BACKGROUND OF THE CREATION OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION
Russian historical traditions of managing the military industry from a single center go back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when, in the conditions of the First World War, special bodies were created to manage the military economy - special meetings. The main one - “Special meeting to discuss measures for the defense of the state” - was headed by the Minister of War, it was attended by representatives of government bodies (the State Duma, the State Council, etc.), industrialists and entrepreneurs. The tasks of the Special Meeting included the distribution of military orders and control over their implementation at enterprises that produced military products, and issues of supplying the army. Public control bodies - military-industrial committees - became a kind of intermediary between the state and private industry in the distribution of military orders and the issuance of advances. At the end of May 1915, at the 9th All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Trade and Industry, the Central Military-Industrial Committee was elected, headed by the leader of the Octobrist party A. Guchkov and the progressive A. Konovalov.
After the total mobilization of the country's military resources during the First World War, the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War, under the conditions of NEP, there was a sharp, almost landslide reduction in military spending, the size of the armed forces and the defense potential of the country as a whole.
As a result, at the turn of the 20-30s of the twentieth century, the USSR had a limited system of “personnel” military enterprises, collected in trusts and associations under the general leadership of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh).
After the liquidation of the Supreme Economic Council, in January 1932, defense enterprises transferred to the system of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (NKTP). At the end of 1936, the period of creation of a specialized defense industry began within the framework of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry (NKOP). At the same time, at this time there were massive repressions and changes in personnel among the leaders of the defense industry and the military department. In connection with the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, in the conditions of a direct military threat, the USSR began accelerated preparations for war, the growth of the armed forces and the increase in weapons production. The signs of the new period were such facts as the adoption of the emergency mobilization plan - MP-1 for the "special" IV quarter of 1939, the reorganization of management carried out in the same year - the division of the NKOP into specialized people's commissariats: the aviation industry, weapons, ammunition, shipbuilding industry.
ON THE EVE OF WAR: MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION - MOBILIZATION BODY
Mobilization work related to preparation for war was a “bottleneck” in the system of Soviet defense construction in the 30s. The leaders of the military and industrial departments advocated the creation of a single “mobilization” body that would concentrate the functions of preparing industry and the economy as a whole for war. Such a body was the Military-Industrial Commission created in 1938 under the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars (KO under the Council of People's Commissars).
The original name of this body was the Permanent Mobilization Commission of the Council of People's Commissars. At its first meeting, on May 4, 1938, K.E. Voroshilov, N.I. Ezhov, M.M. Kaganovich, P.I. Smirnov, N.A. Voznesensky (Chairman of the State Planning Committee), B.M. Shaposhnikov, M.I. Kulik, I.F. Tevosyan and others. Thus, the commission included representatives of the military leadership, heads of industry, and security agencies.
On June 14, 1938, a meeting of the commission took place under its new name - the Military-Industrial Commission. At the meeting, among other issues, it was decided to accept the proposal proposed by L.M. Kaganovich project "On the tasks of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and on the construction of its apparatus."
According to this document, the Military-Industrial Commission was a working body of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The military-industrial complex had the main task of “mobilizing and preparing industry, both defense and non-defense, to fully ensure the implementation of the plans and assignments of the Defense Committee for the production and supply of weapons to the Red Army and the Navy.”
The functions of the military-industrial complex included:
Review of mobilization applications;
Checking calculations of needs and consumption standards for mobile applications;
Distribution of mobilization tasks between the People's Commissariats of the Union and Union republics and checking the correct distribution of orders between enterprises;
Drawing up a consolidated industrial mobilization plan for all its sections;
Coordination of the mobilization-industrial plan with the national economic plan (together with the Mobsector of the USSR State Planning Committee);
Survey of production capacities of enterprises, determination of their mobilization purpose, development of measures to increase new production capacities, assimilation of civil production and their proper implementation;
Verification of the implementation of the mobilization plan and the program of current military orders by enterprises and people's commissariats;
Development of logistics plans, mobilization tasks for all main types of supplies (equipment, raw materials, tools, semi-finished products, etc.);
Establishment of a production zoning system to reduce transportation and achieve completeness of production;
Development of measures to increase production output by main enterprises through their cooperation with related enterprises;
Development of a plan and measures to provide mobilized industry with labor and engineering personnel in wartime;
Development of standards for the accumulation of industrial mobile stocks, checking their availability and quality, establishing rules for storing and refreshing mobile stocks;
Conducting, by special decision of the CO, experimental mobilizations of individual industrial enterprises or entire industrial sectors;
Development of issues related to the use of all kinds of technical inventions in the military industry, especially the replacement of acutely scarce materials in the production of weapons;
Development of instructions on military mobilization work in the People's Commissariats, main departments, trusts and enterprises; monitoring the work of military departments in the above-mentioned bodies, organizing the selection and training of moborgan personnel and maintaining military-industrial secrets.
The military-industrial complex consisted of the chairman of the commission with the rank of deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (L.M. Kaganovich became the chairman), two of his deputies and a secretary, as well as seventeen permanent members of the commission. The latter included representatives of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the NKVD (as the main customers of military products) - the People's Commissar of Defense, the People's Commissar of the Navy, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, the chiefs of the General Staff of the Red Army, the Main Naval Staff, the Red Army Air Force, the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, the Armored Directorate of the Red Army; heads of defense and heavy industry: people's commissars of the aviation industry, shipbuilding, ammunition, weapons, chemical industry, heavy engineering, medium engineering, general engineering; and also the Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR.
According to paragraph “6” of this document, the decisions of the Military-Industrial Commission required the approval of the chairman of the Defense Committee and only after that were mandatory for implementation.
To carry out daily work within the military-industrial complex, a secretariat was allocated, consisting of an organizational planning sector, industry sectors and the general part of the secretariat.
The organizational planning sector of the military-industrial complex was responsible for “studying the historical and modern foreign experience of industrial mobilization and finding on this basis the most rational organizational forms of mobilization preparation of industry, developing instructions and regulations for mob work, developing the structure and staff of moborgans, ensuring the preservation of military-industrial secrets, conclusion according to the mobilization requests of the military people's commissariats, the distribution of the mobilization requests by industry sector, the generalization of summary data on the mobilization plan, the issuance of the mobilization tasks to the people's commissariats and other organizations and applications for raw materials and semi-finished products, identification of production capacities, supply of "labour technical forces", etc.
The secretariat of the military-industrial complex also included industry sectors responsible for the mobilization preparation of the relevant industries: 1) weapons, with groups of small arms, artillery materiel, military equipment; 2) ammunition, consisting of groups of cases, tubes, fuses, cartridges, gunpowder, explosives, equipment and closures; 3) aviation; 4) armored vehicles; 5) military chemical; 6) shipbuilding; 7) engineering property and communications.
The functions of the industry sectors included the development of the entire range of issues related to the mobilization preparation of this branch of production, and in particular:
"- accounting and identification of existing production capacities of the relevant branch of production and comparing them with the volume of mobile applications for this type of weapons;
Preparation of conclusions on mobile applications for this type of weapons;
Finding additional production capacity and developing measures to increase new capacity;
Development of issues of industrial cooperation between enterprises;
Placing a mobile application and checking the mobile readiness of enterprises;
Generalization of the consolidated needs for equipment, raw materials, tools, labor, etc.;
Introduction of new technical improvements and highly profitable technological processes into production, as well as development of issues related to the replacement of acutely scarce and imported materials;
Determination of standards for the accumulation of mobile stocks and control over their creation and refreshment;
Preparation of decisions for this industry and monitoring the timeliness and quality of their execution;
Monitoring and ensuring the implementation of the program of current military orders in this branch of production;
Monitoring the development of issues of unloading and evacuation of industrial enterprises located in threatened areas."
The procedure for developing a mobilization plan was also established. Within the deadlines established by the Defense Committee, the military people's commissariats (NKO, NKVMF, NKVD) had to submit to the military-industrial complex mobile applications for the war year for "weapons and military equipment." The consolidated mobilization plan for industry was gradually developed by the military-industrial complex in one copy and consisted of the following sections: a supply plan, a production cooperation plan, a logistics plan, a capacity expansion plan, a plan for providing labor and technical equipment, a plan for the accumulation of mobile stocks, a financial plan, and a transportation plan.
The military-industrial complex sectors were obliged to monitor the mob readiness of enterprises and people's commissariats and, in accordance with the changes taking place, make the necessary adjustments to the mob plan.
