Komsomol construction projects in the USSR. "Magnitka", Belomorkanal and other global construction sites of communism

Today, the development of the "third world" countries is considered the duty of the "civilized" countries. The construction of large-scale projects in developing countries is financed by IMF loans, driving peoples into debt for decades to come, and the design and selection of contractors are strictly subordinate to the interests of corporations.
With or without extortionate interest, there is usually nowhere to go: the poor do not have to choose.
But it was not always so. When the "second world" existed - the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist choice that joined it - Russian builders, using complex credit schemes (most of the debts were written off after a while), erected grandiose structures in the most exotic corners of the planet. Much of what was built has changed the lives of millions of people forever and still embodies power. Soviet Union, forming a kind of "red footprint" in the history of the poorest countries in the world - primarily in Asia.

Indonesia

Gelora Bung Karno Stadium
The huge stadium was built by Soviet specialists on a subsidized loan in 1960. China and the USSR helped Indonesia's struggle for independence, Khrushchev visited Jakarta, posing for a model of the future stadium.

At the time of commissioning, "Senayan" accommodated 100,800 spectators. In 2007, the stadium was rebuilt, reducing the number of seats up to 80 thousand people, but even in this form, Khrushchev's gift remains the largest stadium in the "country of a thousand islands." Alas, in 1965, a bloody coup and massacre of communists took place in Indonesia. Following the rejection of the "political concept of Nasak", which united nationalism, communism and religiosity, Soviet projects in the region were immediately curtailed.

Monument of Youth

A curious example of a "red footprint" is the Patung Pemuda (Youth Monument). The huge statue by the Soviet sculptor Matvey Manizer symbolizes the contribution of young generations to the development of Indonesia and is executed in the genre of socialist realism. The resourceful townspeople eventually renamed the figure standing at a busy intersection into the "pizza delivery man."

India

"Hindi-rusi bhai-bhai" - every Soviet citizen knew about the special, warm nature of the USSR's relations with the fraternal country of elephants and the jungle.
The economic underpinnings of mutual sympathy are simple: in the 50-60s, both countries experienced a shortage of convertible currency (India is experiencing it now), and were under pressure from the West (unofficial sanctions). The agreement on the direct exchange of the ruble for the rupee in the supply of goods and equipment allowed India to acquire an advanced industry, and "tea with an elephant" and other colonial goods appeared in the shops of the Land of the Soviets. As a result of a mutually beneficial exchange, by 1965 the USSR was the second largest "contributor" to the industry and infrastructure of India, and in 1967 with Soviet participation a quarter of all Indian steel, half of oil products, and about 20% of electricity were produced.
We will list only some of the most large-scale industries created with the participation of the Union.
Dam Teri

The tallest in India and one of the tallest in the world, the Teri Dam was built on the Bhagirati River according to a 1961 Soviet design. Construction dragged on for decades (the embankment began to be built in 1978, Soviet specialists were attracted in 1986, and the start-up of the hydroelectric power plant took place only in 2006). Today HPP Teri supplies electricity to nine Indian states, including Delhi.
Bhilai Steel Factory

Built according to a Soviet project and on a Soviet loan in 1959. The first plant of this scale in India, it is to this day the largest producer of steel slabs in the country, and most of the rails for Indian railroad... In addition, it produces a number of products of the by-product coke industry. Bihlai is the largest and most profitable of the Steel Authority of India's current assets.
Bokaro Steel City

The Bokaro region is one of the most industrially developed in India, even officially renamed the "Steel City". Largest enterprise in Bokaro - a steel plant built by the USSR in 1965. Five domains of the “heart of the Steel City” hold 4.5 million tons of liquid steel, and after modernization, this volume is expected to increase to 10.
Barauni Oil Refinery

The Barauni Refinery was built with the participation of the USSR and Romanian technologies in 1964. It produces automotive fuels of various fractions, engine oils, and other petrochemical products. At the start, it allowed to process one million tons of light Assamese oil per year. By 1969, this volume had increased to 6 million, and the refinery was made "omnivorous" by adding appropriate modules for processing heavy grades of oil with a high sulfur content.

