil and oil products seized in occupied countries. The German production of arms, meanwhile, was far greater than that of the Soviet Union at the time of the attack.

p Furthermore, when the war broke out, with the enemy overrunning important industrial areas, the Soviet situation deteriorated seriously. Against June 1941, the December production of pig iron dropped to less than a quarter, steel and rolled stock to less than a third, rolled non-ferrous metals to a tiny fraction of prewar, and of ball-bearings to less than one-twentieth.  [122•1  Soviet industrial output shrank to under half between June and November 1941.  [122•2  War production, too, declined: war planes to less than a third from September to November, while 303 munitions factories went out of operation totally between August and November.  [122•3 

p Suffering losses of this magnitude, no economy in the capitalist world could have revived in war conditions.

p True, the Soviet Union had certain industrial resources in its eastern regions, built up under the prewar five-year plans. But these were insufficient’ to defeat the enemy economically. Eastern production had to be expanded, and considerably so. That is why at the very outbreak of war the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government stressed that the plan of extending war production depended "on the rapid unfolding of a production base in the trans-Volga area, the Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia".  [122•4  Industrial plant from the country’s western regions was to be transferred there as quickly as possible.

p A mammoth migration began from the country’s war- threatened West to the East. Nothing of like proportions has ever been -witnessed in history. Hundreds of factories, including war plants, were put on wheels, including equipment usually thought untransportable—rolling mills, boilers, turbo- generators, presses, machine-tools and mining equipment. The loading and dispatch took mere hours or a few days, often literally within sight of the enemy. Also shipped out was the ready stock, semi-finished and raw materials. Completing 123 the initial phase of the exploit, workers and their families followed the plant eastward to tackle the second phase — installing the equipment in new places and restarting production.

p A. N. Kuzmin, director of Zaporozhstal, a big iron and steel plant, was asked during a postwar trip to the United States whether it was true all Zaporozhstal equipment was shipped out. He replied: "Yes. The workers rose to the occasion. They were defending their future."  [123•1 

p As many as i ,523 factories, including i ,360 large war plants, were removed to the East in July-November 1941. Out of this number 226 to the trans-Volga area, 667 to the Urals, 244 to Western Siberia, 78 to Eastern Siberia and 308 to Kazakhstan and Central Asia.  [123•2 

p The railways were strained to breaking point. With the outbreak of war they took troops and war materiel to the battle-lines, and did their job well. One and a half times more troop trains were brought to the front in a week as in the first two months of the 1914 war.  [123•3  But almost simultaneously they had to evacuate industry from the western areas. It was a titanic assignment, which the Soviet railwaymen also accomplished. Nearly 1,500,000 cars of equipment were taken East in 1941 alone.  [123•4 

p And this despite fierce Luftwaffe attempts to paralyse transport. In October-December 1941 nazi bombers kept 25 railway lines, including those deep in the rear, under constant attack. The enemy flew 5,939 missions over only the tracks near the front from the beginning of the war to December 1941 alone, dropping more than 46,000 bombs.  [123•5 

p The evacuated plant was restarted in several ways. Some evacuated factories were merged with operating factories in the East. Some of the plant was installed in newly-built factories, some evacuated enterprises were split into several new specialised plants, etc.

p The large tank-making plant shipped out from the Ukraine was amalgamated with other plants, forming the Urals Tank Works. And one more large tank-making plant, known as 124 Tankograd, sprang up after the merging of a Leningrad plant, the Kharkov Diesel Works and the Chelyabinsk Tractor Works.

p The winter complicated matters greatly. Foundation pits had to be cut out of frozen Siberian ground. The Bolshevik Plant, evacuated from Kiev, was restarted in a Sverdlovsk suburban area in the open. Machine-tools put on foundations were provided lighting from lamps hung on the surrounding pine trees. Nearby, building elements were being cut and welded for the vault of the future factory building, and foundations laid for the walls. That was the epic birth of the new immense Uralkhimmash (Urals Chemical Engineering Plant). This was also the case with many other enterprises which began producing in the open.

p To speed up matters, large temporary timber buildings were put up, some in a matter of 15-20 days. A large war plant evacuated to Novosibirsk was restarted on its new site in 14 days, and simultaneously builders put up a thermopower plant and a pontoon bridge across the Ob, joining the old and new industrial quarters of the city.

p The critical low in production was passed at the end of 1941. Thenceforward output began to climb, with the flow of arms, ammunition and materiel increasing steadily.

p The unfolding of Soviet war production is one of the most striking “secrets” of the Second World War. Yet it should have surprised no one—this was a logical manifestation of the strength and viability of the Soviet social and political system. Many were surprised, however, and this applies to many foreign friends of the Soviet Union, not only to the enemy. Many thought its economic victory over nazi Germany was impossible. The Soviet people proved the contrary.