In addition, the military-industrial complex as a whole was supposed to act as an “arbiter” in resolving controversial issues between departments. The decision of the military-industrial complex dated September 27 on the issue “On the configuration of an artillery round,” in particular, stated: “If there are disagreements on supply issues between the people’s commissar of the defense industry and the people’s commissars of other supplying commissariats, the controversial issues are resolved by the military-industrial complex.”
The ideas of military mobilization enjoyed well-organized support “from the localities” - from factories, from grassroots mobilization bodies. A striking example is the letter from V.M. Molotov, head of the motor department of the road engineering plant in Rybinsk (People's Commissariat of Mechanical Engineering) dated December 1, 1938. The very tone of the letter and the phraseology of the author were characteristic of the era: “It is enough to read the newspapers to see and understand the alarming and ominous nature of the current international situation. While maintaining the capitalist building, under a capitalist encirclement, a long-term, lasting peace is impossible - each of us understands this, and therefore we hear everywhere that war is inevitable, that we all must build, create and strengthen the defense capability of our country. This should be the case, but this is not quite the case in actually.
The complete stagnation of mobilization work at our plant gives us the right to assume that there is a similar stagnation at other factories, Main Directorates and People's Commissariat: Our plant's appeals to Main Directorate on this issue received almost no answers. On business trips to Moscow, both in the special department of your Main Directorate and in the Military Department of NKMash, you hear that new mob plans are being drawn up and nothing else. Such conversations have been dragging on for almost a year, but things are still there. It's not good to work like that.
: During all seven years of my work in the special department of this plant, only once was a survey of the state of the mobilization work of the plant carried out and this survey was carried out in 1935, i.e. during the work of the sabotage organization headed by Pyatakov."
The conclusion of the author of the letter sounded in the spirit of the times: “The above chaotic state in the mobilization work of industry, the absence of a definite system and directives, causes serious concern and forces us to turn to you for help, since we need to always be on the alert, we must always be ready to meet the enemy, the enemy is strong and does not sleep - this is what our Party teaches us and this is what Comrade STALIN and our Government teach us.”
During the war, all management functions of the defense industry were transferred to the State Defense Committee (GKO).
AFTER THE WAR: THE PATH TO UNITY
In the first post-war years, there was no single body for managing military-industrial affairs. By resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR in February 1947, sectoral bureaus for industry and agriculture were created under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Nine industry bureaus, including mechanical engineering and shipbuilding, headed by V.A. Malyshev, were engaged in the defense industries. Supervision of the Ministry of the Armed Forces was carried out directly by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and from April 1949 this work was entrusted to N.A. Bulganin, including responsibility for the work of the ministries of aviation industry and weapons, which were removed from the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding.
In May 1948, defense industry leaders D.F. Ustinov and M.Z. Saburov took the initiative to create a single center in the government for military and military-industrial affairs. This body was supposed to be in charge of current issues of the military industry, the development and implementation of mobilization plans, the creation of new types of weapons, and the coordination of the work of branches of the defense industry. According to defense industry leaders, the need to create such a body is long overdue.
These actions were a sign of the formation of a community of interests among the leaders of the military-industrial complex. In practice, this resulted in the creation in 1951 of the Bureau of Military and Military-Industrial Issues under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, chaired by N.A. Bulganin, which operated from February 1951 to October 1952. Members of the bureau were A.M. Vasilevsky - Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR, D.F. Ustinov - Minister of Armaments of the USSR, M.V. Khrunichev - Minister of Aviation Industry of the USSR, I.S. Yumashev - Minister of Navy of the USSR.
The bureau was engaged in the consideration of plans for military orders, research work on military equipment, the adoption of new models and the removal of obsolete ones from service, and other issues related to the provision of the army and navy with weapons and military-technical equipment. Fundamental issues on military equipment were considered and approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The bureau did not have a special apparatus (with the exception of a small secretariat); the functions of the apparatus were performed by sectoral groups of the Administration of the Affairs of the USSR Council of Ministers.
After the death of I.V. Stalin, in the conditions of the struggle for power, went through a series of reorganizations and a search for forms of economic management, including military sectors. In 1953, sectoral bureaus under the USSR Council of Ministers were abolished. In 1953 - 1956 The issues of coordinating the activities of defense industries were dealt with by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR - N.A. Bulganin, V.A. Malyshev, M.Z. Saburov, M.V. Khrunichev. General supervision and resolution of fundamental and cross-sectoral issues of the defense industries and the Ministry of Defense was carried out by the Bureau of the USSR Council of Ministers.
In December 1956, the functions of managing defense industries were transferred to the State Economic Commission. This body can be called the predecessor of the Military-Industrial Commission. The State Economic Commission prepared proposals on issues of military equipment and provided operational management of the defense industries. The commission was given the right to issue orders and regulations in the field of industry that are binding. In December 1957, the State Economic Commission was liquidated. On December 6, 1957, the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues was created under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The role of the commission as a coordinator was especially high in the conditions of the N.S. reform. Khrushchev on the decentralization of economic management - through the system of "economic councils" - in 1957-1958. However, even after the restoration of the ministries in 1965, the commission retained its functions and became the most stable organizational form of coordination of the multifaceted activities of the country’s military-industrial complex, until the end of the Soviet period.
This is how the main tasks and functions of the commission were characterized in the book “The Domestic Military-Industrial Complex”, published in 2005, written by the “defense workers” themselves:
"The main tasks of the military-industrial complex were:
Organization and coordination of work on the creation of modern types of weapons and military equipment;
Coordination of the work of defense industries, other ministries and departments of the USSR involved in the creation and production of weapons and military equipment;
Ensuring, together with the USSR State Planning Committee, the comprehensive development of defense industries;
Increasing the technical level of production, quality and reliability of weapons and military equipment;
Operational management and control over the activities of defense industries, including the creation, production and supply of weapons and military equipment, production of consumer goods and other civilian products in volumes equal in value to the wage fund of enterprises in the industry, as well as control over the activities other industries on these issues;
Preparation, together with the State Planning Committee of the USSR and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, of weapons programs, five-year and annual plans for the creation, production and release of weapons and military equipment and submitting them for consideration and approval;
Preparation and submission, together with the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the Ministries of Defense and Finance, for consideration by the USSR Defense Council and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, of proposals on target figures for the country's expenditures on the creation and production of weapons, military and other special equipment of defense significance in the corresponding planning periods;
Coordination of foreign economic relations of defense industries for military-technical cooperation."
In cases of disagreement between the ministries of defense industries, the USSR State Planning Committee and the USSR Ministry of Defense "when considering the military-industrial complex of current annual plans for the production and supply of weapons and military equipment, weapons plans and programs, research and development work on weapons and military equipment, the creation mobilization capacities, as well as when developing these plans, taking into account their execution,” the military-industrial complex had to make the final decision. Sometimes on fundamental issues of a financial, material and resource nature, the final decision was made by the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.
At different periods of the work of the military-industrial complex, its composition, as a rule, included the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR - chairman of the military-industrial complex, the first deputy chairman of the military-industrial complex - with the rank of minister of the USSR, deputy chairmen of the military-industrial complex, the first deputy chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee in charge of defense industry issues, ministers of defense industries industry, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for Armaments, as well as well-known and authoritative scientists and industrial organizers.
During the entire post-war period, meetings of the military-industrial complex were always held in the Oval Hall of the Kremlin once a week.
“By the mid-80s, the military-industrial complex had 15 departments involved in the creation of weapons and military equipment, analysis of the production activities of ministries and the economic efficiency of the military-industrial complex, the introduction into production of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, advanced technologies, military-technical cooperation with foreign countries."
The staff of the military-industrial complex apparatus included representatives of the main branches of the complex: “50% came from ministries with leadership positions, 10% from the USSR State Planning Committee, 6% from the USSR Ministry of Defense, 34% from research institutes, design bureaus and factories.” The most numerous were the leaders of the defense industry and the scientific and technical elite, the smallest percentage came from the military department. Scientific and technical personnel, including prominent scientists, participated in the work of the Scientific and Technical Council, which operated under the military-industrial complex.
Since the formation of the military-industrial complex in 1957, it was successively headed by Dmitry Fedorovich Ustinov (1957-1963), Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov (1963-1985), Yuri Dmitrievich Maslyukov (1985-1988), Igor Sergeevich Belousov (1988- 1991).