Egypt

Aswan hydroelectric power station

Cooperation between the USSR and Egypt was repeatedly interrupted by internal political upheavals (military coups) in this North African country. Nevertheless, the “red trail” is also noticeable here.
Two dams of the Aswan hydroelectric power station, built in 1960 with the participation of technical specialists of the USSR and designed by engineer N. A. Malyshev, block the great Nile River near the ancient city of Aswan. As a result, the so-called. "Lake Nasser" - the largest of the Egyptian reservoirs with a water surface area of ​​5250 sq. km. At the time of construction, the Aswan hydroelectric complex provided 50% of the country's electricity generation. With the development of Egypt's energy sector, this share fell to 12-15%. But the reservoir to them. Nasser to this day serves to prevent droughts and floods from which the region has suffered periodically throughout history. A significant number of fish farms have also developed around Lake Nasser.

Afghanistan

The total list of objects built by the USSR in Afghanistan (both before and during the "invasion to provide international assistance") includes 142 items. These are hydroelectric power plants and dams, thermal power plants, power lines, gas pipelines, a house-building plant, a river port, canals and water intakes, airports, schools, universities, roads, bridges, including the famous "Friendship Bridge" on the border with Uzbekistan ...
Salang Tunnel

Perhaps the most famous site in Afghanistan is the Salang Tunnel.
The Salang Tunnel is a road tunnel. Built by Soviet specialists, mainly by Moscow metro builders, in 1958-1964 in the area of ​​the Salang Pass. From the time of the beginning of operation until 1973, it was considered the highest mountain road tunnel in the world. The length of the tunnel is 3.6 kilometers, the width of the carriageway is 6 meters. The height of the southern portal above sea level is about 3200 meters.
In 1976, the Salang tunnel was electrified and a ventilation system was installed. After the departure of the USSR, during the civil war with the Taliban, the Salang Pass served as a natural barrier - in 1997, the entrance to the tunnel was blown up. In 2002, traffic on it was reopened.

China

In the postwar years, "Red China" received the lion's share of scientific and technical assistance from the Land of Soviets - until relations deteriorated during the years of "Khrushchev revisionism" and conflicts over territorial affiliation of Fr. Damansky.
The Soviet Union supplied China with mining, oil drilling, handling and power engineering equipment, excavators, road-building machines, instruments, bearings, and tools. Complete equipment was also supplied for entire factories. The Soviet Union handed over to the PRC more than a thousand sets of design documentation for construction. More than half of the machines produced by the Chinese industry during the first five-year plans were created according to Soviet technical documentation.
With the direct assistance of the USSR, more than 250 large industrial enterprises, workshops and facilities were built in China. Here are just a few of them.
Anshan Iron and Steel Works

According to the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", "built in 1916-18 by Japanese capitalists who received a concession for the development of ore." During the hostilities against Japan, the plant was destroyed, and after the war it was rebuilt and expanded with the help of the USSR. In the 50s, the plant produced about 60% of all products of the Chinese ferrous metallurgy, and even by the end of the 80s this figure fell to only 20%.
Changchun Automobile Plant ("Avtozavod No. 1")

Built in the image and likeness of the Moscow "Stalin Plant" (ZiL), Changchun "Avtozavod No. 1" opened in 1956. More than 20 Soviet organizations worked on the project, producing 3736 units of various devices for Changchun, 236 forging dies, 6787 items of special tools.
The first Chinese truck "Jiefan" ("Liberation") was a copy of the ZiS-150 with a carrying capacity of 4 tons, and already in 1958 Mao Zedong was able to ride the first Chinese "passenger car" model "Dongfeng" ("Breeze from the East").
Today Avtozavod No. 1 has returned to Russia with its products - the domestic car enthusiast knows it under the FAW (First Automobile Works) brand.
Rubber plantations, Hainan Island