p Important was the fact that the Soviet Union already possessed the designs of new, sophisticated weapons, tanks and planes, and that the method of production ha4 already been developed. The essential technical and production problems were solved in the eatly months of the war jointly by scientists, researchers, engineers, designers and workers.

p In collaboration with the director of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Combine (G. I. Nosov), engineer V. A. Smirnov, foreman M. M. Hilko, steelworker D. N. Zhukov and others developed a direct open-hearth smelting technique for high-grade armour steel, while another group of engineers, 125 headed by the deputy senior mechanic, N. A. Ryzhenko, used the blooming mill to roll the armour. Academician Y. O. Paton’s automatic welding techniques raised efficiency five times over, and were used with eminent success in making tanks. As a result tank production rose steeply. But so did that of firearms, including submachine-guns and artillery pieces of all calibres. Plane output increased somewhat more slowly, chiefly due to acute shortages of aluminium after the area of the Dnieper Hydro-Power Station fell into German hands. But soon aluminium began coming in increasing quantities from Urals plants.

p A year after nazi Germany attacked, the Soviet war industry had not only recovered, but increased its capacity. By March 1942 the eastern regions produced as much as the entire country did before the war.

p By mid-1942 industry had been largely reorganised, with most of the re-sited war factories back in operation. Somewhat later that year the process of wartime conversion, begun the day the war started, was complete. The Soviet economy was capable of supplying the troops uninterruptedly, with increasing abundance.

p Plane production was 60 per cent up over the year before, and tank production 270 per cent.  [125•1  The following year, 1943, aviation plants built some 35,000 planes, and armour plants made 24,000 tanks.  [125•2  Production of firearms and artillery increased less rapidly, but the volume of output was high. Manufacture of jet mortars, popularly known as katyushas, climbed steadily.

p The immense leverage of the Soviet socialist economic system, coupled with the mass heroism of the people, helped resolve the war’s formidable organisational and economic problems and build up steadily the military-economic potential. For the first time in the history of wars the productive forces in a war-gripped country, the theatre of the main battles, continued to expand spectacularly, instead of decreasing.

p Braving unspeakable difficulties and hardships, the nation forged the victory in arduous labour. Morale was high. Inspired by the Communist Party, the workers displayed a fervent patriotism, which generated a universal heroism 126 in labour the likes of which was never seen in history. The advantage in arms which the enemy had had at the beginning of the war was soon offset by this peerless exploit.

p The Soviet working class, the most revolutionary and best organised politically conscious part of the nation, stood in the front ranks of the battle for economic victory over the enemy. The services it rendered the country were a model of dedication.

p There were massive patriotic movements—the ail-Union socialist emulation movement among enterprises and shops, and individual workers; the movement for combining trades; the movement of two-hundreders and three-hundreders (who fulfilled their assignments 200 and 300 per cent, respectively); the movement of multiple turners (who operated several machine-tools at once), and others.

p Combining several trades and simultaneously operating several lathes was necessary to make up for the depletion of manpower resulting from the high army conscription rate. Ural building worker V. F. Shalayev sparked the movement of combining several trades: he learned eight in wartime (that of stone mason, plasterer, concreter, spiderman, etc.). Lathe operator Ignatov of the Urals Heavy Engineering Plant, who began by working two lathes, then took on another two —those of a called up mate. Working four lathes, he fulfilled five to six daily assignments.

p At the Krasny Proletary Engineering Works, turner V. M. Frolov worked two multi-cutter milling machines, and when a friend joined the army, he took on his job as well, fulfilling more than five assignments daily. The movement, joined by many workers, was given added impetus by Yekaterina Baryshnikova, a girl of the First Moscow Ballbearing Plant, and Yegor Agarkov, a Urals factory worker. They suggested reducing the work-teams, while increasing output. The movement they pioneered released nearly 100,000 workers, who were transferred to do other sorely-needed work.

p Steelmaker Alexander Chalkov, of the Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Plant, who was one of the first to learn smelting specialgrade steel in ordinary open-hearth furnaces, made enough steel in the first two years of the war to manufacture 24 heavy tanks, 36 guns, 15,000 mortars, 100,000 hand grenades and 18,000 submachine-guns. He was awarded the State Prize, which he donated to the Red Army Fund, asking that the money be used to equip the Siberian Guards Division with 127 submachine-guns. These bore the inscription, "To the Siberians from Steelmaker Chalkov".