D.F. USTINOV - THE CHIEF LEADER OF THE SOVIET MICRAPHIC INDUSTRY
On the eve of the “Council of Economics” reform N.S. Khrushchev, in 1957, Minister of Defense Industry D.F. Ustinov, together with a group of military-industrial leaders of the USSR, addressed Khrushchev with a note in which an attempt was made to justify the inappropriateness of dispersing the main core of the defense industry ministries among economic councils.
However, the transformations of 1957-1958. However, the defense industry was also affected. At the same time, D.F. Ustinov was appointed chairman of the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues, which significantly strengthened his status. His leadership of the commission contributed to the latter's transformation into the most influential body for coordinating the efforts of military and defense-industrial departments, which it remained until the mid-80s. Symbolic was the coincidence of the abbreviated name of the Military-Industrial Commission - VPK - with the acronym of the military-industrial complex, a reflection of the influence of the power of which it was. For three decades, not a single important decision on “defense” issues was made without the knowledge of the commission.
In 1963, Ustinov became chairman of the restored Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh). This appointment caused a stir in the West: observers decided that now the USSR would only produce missiles.
After Khrushchev's removal, Ustinov continued to move up the career ladder. In September 1965, at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, the issue of “improving industrial management, improving planning and strengthening economic incentives for industrial production” was considered, and Ustinov was elected Secretary of the Central Committee for coordinating the activities of scientific institutions, design bureaus, and industrial enterprises of the defense industry.
According to Soviet “defense specialists,” it was under Dmitry Fedorovich Ustinov that the foundations of the business style of work of the Department of Defense Industry of the CPSU Central Committee were formed: “For D.F. Ustinov, there were no secondary issues; he had the expression: “finalize the issue until the bell rings.” Of course, the direct management of the department was carried out by its head, but D.F. Ustinov carefully and in detail discussed the state of affairs in individual areas with the deputy heads of the department, heads of sectors. He often had instructors, especially after visiting enterprises, organizations, test sites - in a word, all the places where military equipment was created and tested."
In general, Ustinov’s exceptional status as the first leader of the military-industrial complex was associated not only with his character and efficiency, but also with his unique position in the defense industry, which allowed him to thoroughly study the entire system of the military-industrial complex of the USSR. Within this system, despite its corporate integrity, dualism remained between the two main branches - the military and the “civilian”. From this point of view, the appointment of Ustinov to the post of Minister of Defense in 1976 can be considered as a victory for the unity of the military-industrial complex, a partial overcoming of this dualism in favor of common corporate interests. It is interesting that one of the arguments of L.I. Brezhnev's reason for nominating Ustinov to this post was precisely the latter's civilian status: it was “good, from the point of view of the West,” since it confirmed the peace-loving foreign policy of the USSR.
Another series of arguments put forward by both Brezhnev and other members of the Politburo - Yu.V. Andropov, M.A. Suslov, V.V. Grishin: Ustinov was closely connected with all branches of the military-industrial complex: as a member of the Politburo, he was well acquainted with the work of the Ministry of Defense, with military personnel; He also knew design bureaus, leading designers, and defense enterprises. For his part, he was well known by “all the military and everyone in the Party,” and he enjoyed authority in various parts of the military-industrial complex.
* * *
The procedure for making decisions on military-industrial issues, basically established since the 60s, demonstrated the unity and joint work of all the main divisions of the Soviet military-industrial complex. Final decisions usually came out in the form of joint resolutions of the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which carried various classifications of secrecy and were secretly sent to the interested departments. The same special decisions of the highest authorities formalized any changes in policy related to the activities of the military-industrial complex. However, this was preceded by lengthy work by a number of departments.
Draft solutions were developed at the initial stage by those research and production departments that were involved in the development of one or another weapon system (some technical orders were also developed by scientific and technical organizations of the military department). Then all interested ministries submitted their proposals for the project to the Military-Industrial Commission, which was the main coordinating body of the entire complex. The commission made a lot of efforts, trying to harmonize the provisions of the document with the interests and capabilities of all interested departments, scientific, technical and scientific-production organizations. The final version of the project prepared by the commission was then sent to the Department of Defense Industry of the CPSU Central Committee, where it was subject to additions and adjustments and was issued in the form of a joint directive of the main bodies of the party and state leadership. This was the general scheme of decision-making in this area during the period of the “developed military-industrial complex,” when the latter occupied a leading place in the economy of the USSR. The re-establishment of the Military-Industrial Commission in 2006, along with other steps in the field of defense, indicates a gradual revival of the Russian leadership's interest in military-industrial issues and promises new prospects for the revival of the domestic defense industry.
Plan
Introduction
1 Structure
2 Geography of the military-industrial complex
3 Military-industrial complex and technology development
4 Ratings and opinions
Bibliography
Introduction
The military-industrial complex of the USSR (MIC USSR) is a constantly operating system of interrelations between subjects of the economic and socio-political structure of Soviet society related to ensuring the military security of the USSR. It was formed in the post-war years, under the conditions of the Cold War. More than ⅓ of all material, financial, scientific and technical resources of the country were spent on the development of the military-industrial complex in the USSR.
1. Structure
In different historical conditions, the composition of the institutions responsible for the formation of the Soviet military-industrial complex was different. In 1927, in addition to the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR and the Main Directorate of Military Industry of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, the following were considered to perform "defense" functions: OGPU, People's Commissariat of Communications, People's Commissariat of Trade, People's Commissariat of Post and Telegraph, People's Commissariat of Labor, Special Technical Bureau, local institutions Air-Chemical Defense. The single center of their strategic and operational management was the Council of Labor and Defense under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Thirty years later, in 1957, in addition to the Ministry of Defense of the USSR and the Ministry of Defense Industry of the USSR, the following were considered to directly perform “defense” functions: the Ministry of Aviation Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of Radio Engineering Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR, the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR , State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy, Main Directorate of State Material Reserves, Main Engineering Directorate of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, Glavspetsstroy under Gosmontazhspetsstroy, organization post office box No. 10, DOSAAF, Central Committee "Dynamo" and the All-Army Military Hunting Society. The centers of their strategic and operational management were the USSR Defense Council and the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues under the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers.
2. Geography of the military-industrial complex
The Soviet military-industrial complex had a vast geography. In various parts of the country there was intensive extraction of raw materials necessary for the production of atomic and nuclear weapons, production of small arms and artillery weapons, ammunition, production of tanks, airplanes and helicopters, shipbuilding, research and development work was carried out:
· Before the collapse of the Soviet Union uranium ore mining was carried out in many republics (RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Kazakh SSR, Uzbek SSR). Uranium oxide-oxide was produced by enterprises in the cities of Zheltye Vody (Ukraine, Dnepropetrovsk region), Stepnogorsk (Kazakhstan, Akmola region, Tselinny Mining and Chemical Combine), Chkalovsk (Tajikistan, Khujand region). Of the fairly numerous deposits of uranium ore in Russia, only one is currently being developed - in the area of the city of Krasnokamensk in the Chita region. Here, at the Priargunsky Mining and Chemical Production Association, uranium concentrate is also produced.
· Uranium enrichment is carried out in Zelenogorsk, Novouralsk, Seversk and Angarsk. Centers for production and separation of weapons-grade plutonium are Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory), Ozyorsk and Seversk. Nuclear weapons gather in several cities (Zarechny, Lesnoy, Sarov, Trekhgorny). The largest scientific and production centers of the nuclear complex are Sarov[Note. 1] and Snezhinsk. Finally, nuclear waste disposal- another branch of Snezhinsk’s specialization.
· Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs tests were carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site (modern Kazakhstan) and at the Novaya Zemlya test site (Novaya Zemlya archipelago).
· Aviation industry enterprises are available in almost all economic regions of the country, but they are most powerfully concentrated in Moscow and the Moscow region. Among the largest centers of the industry are Moscow (aircraft of the MiG, Su and Yak series, helicopters of the Mi series), Arsenyev (aircraft An-74, helicopters of the Ka series), Irkutsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur (aircraft Su), Kazan (aircraft Tu- 160, Mi helicopters), Lyubertsy (Ka helicopters), Saratov (Yak aircraft), Taganrog (A and Be seaplanes), Ulan-Ude (Su and MiG aircraft, Mi helicopters). Aviation engines are produced by enterprises in Kaluga, Moscow, Rybinsk, Perm, St. Petersburg, Ufa and other cities.