The creation of rubber plantations on the island of Hainan looks like an unexpected point of Soviet investment against the background of heavy industry and energy enterprises. Natural rubber has long remained a valuable and irreplaceable strategic commodity.
The main producer of rubber in the world at that time was the British colony of Malaysia. Relations with Britain, damaged after the start of the Cold War, did not allow the USSR to provide stable access to this valuable raw material.
The only "ideologically close" region on the planet where there were natural conditions suitable for organizing the production of natural rubber was the subtropical island of Hainan. Realizing this potential, the USSR and the PRC were consistently moving towards developing the rubber industry, about which there was extensive correspondence between Comrade Stalin and Comrade Mao. The program included not only development, but also the guerrilla struggle of the Chinese guerrillas against competitors in Malaysia.
In the spring of 1950, PLA units landed on Hainan, and incorporated it into the PRC. A year later, the USSR provided China with a significant targeted loan for the development of rubber plantations on the island of Hainan, as well as the expansion of hevea plantations to mainland China. Soviet plant breeders helped the Chinese in obtaining rare Hevea seeds and competently caring for the plantings.
The Soviet-Chinese plantation plan succeeded: enterprises in Hainan served as a model for the development of China's powerful rubber industry. Currently, China ranks fifth in the world in terms of the area of ​​such plantations, and the volume of production of natural rubber. Several hevea planting zones have been established in the provinces of Hainan, Yunnan and Guangdong.

Listed above industrial enterprises The red footprint of the Soviet Union in Asia is not exhausted. We helped Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia (the country's main market is still called the “Russian market”), numerous African countries ...
Today Russia is returning to many traditional Soviet markets - no longer as a generous donor, but as a business partner. Domestic science and technology still remain unattainable in height for many regions of the world.
Perhaps, over time, the "Russian trace" in developing countries will turn out to be even more noticeable than the "red" one.

The great construction sites of communism - this is what all global projects were called Soviet government: highways, canals, stations, reservoirs.
One can argue about the degree of their "greatness", but there is no doubt that these were grandiose projects of their time.

"Magnitka"

The largest in Russia, the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine, was designed in the late spring of 1925 by the Soviet institute UralGipromez. According to another version, the design was carried out by an American company from Clinwood, and the US Steel mill in Gary, Indiana became the prototype of Magnitka. All three "heroes" who were at the "helm" of the plant's construction - the manager Gugel, the builder Maryasin and the head of the trust Valerius - were shot in the 30s. January 31, 1932 - The first blast furnace was launched. The construction of the plant took place in the most difficult conditions, while most of the work was carried out by hand. Despite this, thousands of people from all over the Union hurried to Magnitka. Foreign experts, primarily Americans, were also actively involved.

Belomorkanal

The White Sea-Baltic Canal was supposed to connect the White Sea and Lake Onega and provide access to the Baltic Sea and the Volga-Baltic waterway. The canal was built by the forces of the Gulag prisoners in record time - less than two years (1931-1933). The canal is 227 kilometers long. This was the first construction in the Soviet Union carried out exclusively by prisoners, perhaps that is why the Belomorkanal is not always ranked among the "great construction projects of communism." Each builder of the White Sea Canal was called a "prisoner canal soldier" or abbreviated "zek", hence the slang word "zek". Campaign posters of that time read: "Your term will melt from hot work!" Indeed, for many of those who made it to the end of the construction site alive, the terms were reduced. On average, the mortality rate reached 700 people a day. "Hot work" also influenced the nutrition: the higher the rate "zek" produced, the more impressive the "ration" received. Standard - 500 gr. bread and seaweed gruel.