p There was heroism, too, in the way the workers coped with breakdowns and repairs, oblivious of fatigue, and danger. Cases have been recorded where repairmen overhauled furnaces that were still hot. One later said that the idea had come from a newspaper, which reported how seamen repaired a steam-boiler of a warship damaged in battle.

p This is how the heroism of the factory workers blended with that of the men at the front.

p The heroic labour of the collective farmers assured a steady supply of food for the army and the rear, and of raw materials for industry. And this despite the fact that for a time the Soviet Union was deprived of its main grain-producing areas, the Ukraine, the Don area and Kuban territory. This was partly compensated by expanding grain areas in other parts of the country. It is safe to say that without the collectivefarm system, without the farmers’ devoted patriotism, the economic victory over the enemy would have been impossible.

p Agriculture, too, had its wartime shockworkers. P. S. Nazarov harvested 56 centners of wheat per hectare on the Avangard Collective Farm in Sverdlovsk Region. Collective farmer Chaganak Bersinev, of the Kurman Collective Farm in Kazakhstan, grew more than 205 centners of millet per hectare in 1943, an unheard-of yield, and I. Zhakhayev, of the Kzyl-tu Collective Farm in Kzyl-Orda Region, 156 centners of rice per hectare. In Dniepropetrovsk Region, collective farmer N. Koshik harvested 152 centners of maize per hectare in 1944, while combine operator I. P. Varanin, of Chkalov Region, brought home 3,467 hectar.es by coupling two combines and saving 4,654 kilograms of fuel.

p But to manufacture arms, ammunition and equipment and grow food for the army, was only half the job. The supplies still had to be delivered. And Soviet railwaymen took their trains hard up to the front-lines, often under enemy fire and a hail of bombs. A few examples: engine-driver Trofimov,. in charge of a munitions train, was attacked by aircraft. The driver’s cabin was perforated by bomb fragments, the air duct smashed and the grease tank set alight. Trofimov and his helpers put out the fire, repaired the damage and pulled on to their destination.

p A woman driver, Yelena Chukhnyuk, handled army supply trains oblivious of danger. Seventeen enemy bombers attacked 128 the railway station where her munitions- train was standing, but Yelena did not lose her head. She pulled it away from the station, away from the bombs. The locomotive and many of the cars were damaged, but the supplies were saved. During the Stalingrad Battle an enemy bomb hit the tender of her locomotive. Yelena saved the locomotive and uncoupled cars set aflame by the enemy.

p Millions of tons of supplies were shipped under gunfire and air and submarine attack by the Soviet merchant marine and river fleet. The seamen assured communications and deliveries for the.besieged hero-cities of Odessa,. Stalingrad and Sevastopol at the height of the enemy assaults. Motor vehicles, too, were used extensively. Supplying Leningrad across Lake Ladoga ice under enemy fire and bombing is a heroic chapter in the history of the Leningrad Battle.

p Soviet intellectuals performed their patriotic duty honourably. Scientists, designers and inventors solved many a wartime problem. They developed new, improved types of weapons and equipment superior to the best fqreign arms. Together with engineers and technicians they found ways to steeply increase and cheapen production, developed new techniques and audacious new ways of stepping up output.

p Automatic welding, developed by Academician Y. O. Paton, replaced manual welding. A group of physicists headed by S. I. Vavilov developed valuable new optical equipment for the army. A. Yakovlev, S. Lavochkin, S. Ilyushin, A. Tupolev and V. Petlyakov were prominent among designers of new aircraft; G. Kotin and A. Morozov produced new models of tanks, and V. Grabin, F. Petrov and I. Ivanov new types of artillery, while S. Simonov, G. Shpagin, V. Degtyarev and F. Tokarev produced automatic and semi-automatic firearms.

p Soviet writers, poets, composers, artists, and actors popularised the exploits of Soviet people at the bench and in the trenches, cultivating patriotism and hatred of the enemy, and inspiring the millions.

p Industrial executives, the captains of production, proved to be splendid organisers, among them the wartime People’s Commissars I. F. Tevosyan, of the iron and steel industry, D. F. Ustinov, of armaments, A. I. Shakhurin, of the aviation industry, V. A. Malyshev, tanks, V. V. Vakhrushev, coal, etc.; factory directors I. A. Likhachev of the Moscow Gar Works, I. K. Loskutov of the Gorky Gar Works, B. G. 129 Muzrukov of the Urals Heavy Engineering Plant, I, M. Zaltsman of the Kirov Works, and many others.

The morale and energy of Soviet people, their wholesale heroism in battle and on the shop-floor were inspired by the tireless work of the Communist Party. The leadership it afforded was the main factor in the economip, as well as military, victory.