· Production of rocket and space technology is one of the most important branches of the military-industrial complex. The largest research and development organizations industries are concentrated in Moscow, the Moscow region (Dubna, Korolev, Reutov, Khimki), Miass and Zheleznogorsk.
· Moscow and the Moscow region are also important production centers rocket and space technology. Thus, ballistic missiles and long-term orbital stations were created in Moscow; in Korolev - ballistic missiles, artificial earth satellites, spaceships; aviation missiles of the air-to-surface class, in Zhukovsky - medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, in Dubna - anti-ship supersonic missiles, in Khimki - rocket engines for space systems (NPO Energomash).
· Rocket propulsion systems are produced in Voronezh, Perm, Nizhnyaya Salda and Kazan; various spacecraft - in Zheleznogorsk, Omsk, Samara.
· Unique launch equipment for rocket and space complexes is manufactured in Yurga.
· Ballistic missiles They are produced by enterprises in Votkinsk (Topol-M), Zlatoust and Krasnoyarsk (for submarines).
· The largest Russian cosmodrome is the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region. Since 1966, more than one and a half thousand launches of various spacecraft have been carried out at the cosmodrome. In addition, it is also a military training ground.
Leading control centers space flights located in the Moscow region; The famous Mission Control Center (MCC) is located in Korolev.
· Artillery weapons systems and spare parts for them are produced by enterprises in Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm (“Grad”, “Uragan”, “Smerch”), Podolsk and other cities.
· To your small arms Izhevsk, Kovrov, Tula (AK-74 assault rifle, SVD sniper rifle, AGS “Plamya” grenade launcher, smooth-bore weapons), Vyatskie Polyany are world famous. The development of unique small arms is carried out in Klimovsk.
Among the main centers armored industry can be called Nizhny Tagil (T-72 T-90 tanks) and Omsk (T-80UM tanks), Volgograd (armored personnel carriers), Kurgan (infantry fighting vehicles) and Arzamas (armored vehicles).
· Military shipbuilding to this day it is concentrated in St. Petersburg (submarines, nuclear-powered missile cruisers), Severodvinsk (nuclear submarines), Nizhny Novgorod and Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
· Ammunition production mainly concentrated at numerous factories in the Central, Volga-Vyatka, Volga, Ural and West Siberian regions.
· Chemical weapon produced in the USSR since the 1920s. For a long time it was produced by enterprises in Berezniki, Volgograd, Dzerzhinsk, Novocheboksarsk and Chapaevsk. Currently, an extremely difficult problem for the Russian Federation is the destruction of the gigantic arsenal of accumulated chemical weapons. The main storage bases for chemical weapons are Gorny (Saratov region), Kambarka and Kizner (Udmurtia), Leonidovka (Penza region), Maradykovsky (Kirov region), Pochep (Bryansk region), Shchuchye (Kurgan region).
3. Military-industrial complex and technology development
On the basis of the military-industrial complex, high-tech industries were created - aerospace, nuclear energy, television and radio engineering, electronics, biotechnology and others.
4. Ratings and opinions
In foreign historiography, the fact of the existence of a military-industrial complex in the USSR, in the indicated sense (“merging the interests of militarized social structures”), did not raise any doubts. There is even such a point of view that the USSR, by the nature of the political and economic system, the organization of power and management, thanks to the communist ideology and the great power aspirations of the Soviet leadership, is itself a military-industrial complex. As David Holloway writes in this regard:
There is a group of authors who do not share the ideological approach to the study of the Soviet military-industrial complex; believes, for example, that in the absence of clearly expressed complementary interests of weapons manufacturers and the military, for the USSR the “military-industrial complex” is equivalent to the concept of “defense industry” (eng. defense industry), represents a set of enterprises specializing in peacetime in the production of military products. Sometimes they use the concept of “defense complex” (eng. defense complex), which means a set of industries subordinate to special people's commissariats (ministries): aviation, shipbuilding, radio engineering and the like. The concept of “defense sector” is also used in scientific circulation. defense sector), which refers to the system of relationships between the USSR Ministry of Defense and industrial ministries - manufacturers of military products.
Over the past ten years, quite a lot of both sensible and absurd judgments have been expressed in the domestic and foreign media about the Soviet military-industrial complex and its problems, based on generalizations of individual facts or examples, including those of a retrospective nature. Some authors, however, argue that the military-industrial complex of the USSR is a source of scientific and technological progress and positive changes in the life of Soviet society, others, on the contrary, that it is a “social monster”, a source of socio-political stagnation and other negative phenomena .
This article examines some economic aspects of the development of the domestic military-industrial complex during the Soviet period of the history of the 20th century. In our work we rely heavily on archival data.
During the years of the Civil War and “war communism”, in conditions of international isolation, all weapons had to be produced within the country, relying on domestic resources. Since 1919, enterprises serving the artillery, navy, aviation, sapper troops and commissariat were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of various departments and transferred under the authority of the Council of Military Industry of the All-Russian Council of National Economy (VSNKh).
With the transition to the new economic policy, a reorganization of economic management began. In state industry, including military industry, group associations began to be created - trusts, which were supposed to work on the principles of economic accounting. In accordance with the decree on trusts of April 10, 1923, the Main Directorate of Military Industry of the USSR was created as part of the Supreme Economic Council, to which weapons, cartridge, gun, gunpowder, aviation and other military factories were subordinate; Aviatrest existed independently. In 1925, the military industry came under the jurisdiction of the Military-Industrial Directorate of the Supreme Economic Council, consisting of 4 trusts - weapons-arsenal, cartridge-tube, military-chemical and rifle-machine-gun.
In general, the military industry has been developing since the mid-20s. began to be transferred to the administrative bodies of the state, self-supporting principles in this area turned out to be unviable. With the beginning of accelerated industrialization, there was a transition to a more rigid system of state planning and management of industry, first through a system of sectoral departments, and then sectoral ministries 1.
Bystrova Irina Vladimirovna - Doctor of Historical Sciences (Institute of Russian History RAS).
The so-called period of the “military threat” of 1926-1927 can be considered the starting point for a new round of militarization and the creation of the military industry. and the subsequent rejection of NEP - the “great turning point” of 1929. By the decision of the Executive Meeting of the Council of Labor and Defense (RZ STO) on June 25, 1927, the Mobilization and Planning Directorate of the Supreme Economic Council was created, which was supposed to lead the preparation of industry for war. The main “working apparatuses” of the RZ STO in matters of preparation for war were the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, which was responsible for preparing the army, and the State Planning Committee of the USSR, which was in charge of developing control figures for the national economy “in case of war.” The People's Commissariat of Finance, in turn, was supposed to consider “emergency expenditure estimates for the first month of the war” 2 .
In specially developed decrees of the State Planning Committee and the RZ STO on the control figures for the 1927/28 business year, this time period was considered as “a conditional period when the main processes of transition to working conditions during the war (mobilization) take place in the national economy,” and the entire next year - as a period when “the main transition processes have already been completed.” In an environment of “military threat,” most of these plans were of a paper-based, declarative nature. Military spending has not yet grown significantly: the main funds were allocated to preparing for the “industrial leap”, and the defense industry has not yet been allocated organizationally.
The appearance of secret, numbered factories dates back to this period. At the end of the 20s. “personnel” military factories began to be assigned numbers, behind which their former names were hidden. In 1927, there were 56 such factories, and by April 1934, the list of “personnel” military factories approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks included 68 enterprises. The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated July 13, 1934 established a special regime and benefits for defense enterprises - the so-called special-regime factories.
The main task of the secrecy regime was “to ensure the greatest possible safety of factories of defense significance, to create strong guarantees against the penetration of class-hostile, counter-revolutionary and hostile elements into them, as well as to prevent their actions aimed at disrupting or weakening the production activities of factories” 3. This system was significantly strengthened and expanded in the post-war, “nuclear” era of development of the defense industry.
To finance the so-called special works of a narrow defense nature at civil industry enterprises, special loans were allocated from the budget, which had the intended purpose of ensuring the independence of defense work from the general financial condition of the enterprise 4 . The figures for actual military expenditures of the state were allocated as a separate line in the budget and kept secret.
The emergence of specific defense industries became possible only on the basis of accelerated industrialization and the creation of heavy industry. After the liquidation of the Supreme Economic Council in 1932, the defense industry transferred to the system of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. From the mid-30s. The process of organizational separation of the defense industry from the basic branches of heavy industry began. In 1936, military production was separated into the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry (NKOP). This was the stage of “quantitative accumulation”. The growth rate of the military industry, according to official data, noticeably outpaced the development of industry as a whole. So, if the total volume of industrial production during the second five-year plan increased by 120%, then defense production - by 286%. During the three pre-war years, this advance was already triple 5.