Baikal-Amur Mainline

One of the largest railways in the world was built with huge interruptions from 1938 to 1984. The hardest part- Severo-Muskiy tunnel - was put into permanent operation only in 2003. Stalin initiated the construction. Songs were composed about BAM, laudatory articles were published in newspapers, films were shot. The construction was positioned as a feat of youth and, naturally, no one knew that prisoners who survived after the construction of the Belomorkanal were sent to the construction site in 1934. In the 1950s, about 50 thousand prisoners worked at BAM. Each meter of BAM is worth one human life.

Volga-Don Canal

An attempt to connect the Don and the Volga was undertaken by Peter the Great in 1696. In the 30s of the last century, a construction project was created, but the war prevented its implementation. Work resumed in 1943 immediately after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad. However, the date of the start of construction should still be considered 1948, when the first earthworks began. In addition to volunteers and military builders, 236 thousand prisoners and 100 thousand prisoners of war took part in the construction of the canal route and its structures. In journalism, you can find descriptions of the most terrible conditions in which the prisoners lived. Dirty and lousy from the lack of the opportunity to wash regularly (there was one bath for all), half-starved and sick - this is how the “builders of communism”, deprived of their civil rights, actually looked. The canal was built in 4.5 years - and this is a unique period in the world history of the construction of hydraulic structures.

Nature transformation plan

The plan was adopted at the initiative of Stalin in 1948 after a drought and rampant famine in 46-47. The plan included the creation of forest belts, which were supposed to block the road to hot southeast winds - dry winds, which would change the climate. It was planned to place the forest belts on an area of ​​120 million hectares - this is exactly how much England, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Belgium take together. The plan also included the construction of an irrigation system, during the implementation of which 4,000 reservoirs appeared. It was planned to complete the project before 1965. More than 4 million hectares of forest were planted, and the total length of forest belts was 5300 km. The state solved the food problem of the country, while part of the grain was exported. After Stalin's death in 1953, the program was curtailed, and in 1962 the USSR was again shaken by a food crisis - bread and flour disappeared from the shelves, and sugar and butter were interrupted.

Volzhskaya HPP

Construction of the largest hydroelectric power plant in Europe began in the summer of 1953. Next to the construction site, in the tradition of that time, the GULAG - Akhtuba ITL was deployed, where more than 25 thousand prisoners worked. They were involved in laying roads, laying power lines and general preparatory work. Of course, they were not allowed to work directly on the construction of the hydroelectric power station. Sappers also worked at the facility, who were engaged in demining the site for future construction and the bottom of the Volga - the proximity to Stalingrad made itself felt. The construction site employed about 40 thousand people and 19 thousand different mechanisms and cars. In 1961, having turned from “Stalingrad HPP” into “Volzhskaya HPP named after the 21st Congress of the CPSU”, the station was put into operation. It was solemnly opened by Khrushchev himself. The hydroelectric power station was a gift for the 21st Congress, at which Nikita Sergeevich, by the way, announced his intention to build communism by 1980.

Bratsk hydroelectric power station

The construction of the hydroelectric power station began in 1954 on the Angara River. The small village of Bratsk soon expanded into a large city. The construction of the hydroelectric power station was positioned as a shock Komsomol construction site. Hundreds of thousands of Komsomol members from all over the Union came to the development of Siberia. Until 1971, the Bratsk hydroelectric power station was the largest in the world, and the Bratsk reservoir became the world's largest artificial reservoir. When it was filled, about 100 villages were flooded. The tragedy of "Angarsk Atlantis" in particular is dedicated to the piercing work of Valentin Rasputin "Farewell to Matera".

The construction projects in the Soviet Union were large-scale, as were the ambitions of this state. Nevertheless, no one ever thought about human fate in the USSR on a large scale.

Algemba: About 35,000 people died!

The most cruel ruler of the Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be Stalin, who violated the precepts of Ilyich. It is he who is credited with creating a network of camps (GULAG), it was he who initiated the construction of the White Sea Canal by the forces of prisoners. The fact that one of the first construction projects took place under the direct supervision of Lenin is somehow forgotten. And it is not surprising: all materials related to Algemba - the first attempt of the young Soviet government to acquire its own oil pipeline - were classified for a long time.

