Oil Industry of USSR in Late 1920s - 1930s: Conflicting Development Results

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the critical importance for the country of technological breakthrough, overcoming the inhibition of modernization processes. The novelty of the study is in the fact that on the basis of published and declassified archival documents, the problem of implementing the development plans for the oil industry in the years of the first five-year plans is investigated, factors that determine their failure are identified. As the main reasons, based on the results of the analysis of documentary data, serious strategic miscalculations in planning, the elimination of a whole cohort of brilliant oil workers were identified. The studied documents and materials made it possible to formulate the conclusion that large-scale plans were not fully supported by financial, human, technological resources. It is proved that this caused a disproportion between the growth of the national economy and the country's fuel balance. Particular attention is paid to the serious miscalculations of the Soviet government regarding the creation of an oil base in the east of the country. It is proved that, despite the recommendations of prominent scientists, only in the late 1930s the course changed, the realization of the need to search and develop new deposits in the Ural-Volga region came. It is concluded that as a result, by 1941, this oil-bearing region was not sufficiently mastered, but the foundation of “Second Baku” was laid.

Keywords

• пятилетки
• форсированная индустриализация
• план
• нефтяная промышленность
• «второе баку»
• five-year plans
• forced industrialization
• plan
• oil industry
• second baku