1939-1941 (before the start of the war) represented a special period when the foundations of the economic structure of the military-industrial complex (MIC) were consolidated. The structural restructuring of the national economy had a pronounced militaristic character. During these years, a system of defense industry management bodies was formed. General management of the development of mobilization planning in 1938-1941, as well as supervision of the activities of the People's Commissariat of Defense and the People's Commissariat of the Navy, was carried out by the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, chaired by I.V. Stalin. The Economic Council of the Council of People's Commissars monitored the activities of the defense industry. During the war years, all functions for managing the defense industry were transferred to the State Defense Committee (GKO).
In 1939, the NKOP was divided into specialized defense commissariats: weapons, ammunition, aviation, and shipbuilding industries. To coordinate the industrial mobilization plan, an interdepartmental Military-Industrial Commission was created in 1938. Military departments - the People's Commissariat of Defense and the People's Commissariat of the Navy, as well as the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) were the main customers and consumers of military products. A characteristic feature of the period of the first five-year plans was the significant role of the military in the formation of the defense industry, which increased even more in the pre-war years. So, from 1938 to 1940. the contingent of military representatives of non-profit organizations at defense industry enterprises increased one and a half times and amounted to 20,281 people. 6
For our research, this period is especially important as an experience in the functioning of the military mobilization model of the Soviet economy, the essential features of which manifested themselves in subsequent stages of the history of the USSR and became the foundation of the Soviet military-industrial complex. These features included the subordination of the interests of the civilian consumer to the solution of military problems. The government considered one of the main tasks of the Third Five-Year Plan to be strengthening the defense capability of the USSR “on such a scale that would ensure a decisive advantage for the USSR in any coalition of attacking capitalist countries.” In this regard, according to the Third Five-Year Plan, compared to 1937, spending on the national economy as a whole increased by 34.1%, on social and cultural events - by 72.1%, and on defense - by 321.1% . Military expenditures were to amount to 252 billion rubles, or 30.2% of all state budget expenditures 7 .
A characteristic feature of the Soviet mobilization model was the attraction of funds from the population through so-called state loans (many of which the state did not intend to repay). In 1937, a special Loan for strengthening the defense of the USSR was issued for 4 billion rubles, however, according to the People's Commissariat of Finance (NKF), the subscription for this loan was even higher - 4916 million rubles. (most of it fell on the urban population). As stated in the NKF circular dated April 9, 1938, in accordance with the “large increase in the current year in the wage fund and income of the collective farm village,” opportunities arose “to significantly exceed the loan amount this year” 8 . This practice became an integral feature of the Soviet economic system.
Even more dramatic shifts towards militarization were outlined in the so-called IV special quarter of 1939, when the mobilization plan - MP-1 - for arming the army, which required the restructuring of the entire industry, was introduced. It provided for the establishment of a list of construction projects for the development of which funds were allocated in excess of established limits, and also military departments received priority over civilian consumers. Of the total capital investment for construction of 5.46 billion rubles. investments in defense construction projects and enterprises amounted to 3.2 billion rubles, i.e. more than half 9.
Emergency mobilization plans were also adopted in 1940-1941. In connection with the introduction of mobilization plans, military orders were placed at enterprises in all industries, including factories producing children's toys and musical instruments. Often, the implementation of these plans required a complete change in their industrial profile from civilian to military. At the same time, the process of transferring enterprises from civilian departments to military departments, which later became widespread during the war years, began. In total, in 1940, more than 40 enterprises were transferred to the defense departments 10.
The actual average annual growth rate of defense production in the first two years of the pre-war five-year plan was 143.1%, in three years - 141%, against the 127.3% average annual rate established by the third five-year plan. The volume of gross output of the People's Commissariats of the Defense Industry increased 2.8 times over three years 11 . An even more intensive program was planned for 1941. Industry management bodies were obliged to ensure that military orders for aviation, weapons, ammunition, military shipbuilding and tanks were given priority to all consumers.
In the pre-war years, a new military-industrial base began to be created in the east of the country. From the very beginning, the idea of developing the eastern regions was strategically linked to the growth of the country's military potential and the solution of defense problems. Even before the war, the Urals became the new center of military production, and the development of the Far East began from this point of view. However, a decisive shift in this regard occurred during the war years, which was associated primarily with the occupation or threat of seizure by the enemy of most of the European territory of the USSR.
During the war period, there was a massive movement of industry to the eastern regions: in total, more than 1,300 enterprises were evacuated and restored in the east, most of which were under the jurisdiction of the defense commissariats. 4/5 of them produced military products.
The structure of industrial production has also changed radically, and is necessarily transferred to satisfying military needs. According to rough estimates, military consumption items accounted for about 65-68% of all industrial products produced in the USSR during the war years 12. Its main producers were the People's Commissariats of the military industry: aviation, weapons, ammunition, mortar weapons, shipbuilding and tank industries. At the same time, other basic branches of heavy industry were also involved in securing military orders: metallurgy, fuel and energy, as well as the People's Commissariat of Light and Food Industry. Thus, the development of the economic structure of the military-industrial complex during the war years had the character of total militarization.
During the Great Patriotic War, the country lost three quarters of its national wealth. Industry was severely destroyed in the territories that were under occupation, and in the rest of the territory it was almost completely transferred to the production of military products. The total population of the USSR decreased from 196 million people. in 1941 to 170 million in 1946, i.e. by 26 million people 13
One of the main tasks in the first post-war years for the USSR was the restoration and further expansion of the country's military-economic base. To solve it in conditions of economic devastation, it was necessary, first of all, to find new sources for the restoration and development of priority sectors of the national economy. According to official Soviet propaganda, this process was supposed to be designed to use “internal resources”, to rid the country of economic dependence on a hostile capitalist environment.
Meanwhile, this dependence remained very significant by the end of the war. An analysis by Soviet economists of the ratio of imports of the most important types of equipment and materials and their domestic production for 1944 showed that, for example, imports of metal-cutting machines amounted to 58%, universal machine tools - up to 80%, crawler cranes (their domestic industry did not produce) - 287%. The situation with non-ferrous metals was similar: lead - 146%, tin - 170%. Particular difficulties arose with the need to develop domestic production of goods that were supplied during the war under Lend-Lease (for many types of raw materials, supplies and food, the share of these supplies ranged from 30 to 80%) 14 .
In the first post-war years, one of the most important sources of resources was the export of materials and equipment of the so-called special supplies - captured, as well as under reparations and agreements from Germany, Japan, Korea, Romania, Finland, Hungary. Created at the beginning of 1945, the Commission for Compensation for Damage Caused by the Nazi Invaders made a general assessment of the human and material losses of the USSR during the war years, developed a plan for the military and economic disarmament of Germany, and discussed the problem of reparations on an international scale.
Practical activities for the removal of equipment were carried out by a Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, as well as special commissions of representatives of economic departments. They compiled lists of enterprises and equipment, laboratories and research institutes that were subject to “seizure” and sent to the USSR as reparations. By the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars “On the dismantling and removal to the Soviet Union of equipment from Japanese power plants, industrial enterprises and railways located on the territory of Manchuria,” the management of this work was entrusted to the authorized Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars, M.Z. Saburov. By December 1, 1946, 305 thousand tons of equipment from Manchuria with a total value of 116.3 million US dollars arrived in the USSR. In total, during the two years of work of the Special Committee in the USSR, about 1 million wagons of various equipment were exported from 4,786 German and Japanese enterprises, including 655 military industry enterprises 15 . At the same time, German developments in the field of the latest types of weapons of mass destruction aroused the greatest interest on the Soviet side.
By the summer of 1946, there were about two million prisoners of war in the USSR - a huge reserve of labor. The labor of prisoners of war was widely used in the Soviet national economy (especially in construction) during the first post-war five-year plan. German technical advances and the work of specialists were actively used in the initial stages of domestic rocket production, the nuclear project, and in military shipbuilding.
Eastern European countries also played the role of suppliers of strategic raw materials at the early stage of the creation of the nuclear industry in the USSR, especially in 1944-1946. As uranium deposits were explored in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, the Soviet authorities took the path of creating joint joint stock companies for their development under the guise of mining companies. To develop the Bukovskoe deposit in Bulgaria, the Soviet-Bulgarian Mining Society was created at the beginning of 1945 under the auspices of the NKVD of the USSR 16. The deposit became the main source of raw materials for the first Soviet reactor.