In December 1919, Frunze's army seized the Emben oil fields in northern Kazakhstan in battle. By that time, more than 14 million poods of oil had accumulated there. This oil could have been a salvation for the Soviet republic. On December 24, 1919, the Workers 'and Peasants' Defense Council decided to start the construction of a railroad through which oil could be transported from Kazakhstan to the center, and ordered: "To recognize the construction of the Alexandrov Gai-Emba broad-gauge line as an operational task." The city of Aleksandrov Gai, located 300 km from Saratov, was the last railway point. The distance from it to the oil fields was about 500 versts. Most of the route ran along the waterless saline steppes. It was decided to build the highway at the same time from both ends and meet on the Ural River near the village of Grebenshchikovo.

Frunze's army was the first to be thrown into the construction of the railway (despite his protests). There was no transport, no fuel, no enough food. In the conditions of the waterless steppe, there was nowhere even to place soldiers. Widespread diseases began, which grew into an epidemic. The local population was forcibly involved in the construction: about forty-five thousand residents of Saratov and Samara. People almost manually created the embankment, along which they were later to lay the rails.

In March 1920, the task became even more complicated: it was decided to build a pipeline in parallel with the railway. It was then that the word "Algemba" was first heard (from the first letters Aleksandrov Gai and the name of the field - Emba). There were no trumpets, like everything else. The only plant that was once engaged in their production stood for a long time. The remnants were collected in warehouses, at best they were enough for 15 versts (and it was necessary to lay 500!).

Lenin began to look for an alternative solution. At first, it was proposed to produce wooden pipes. The specialists just threw up their hands: firstly, it is impossible to maintain the necessary pressure in them, and secondly, Kazakhstan does not have its own forests, there is nowhere to get wood. Then it was decided to dismantle sections of the existing pipelines. The pipes varied greatly in length and diameter, but this did not bother the Bolsheviks. Another thing was embarrassing: the assembled "spare parts" were still not enough even for half of the pipeline! However, the work continued.

By the end of 1920, the construction site began to choke. Typhus carried away several hundred people a day. Guards were set up along the road, because the locals began to pull apart the sleepers. The workers generally refused to go to work. Food rations were extremely low (especially in the Kazakh sector).

Lenin demanded to understand the reasons for the sabotage. But there was no sabotage at all. Hunger, cold and disease collected a terrible tribute among the builders. In 1921, cholera came to the construction site. Despite the courage of the doctors who voluntarily arrived at Algemba, the mortality rate was appalling. But the worst thing was different: four months after the start of construction of Algemba, already in April 1920, Baku and Grozny were liberated. The Emben oil was no longer needed. Thousands of lives sacrificed to the construction site were in vain.

Already then it was possible to stop the senseless activity of laying Algemba. But Lenin stubbornly insisted on the continuation of construction, which cost the state fabulously dear. In 1920, the government allocated a billion rubles in cash for this construction. No one has ever received a complete report, but there is an assumption that the funds have settled in foreign accounts. Neither the railway nor the pipeline was built: on October 6, 1921, construction was stopped by Lenin's directive. A year and a half Algemba cost thirty-five thousand human lives.

Belomorkanal: 700 deaths a day!

The initiator of the construction of the White Sea Canal was Joseph Stalin. The country needed labor victories, global achievements. And preferably without extra costs since the Soviet Union was going through an economic crisis. The White Sea Canal was supposed to connect the White Sea with the Baltic Sea and open the passage for ships that previously had to go around the entire Scandinavian Peninsula. The idea of ​​creating an artificial passage between the seas was known back in the time of Peter the Great (and the Russians have been using the system of trails along the entire length of the future Belomorkanal for a long time). But the way the project was implemented (and Naftali Frenkel was appointed the head of the canal construction) turned out to be so cruel that it forced historians and publicists to look for parallels in the slave-owning states.