Eastern bloc countries continued to be the most important source of uranium until the early 1950s. As N.A. Bulganin emphasized in his speech at the “anti-Beria” Plenum of the Central Committee on July 3, 1953, the state was “well supplied with uranium raw materials,” and a lot of uranium was mined on the territory of the GDR - “maybe no less than they have in Americans at their disposal" 17 .
The most important resource for the post-war reconstruction and build-up of the economic and defense power of the USSR was the mobilization potential of the centrally planned economy to concentrate forces and resources in the areas of highest priority from the point of view of the country’s leadership. One of the traditional levers of forced mobilization was the financial and tax policy of the state. At the end of the war, in the fourth quarter of 1945, the state seemingly gave relief to the population by reducing the war tax by 180 million rubles, but at the same time a war loan was organized (subscribed by peasants) for 400 million rubles. 18 Food prices were increased in September 1946 by 2-2.5 times. In 1948, the amount of agricultural tax increased by 30% compared to 1947, and in 1950 - by 2.5 times 19.
In general, the course taken by the leadership of the USSR towards military-economic competition with the West, and above all with the much more economically and technologically developed USA, was carried out at the cost of considerable hardships for the majority of the country's population. It should be noted that the implementation of the Soviet atomic and other programs for creating the latest weapons generally responded to the mass sentiments of the Soviet people in the post-war years, who were willing to endure difficulties and hardships in the name of preventing a new war.
One of the resources for economic mobilization was mass forced labor. The NKVD camp system became the basis for the creation of the nuclear and other branches of the military industry. In addition to the labor of imprisoned compatriots, in the late 40s. The labor of prisoners of war was widely used and a system of organized recruitment of labor from various segments of the population was used. A unique semi-compulsory form was the labor of military builders and specialists, the importance of which especially increased after the abolition of the system of mass camps in the mid-50s.
In the first post-war years, it was impossible to maintain the size of the armed forces and the size of defense production on a wartime scale, and therefore a number of measures were taken to reduce military potential. In this regard, in the military-economic policy of the Stalinist leadership, two stages are externally distinguished: 1945-1948. and late 40s - early 50s. The first was characterized by tendencies towards the demilitarization of the Soviet economy, the reduction of armed forces and military spending. A real indicator of these trends was the demobilization of the army, carried out in several stages from June 1945 to the beginning of 1949. In general, by the end of 1948 - beginning of 1949, the Soviet Army was generally reduced from more than 11 million people. up to 2.8 million people 20
In the first post-war years, the country's leadership also proclaimed a policy of restructuring industry into civilian production. After the reorganization of the management system in May 1945, the number of defense people's commissariats was reduced, and military production was concentrated in the People's Commissariat of Armaments, Aviation, Shipbuilding Industry, Agricultural and Transport Engineering (in March 1946 they were renamed ministries).
The implementation of the policy of reducing military production and increasing the output of civilian products began already at the end of 1945 and was under the personal control of the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee (after the war - Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers) L.P. Beria, who concentrated control in his hands over heavy industry. However, his instructions on the “conversion” of enterprises to civilian production were quite contradictory. On the one hand, he in every possible way encouraged the directors of enterprises who were accustomed to working in emergency military conditions, to drive defense products and experienced great difficulties in the transition to civilian production. On the other hand, Beria ordered to maintain and increase the production of a wide range of military products - gunpowder, explosives, chemical ammunition, etc. 21
In 1946-1947 The production of a number of types of conventional weapons - tanks and aircraft - was significantly reduced. The heads of the military-industrial departments actively resisted the policy of “conversion”: Ministers D.F. Ustinov, M.V. Khrunichev, M.G. Pervukhin and others attacked higher authorities, right up to Stalin himself, with requests to preserve “unique” military production and on increasing the production of new types of defense products. Attempts to demilitarize industry led to a deterioration in the industrial sector of the economy, which was already destroyed by the war. Within 6-9 months from the beginning of industrial restructuring, the output of civilian products only to a small extent compensated for the decrease in military production. This led to a decrease in the total volume of production, a deterioration in quality indicators, and a reduction in the number of workers. Only in the second quarter of 1946 did the volume of military production stabilize, civilian production increased, and a gradual increase in production volume began.
According to official sources, the post-war industrial restructuring was completed already in 1947, as evidenced by the following figures 22:
According to official data, military production amounted to 24 billion rubles in 1940, in 1944 - 74 billion, in 1945 - 50.5 billion, in 1946 - 14.5 billion, in 1947 the level remained 1946. However, these figures must be treated with a certain degree of conditionality: they rather show general dynamics than are reliable in absolute terms, since prices for military products have been reduced repeatedly since 1941. 23
The dynamics of military expenditures of the state budget were as follows: in 1940 - 56.7 billion rubles, in 1944 - 137.7 billion, in 1945 - 128.7 billion, in 1946 - 73.7 billion, in 1947, the level of 1946 was maintained. Thus, even according to official statistics, state spending on military needs by the end of the “conversion” period exceeded the pre-war figures of 1940.
In general, the process of reducing military production affected mainly rapidly obsolete weapons of the past war type, which were not required in the same quantities. In 1946-1947 the share of civilian and military products has stabilized.
However, already in 1947, plans for the production of civilian products began to decline in a number of defense ministries (shipbuilding, aviation industry), and from 1949 there was a sharp increase in military orders. During the first post-war five-year plan, the nomenclature of “special products” was almost completely updated, i.e. military products, which paved the way for what began in the 50s. rearmament of the army and navy.
At the end of the 40s. a long-term plan for the production of armored vehicles was developed until 1970. After the failure to fulfill the tank production program in 1946-1947, a sharp drop in their production in 1948, starting from 1949, a constant and steady increase in the production of this industry was planned. In connection with the war in Korea, since 1950 the production volumes of aviation equipment have sharply increased 24 .
In general, behind the external “demilitarization” was hidden a new round of the arms race. Already in 1946, the Council of Ministers adopted a number of resolutions on the development of the latest weapons, decisions on developments in the field of jet and radar technology. The construction of warships, mothballed during the war, was resumed: a ten-year military shipbuilding program was adopted, and the construction of 40 naval bases was planned. Extraordinary measures were taken to accelerate the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb.
Along with the traditional defense ministries, emergency bodies were created under the Council of People's Commissars (from March 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR) to manage new programs: the Special Committee and the First Main Directorate (on the atomic problem), Committee No. 2 (on jet technology), the Committee No. 3 (by radar). The emergency, mobilization and experimental nature of these programs necessitated the concentration of the resources of various departments in special supra-ministerial management bodies.
In general, “demilitarization” was rather a sideline of the post-war industrial restructuring, the main strategic direction of development of which was the development and build-up of the latest types of weapons. Plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1951-1955. for military and special industries provided for a significant volume of supplies of all types of military equipment, increasing from year to year, with special attention paid to preparing facilities for the production of new types of military equipment and strategic raw materials, replenishing special production capacities switched after the end of the war to other sectors of the national economy farms.
For six defense-industrial ministries (aircraft industry, armaments, agricultural engineering, transport engineering, communications industry, automotive industry), on average, the output of military products over the five-year period was supposed to increase 2.5 times. However, for some types of military equipment, a significantly greater increase was planned: for radar and armored equipment - 4.5 times. The production of atomic “products” increased on a more significant scale, which was planned separately even from all other types of military products. To eliminate bottlenecks and imbalances in the national economy and to create new industries for the production of weapons - jet technology and radar equipment - the plan outlined the volume of capital investments in the main sectors of the defense industry in the amount of 27,892 million rubles.
Moreover, in the early 1950s. this plan was repeatedly adjusted upward. In March 1952, the size of capital investments in the military and defense-industrial departments was noticeably increased. Arbitrary adjustments to plans were generally a characteristic feature of the Soviet planning system. Another long-term trend, with the exception of certain periods, was the preferential growth of investments in the defense sector compared to other industries. During the period under review, a kind of military-industrial revolution began in the country, accompanied by a sharp increase in military spending, expansion of defense programs and a simultaneous increase in the influence of the professional military elite on the decision-making process on defense issues. Since the early 1950s. plans for the production of various types of conventional weapons of modernized models have increased - tanks, artillery self-propelled guns, aircraft; forced rearmament of the army began.