The total length of the canal is 227 kilometers. On this waterway there are 19 locks (13 of which are two-chamber), 15 dams, 49 dams, 12 waterways. The scale of the construction is amazing, especially when you consider that it was all built in an incredibly short time: 20 months and 10 days. For comparison, the 80-kilometer Panama Canal took 28 years to build, and the 160-kilometer Suez Canal took ten years.

The White Sea Canal was built from beginning to end by the forces of prisoners. Convicted designers created drawings, found extraordinary technical solutions(dictated by the lack of machines and materials). Those who did not have an education suitable for design spent day and night digging a canal, waist-deep in liquid mud, driven not only by supervisors, but also by members of their brigade: those who did not fulfill the quota were reduced to an already meager diet. This was one road: in concrete (the dead on the Belomorkanal were not buried, but simply fell asleep at random into the pits, which were then poured with concrete and served as the bottom of the canal).

The main tools in construction were a wheelbarrow, a sledgehammer, a shovel, an ax, and a wooden crane for moving boulders. Prisoners, unable to withstand the unbearable conditions of detention and backbreaking work, died in the hundreds. At times, the death rate reached 700 people per day. Meanwhile, newspapers published editorials dedicated to the "reforging of labor" of hardened recidivists and political criminals. Of course, it was not without postscripts and eyewash. The channel bed was made shallower than it was calculated in the project, and the start of construction was postponed retroactively to 1932 (in fact, work began a year earlier).

About 280 thousand prisoners took part in the construction of the canal, of which about 100 thousand died. Those who survived (one in six) were reduced in terms of imprisonment, and some were even awarded the "Order of the Baltic-White Sea Canal." The entire leadership of the OGPU was awarded orders. Stalin, who visited the opened canal at the end of July 1933, was pleased. The system has shown its effectiveness. There was only one catch: shortening the terms was earned by the most physically strong and efficient prisoners.

In 1938, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Stalin raised the question: “Are you correct in proposing a list for the release of these prisoners? They quit their jobs ... We are doing badly by disrupting the work of the camps. The release of these people, of course, is necessary, but from the point of view of the state economy, this is bad ... the best people and stay the worst. Is it possible to turn things differently so that these people stay at work - give awards, orders, maybe? .. ”But, fortunately for the prisoners, such a decision was not made: a prisoner with a government award on a robe would look too strange ...

BAM: 1 meter - 1 human life!

In 1948, with the beginning of the construction of the subsequent "great construction projects of communism" (the Volga-Don Canal, the Volga-Baltic waterway, the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric power stations and other facilities), the authorities used the already proven method: they built large labor camps that served the construction sites. And it was easy to find those who would fill the vacancies of the slaves. Only by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of June 4, 1947 "On criminal liability for theft of state and public property" hundreds of thousands of people got into the zone. The labor of prisoners was used in the most labor-intensive and "harmful" industries.

In 1951, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov reported at the meeting: “I must say that in a number of sectors of the national economy the Ministry of Internal Affairs occupies a monopoly position, for example, the gold mining industry — it is all concentrated in our country; the production of diamonds, silver, platinum - all this is entirely concentrated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; mining of asbestos and apatite - entirely in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We are 100% engaged in tin production, 80% specific gravity occupies the Ministry of Internal Affairs for non-ferrous metals ... ”The minister did not mention only one thing: prisoners also produced 100% of radium in the country.

The world's greatest Komsomol construction project - BAM, about which songs were composed, films were shot, enthusiastic articles were written - did not begin with a call to youth. In 1934, prisoners were sent to build the Belomorkanal to build a railway that was supposed to connect Taishet on the Transsib with Komsomolsk-on-Amur. According to Jacques Rossi's "Handbook on the Gulag" (and this is the most objective this moment book about the camp system) about 50 thousand prisoners worked at BAM in the 1950s.

Especially for the needs of the construction site, a new camp for prisoners was created - BAMlag, the zone of which stretched from Chita to Khabarovsk. The daily ration was traditionally meager: a loaf of bread and a stew of frozen fish. There were not enough barracks for everyone. People died from cold and scurvy (in order to delay the approach of this terrible disease at least for a while, they chewed pine needles). For several years, more than 2.5 thousand kilometers of the railway have been built. Historians have calculated: each meter of BAM is paid for by one human life.

The official history of the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline began in 1974, during the Brezhnev era. Echelons with young people were drawn to the BAM. The prisoners continued to work, but their participation in the "construction of the century" was hushed up. And ten years later, in 1984, a "golden crutch" was driven in, symbolizing the end of another gigantic construction project, which is still associated with smiling young romantics who are not afraid of difficulties.

These construction projects have a lot in common: both the fact that the projects were difficult to implement (in particular, the BAM and Belomorkanal were conceived back in tsarist Russia, but due to the lack of budgetary funds they fell under the carpet), and the fact that the work was carried out with minimal technical support, and the fact that slaves were used instead of workers (otherwise the position of the builders is difficult to name). But, perhaps, the most terrible common feature is that all these roads (both land and water) are many kilometers of mass graves. When you read dry statistical calculations, Nekrasov's one comes to mind: “And on the sides, all the bones are Russian. How many of them, Vanechka, do you know? "

(Material taken from: “100 famous mysteries of history” by MA Pankov, I.Yu. Romanenko and others).

Great construction sites

The party, the country took up the difficult work of fulfilling the "five-year plan," as the plan was called in abbreviated form. An entire constellation of construction sites has sprung up in both old industrial areas and promising new areas that previously had little or no industry. There was a reconstruction of old factories in Moscow, Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Donbass: they were expanded and equipped with new imported equipment. Completely new enterprises were built, they were conceived on a large scale and with the expectation of the most modern technology; construction was often carried out according to projects ordered abroad: in America, Germany. The plan gave priority to the branches of heavy industry: fuel, metallurgy, chemical, electric power, as well as mechanical engineering in general, that is, the sector that will be called upon to make the USSR technically independent, in other words, capable of producing its own machines. For these industries, gigantic construction sites were created, enterprises were erected, with which the memory of the first five-year plan will forever be associated, about which the whole country, the whole world will speak: the Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk, and then the Kharkov tractor plants, huge heavy machine-building plants in Sverdlovsk and Kramatorsk, automobile plants in Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow, the first ball bearing plant, chemical plants in Bobriki and Berezniki.

The most famous among the new buildings were two metallurgical plants: Magnitogorsk - in the Urals and Kuznetsk - in Western Siberia. The decision to build them was made after long and bitter disputes between the Ukrainian and Siberian-Ural leaders, which began in 1926 and dragged on until the end of 1929. The former emphasized that the expansion of already existing metallurgical enterprises in the south of the country would require lower costs; the second - the prospects for the industrial transformation of the Soviet East. Finally, military considerations tipped the balance in favor of the latter. In 1930, the decision acquired an expanded large-scale character - the creation in Russia along with the southern "second industrial base", "the second coal and metallurgical center". The fuel was to be Kuzbass coal, and the ore was to be delivered from the Urals, from the bowels famous mountain Magnetic, which gave the name to the city of Magnitogorsk. The distance between these two points was 2 thousand km. Long trains had to shuttle from one to the other, carrying ore in one direction and coal in the opposite direction. The question of the costs associated with all of this was not taken into account, since it was about the creation of a powerful new industrial area, remote from the borders and, therefore, protected from the threat of attack from outside.

Many enterprises, starting with the two colossus of metallurgy, were built in the bare steppe, or at least in places where there was no infrastructure, outside or even far from settlements. Apatite mines in the Khibiny, designed to provide raw materials for the production of superphosphate, were located generally in the tundra on the Kola Peninsula, beyond the Arctic Circle.