According to official data, the size of the USSR Armed Forces increased in the early 1950s. almost up to 6 million people. According to recently declassified information from the archives, the quantitative composition of the central apparatus of the War Ministry as of September 1, 1952 increased compared to the pre-war figure - as of January 1, 1941 - by 242%: 23,075 people. against 9525 25. The unwinding of a new spiral of arms race and confrontation was partly due to the aggravation of the international situation in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Berlin crisis, the creation of NATO, the Korean War, etc.), partly with the strengthening of the role of the military machine in the life of Soviet society and the state.
Despite the new growth in the USSR's military programs in the early 1950s, by this time the military-industrial complex had not yet gained the political weight that would allow it to decisively influence the policies of the Soviet leadership. In 1953-1954. a stable course towards military confrontation with the West gave way to a contradictory period in economic and military policy. 1954-1958 became a rare period in Soviet history of a decrease in military spending and an increase in the share of the consumption sector in the gross national product.
In contrast to the growth of military programs in the previous years 1950-1952, the second half of 1953 and 1954 were already marked by some shift towards civilian production and consumerism. For example, the plan for survey and design work for the War Ministry for 1953 initially amounted to 43,225 million rubles, and then was reduced to 40,049 million, i.e. more than 3 million rubles. The plan for military and special industries for 1954 was also adjusted downward: the growth of production in 1954 compared to 1953, instead of 107% according to the plan and 108.8% according to the application of the War Ministry, was reduced to 106.9 %.
When assessing the dynamics of the gross national product, one should take into account the decrease in wholesale prices for military products by 5% since January 1, 1953, as well as the increase in the output of civilian products. The decrease in the volume of gross output of a number of ministries in 1953 and according to the draft plan for 1954 was also explained by a decrease in the output of defense products and an increase in the output of consumer goods, which had lower wholesale prices. In general, the production of consumer goods in 1953 and 1954 significantly exceeded the production volume envisaged for these years according to the five-year plan for 1951 - 1955. 26
The trend towards reducing military spending continued in subsequent years, when N.S. Khrushchev’s influence in the top leadership increased, until the establishment of his autocracy in the summer of 1957. During the period 1955-1958. USSR military spending was reduced by a total of one billion rubles. By mid-1957, the size of the army and navy had decreased by 1.2 million people. - up to approximately 3 million people. - due to the program announced by Khrushchev to reduce the traditional branches of the Armed Forces (in particular, this concerned Stalin’s plans for the deployment of conventional naval forces and weapons) and a shift in priorities towards missiles, electronics and nuclear weapons.
According to some Western estimates, during the first three years of Khrushchev's rule, the share of military spending in the country's gross national product (GNP) decreased from 12 to 9%, while the share of the consumption sector increased from 60 to 62% 27 . In 1959, rising costs for the production of new weapons reversed this trend, and Soviet military spending again increased to 1955 levels, although due to the rapid growth of gross national product during this period, the percentage of military spending in GNP remained the same. After 1959, their share of GNP began to slowly but steadily increase. Military spending again took priority in the economic policy of the Soviet leadership. According to Western estimates, in the time interval from 1952 to 1970. The period of the highest growth rates of military expenditures of the USSR was 1961-1965, when the average growth rate reached 7.6% 28 .
At the same time, the lion's share of military expenditures was precisely the costs of the production and operation of the latest weapons and their systems, and not the maintenance of troops. This trend of predominantly increasing costs for military equipment developed more and more noticeably under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution.
The period of the late 1950s - early 1960s. was characterized by the search for new principles for organizing the management of the national economy of the USSR, including the defense industry. By the time of the reorganization of national economic management undertaken by N.S. Khrushchev in 1957-1958. The main weapons production programs were concentrated in the Ministry of Medium Engineering (nuclear program), the Ministry of Defense Industry (renamed in 1953 from the Ministry of Armament), the Ministry of Radio Engineering Industry (created in 1954), as well as the Ministries of Aviation and Shipbuilding Industries. As is known, at the end of the 1950s, the system of sectoral ministries was abolished, and defense industry enterprises, like other sectors of the economy, were transferred to the jurisdiction of local economic councils. To organize research and development work on the creation of weapons, State Committees on aviation technology, defense technology, shipbuilding and radio electronics, and the use of atomic energy were created.
In general, Khrushchev’s reform led to a certain decentralization and the establishment of ties between defense and civilian enterprises, expanding the geographical and social framework of the Soviet military-industrial complex. According to N.S. Simonov, enterprises engaged in the serial production of defense products were included in the system of regional economic relations and were emerging from the state of production and technological isolation. Local economic authorities were given the opportunity to place orders for them that met local needs. Enterprises of the military-industrial complex (DIC) even began to show a tendency towards economic independence, which was manifested in the establishment of real contractual relations with the customer - the Ministry of Defense - in matters of pricing 29 .
At the same time, in the conditions of decentralization of management of the defense industry, the coordinating role of the most important state body at the supra-ministerial level - recreated in the late 1950s - has strengthened. Military-Industrial Commission under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. It was led in turn by the largest leaders of the Soviet military-industrial complex D.F. Ustinov, V.M. Ryabikov, L.N. Smirnov. The Commission became the main governing body of the defense industry in the period 1960s - 1980s.
The return to the ministerial system after the dismissal of N.S. Khrushchev at the end of 1964 contributed to the strengthening of the centralized planning principle in the management of the defense industry. The next “gathering” of military-related enterprises into centralized sectoral ministries has begun. In particular, in 1965, the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering was created, which concentrated work on rocket and space technology (previously, these developments were scattered across enterprises of a number of ministries). As a result of the 1965 reform, the so-called “nine” defense-industrial ministries were finally formed, in which military production was mainly concentrated (Ministries of Aviation Industry, Defense Industry, General Engineering, Radio Industry, Medium Engineering, Shipbuilding Industry, Chemical Industry, Electronic Industry, electrical industry). They were joined by 10 related ministries, which were also involved in the production of military and civilian products.
The economic structure of the military-industrial complex was actually the supporting structure of the entire socio-economic system of the USSR. According to data at the end of the 1980s, defense industry enterprises produced 20-25% of the gross domestic product (GDP), absorbing the lion's share of the country's resources. The best scientific and technical developments and personnel were concentrated in the defense industry: up to 3/4 of all research and development work (R&D) was carried out in the defense industry. Enterprises of the defense complex produced the majority of electrical civil products: 90% of televisions, refrigerators, radios, 50% of vacuum cleaners, motorcycles, electric stoves. About Uz of the country's population lived in the area where defense industry enterprises were located 30. All this, at the same time, led to an excessive expansion of the area of “unproductive” costs for the production of weapons to the detriment of the sphere of consumption.
The Soviet military-industrial complex became the most important supplier of weapons for the countries of the “third world” and the “socialist camp”. In the early 1980s. 25% of weapons and military equipment produced in the USSR were exported abroad. The size of military supplies was considered highly classified information for many years, which was partially revealed to the Russian public only in the early 1990s. During the post-war period, the USSR participated in armed conflicts and wars in more than 15 countries (by sending military specialists and contingents, as well as supplying weapons and military equipment to provide “international assistance”), including 31:
| A country | Period of conflict | Debt of the respective country before the USSR (billion dollars) |
| North Korea | June 1950 - July 1953 | 2,2 |
| Laos | 1960-1963 August 1964 - November 1968 November 1969 - December 1970 | 0,8 |
| Egypt | October 18, 1962 – April 1, 1974 | 1,7 |
| Algeria | 1962-1964 | 2,5 |
| Yemen | October 18, 1962 – April 1, 1963 | 1,0 |
| Vietnam | July 1, 1965 – December 31, 1974 | 9,1 |
| Syria | June 5-13, 1967 October 6-24, 1973 | 6,7 |
| Cambodia | April 1970 - December 1970 | 0,7 |
| Bangladesh | 1972-1973 | 0,1 |
| Angola | November 1975 - 1979 | 2,0 |
| Mozambique | 1967 - 1969 November 1975 - November 1979 | 0,8 |
| Ethiopia | December 9, 1977 – November 30, 1979 | 2,8 |
| Afghanistan | April 1978 - May 1991 | 3,0 |
| Nicaragua | 1980 - 1990 | 1,0 |
In general, by the beginning of the 1980s. The USSR became the world's first arms supplier (in terms of supply volume), ahead of even the United States in this regard. The Soviet military-industrial complex went beyond the boundaries of one state, becoming the most important force in the world economy and international relations. At the same time, it became an increasingly heavy burden on the country's economy and an obstacle to improving the standard of living of the Soviet people.