The history of great construction projects is unusual and dramatic. They went down in history as one of the most amazing accomplishments of the 20th century. Russia lacked the experience, specialists, and equipment to carry out work of this magnitude. Tens of thousands of people began to build, practically counting only on own hands... With shovels, they dug the earth, loaded it on wooden carts - the famous grabarks, which stretched back and forth in an endless line from morning to night. An eyewitness says: "From a distance, the construction site seemed like an anthill ... Thousands of people, horses and even ... camels worked in the clouds of dust." First, the builders huddled in tents, then in wooden barracks: 80 people in each, less than 2 square meters. m per soul.

At the construction of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, for the first time, it was decided to continue construction in the winter. We had to hurry. Therefore, they worked at 20, 30, 40 degrees of frost. Before the eyes of foreign consultants, sometimes admiring, but more often skeptical about this picture, which they perceived primarily as a spectacle of grandiose chaos, an expensive and most modern equipment bought abroad.

One of the leading participants recalls the birth of the first Stalingrad Tractor Plant: “Even for those who saw this time with their own eyes, it is not easy to remember now how it all looked. It is completely impossible for younger people to imagine everything that rises from the pages. old book... One of its chapters is called: "Yes, we broke machines." This chapter was written by L. Makaryants, a member of the Komsomol, a worker who came to Stalingrad from a Moscow factory. Even for him, American machines without belt transmissions, with an individual motor, were a marvel. He didn't know how to handle them. And what about the peasants who came from the village? They were illiterate - reading and writing was a problem for them. Everything was then a problem. There were no spoons in the dining room ... There was a problem with bugs in the barracks ... ". And here is what the first director of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant wrote in a book published in the early 1930s: “In the mechanical assembly shop, I approached a guy who was grinding the liners. I suggested to him: "Measure it." He began to measure with his fingers ... We did not have an instrument, a measuring instrument ”. In short, it was more of a mass assault than a systematic work. Under these conditions, there were numerous acts of selflessness, personal courage, fearlessness, all the more heroic, since most of them were destined to remain unknown. There were people who dived into icy water to close the hole; who, even with a fever, without sleep and rest, did not leave their working post for several days; who did not descend from the woods, even to have a snack, just to quickly set the blast furnace in motion ...

Among Soviet authors, who today entrust their reflections on that period to paper and evaluate it in accordance with their own ideological preferences, some are inclined to attribute the merit to this impulse of the extraordinary resilience of the Russian people in the most difficult trials, others, on the contrary, to the latent energy hidden in the popular masses and the liberated revolution. Be that as it may, from many memories it is clear that a powerful stimulus for many people was the idea that in a short time, at the cost of exhausting hard efforts, it is possible to create a better, that is, a socialist, future. This was discussed at the rallies. At the meetings, they remembered the feats of the fathers in 1917-1920. and called on the youth to "overcome all difficulties" for the sake of laying the foundation for the "bright edifice of socialism." At a time when the crisis was raging throughout the rest of the world, "the youth and workers in Russia," as one English banker remarked, "lived with hope, which, unfortunately, is so lacking today in the capitalist countries." Such collective feelings are not born out of spontaneous reproduction. Undoubtedly, being able to evoke and sustain such a wave of enthusiasm and trust is in itself no small merit; and this merit belonged to the party and the Stalinist trend, which from now on completely ruled it. One cannot deny the validity of Stalin's reasoning, when in June 1930 at the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) he declared, in fact betraying his innermost thought, that if it were not for the idea of ​​"socialism in one country," this impulse would not have been possible. ... “Take away from him (the working class. - Approx. ed.) confidence in the possibility of building socialism, and you will destroy all soil for competition, for labor upsurge, for shock workers. "

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LOCATION

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opening date

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Price

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LOCATION

Earth's orbit

opening date

2024 year

Price

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LOCATION

Abu Dhabi, UAE

opening date

2020 year

Price

$ 20 billion

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LOCATION

Dubai, UAE

opening date

2015 year

Price

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LOCATION

South Korea

opening date

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Price

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