1 For more details, see: Simonov N.S. Military-industrial complex of the USSR in the 1920-1950s: rates of economic growth, structure, organization of production and management. M., 1996. Ch. 2; Mukhin M.Yu. The evolution of the management system of the Soviet defense industry in 1921-1941 and the change in defense priorities // Domestic History. 2000. No. 3. P. 3-15. On the structure of the defense industry in the late 20s - early 30s. see also: Russian State Archive of Economics (hereinafter referred to as RGAE). F. 3429. Op. 16.
2 See: RGAE. F. 7733. Op. 36. D. 164.
3 See: ibid. D. 186. L. 107.
4 Ibid. F. 3429. Op. 16. D. 179. L. 238.
5 See: Lagovsky A. Economy and military power of the state // Red Star. 1969. October 25.
6 Simonov N.S. Decree. op. P. 132.
7 RGAE. F. 4372. Op. 92. D. 173. L. 115.
8 Ibid. F. 7733. Op. 36. D. 67. L. 45.
9 See: ibid. D. 158. L. 29-34.
10 Ibid. D. 310. L. 37.
11 Ibid. F. 4372. Op. 92. D. 265. L. 4.
12 Simonov N.S. Decree. op. P. 152.
13 See: USSR and the Cold War / Ed. V.S. Lelchuk, E.I. Pivovar. M„ 1995. P. 146.
14 According to documents from the RSAE funds.
15 For more details, see: State Archive of the Russian Federation (hereinafter - GA RF). F. 5446. Op. 52. D. 2. L. 45-116.
16 See: GA RF. F. 9401. On. 1. D. 92. L. 166-174.
17 See: The Beria Case // Izv. Central Committee of the CPSU. 1991. No. 2. P. 169-170.
18 See: RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 329. D. 2261. L. 21-22.
19 USSR and the Cold War. P. 156.
20 See: Evangelista M. Stalin's Postwar Army Reappraised // Soviet Military Policy Since World War II / Ed. by W.T.Lee, KF.Staar. Stanford, 1986. P. 281-311.
21 For more details, see: Post-war conversion: On the history of the Cold War / Rep. ed. V.SLelchuk. M., 1998.
22 See: GA RF. F. 5446. Op. 5. D. 2162. L. 176.
23 See: RGAE. F. 7733. Op. 36. D. 687.
24 For more details see: Bystrova I.V. Development of the military-industrial complex // USSR and the Cold War. pp. 176-179.
25 RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 164. D. 710. L. 31.
26 According to RSAE documents.
27 See: Soviet Military Policy... P. 21-22.
28 See: Bezborodov A.B. Power and the military-industrial complex in the USSR in the mid-40s - mid-70s // Soviet Society: Everyday Life of the Cold War. M.; Arzamas, 2000. P. 108.
29 See: Simonov N.S. Decree. op. pp. 288-291.
30 See: B. Zaleschansky. Restructuring of military-industrial complex enterprises: from conservatism to adequacy // Man and Labor. 1998. No. 2. P. 80-83.
31 Red star. 1991. May 21.
The entire history of Soviet power can be conditionally, but quite accurately divided into four periods: war, preparation for war, again war and again preparation for war. It is clear that with such a history, the military-industrial complex (MIC) had to play a special role in the USSR - the role of the core of the entire economy, its system-forming principle. As a result, according to many economists and historians, it was the military-industrial complex that destroyed the Soviet Union, becoming an unbearable burden for the national economy. At the same time, the military-industrial complex of the USSR is something more than military production, since it covered not only the defense industries themselves for the production of weapons, but also a significant part of the civilian industries that produced dual-use products. As a result, the Soviet military-industrial complex included, in particular, all high-tech, innovative enterprises that simultaneously produced a large range of civilian products. Therefore, the history of the Soviet military-industrial complex can be considered as the history of the entire Soviet economy. This is exactly what the book by Nikolai Simonov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is about.
The revolution of 1917 was largely predetermined by the defeats that tsarist Russia suffered on the fields of the First World War. The country approached it unprepared, primarily in military-technical terms. And although by 1917 the military-industrial complex of Russia had grown significantly, it was already too late: the tired army was extremely demoralized and chose revolution over the continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the capabilities of the military-industrial complex that was formed during the war, and, largely thanks to the fact that it was in their hands, they won. However, the destruction during the two wars was so great that after the civil war, Soviet Russia was not able to maintain a full-fledged military-industrial complex, and it was significantly reduced. Only by 1927, after the NEP restoration of the Soviet economy, did the country's leadership address the problems of the military-industrial complex in full. It was confident that the capitalist environment would not tolerate the existence of a proletarian state. Although the blow was not expected from those countries with which they had to fight in the future, but from Poland, France, and Great Britain. And there were reasons for this. On May 27, 1927, the British Conservative government announced the severance of diplomatic and trade relations between Great Britain and the USSR, and on June 1, 1927, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued an appeal in which it called on the Soviet people to be prepared to repel imperialist aggression. And the comparison of the Soviet military-industrial complex with the military-industrial complex of Western countries produced a depressing impression. As the author notes, compared to France alone, “the military industry for the production of combat aircraft was seven times smaller. For tanks - 20 times less... for artillery - three times less.” And in 1929, called “the year of the great turning point,” the Politburo of the Central Committee set the task for the armed forces: “In terms of numbers, not to be inferior to our potential opponents..., in terms of technology, to be stronger...”.
Adopted in 1928
The question is legitimate: how did the USSR, which began industrialization only in the 30s, and was also devastated in the Second World War, was able to make a breakthrough in the formation and development of the military-industrial complex despite limitations in time and secondary resources (personnel, equipment, technologies, etc.) .)?
Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov, Oleg Konstantinovich Rogozin
In the 1950s, the leadership of the USSR tried in various ways to solve the problem of coordinating extensive work in revolutionary areas of weapons development, primarily nuclear weapons and missile technology. On March 16, 1953, the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the management of special work” was issued, which created a Special Committee to manage work in the nuclear industry and rocketry.
However, already on June 26, 1953, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee at its meeting adopted a decision “On the formation of the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR”, with the inclusion of the 1st and 3rd Main Directorates in its composition, in connection with which the Special Committee created three months earlier was liquidated Council of Ministers of the USSR. This decision is formalized on the same day by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The ministry's enterprises were engaged in the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons, the design and construction of vehicles with nuclear propulsion systems: icebreakers, submarines, military ships, space rockets and aircraft, as well as the production of radioisotope instruments and equipment, and the construction of nuclear power plants.
Meanwhile, the task of coordinating work on the entire subject of military production was never solved, although the new stage of the scientific and technological revolution required a significant increase in the efficiency of managing the development and production of equipment and weapons.
On December 6, 1957, a resolution was issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the creation of a Commission on Military-Industrial Issues under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1957, in addition to the Ministry of Defense of the USSR and the Ministry of Defense Industry of the USSR, the following were considered to directly perform “defense” functions: the Ministry of Aviation Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of Radio Engineering Industry of the USSR, the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR, the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the State Committee for use of atomic energy, the Main Directorate of State Material Reserves, the Main Engineering Directorate of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, Glavspetsstroy under Gosmontazhspetsstroy, organization mailbox No. 10, DOSAAF, Central Committee Dynamo and the All-Army Military Hunting Society.
Largely thanks to the activities of the Military-Industrial Commission, the Soviet Union after World War II was able to create a number of advanced weapons and military equipment in the most high-tech areas of weapons systems.
Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 697-355ss/op
“On the management of special work”
Moscow, Kremlin
The Council of Ministers of the USSR DECIDES:
I. About the Special Committee
1. Form a Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR consisting of comrades:
- Beria L.P. - chairman
- Vannikov B.L. - First Deputy Chairman
- Klochkov I.M. - vice-chairman
- Vladimirsky S.M. — - " -
- Bulganin N.A. - committee member
- Zavenyagin A.P. — - " -
- Ryabikov V.M. — - " -
- Makhnev V.A. — - " -
2. Entrust the Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR with the management of all special work (on the nuclear industry, the Berkut and Comet systems, long-range missiles (...)) carried out by the First and Third Main Directorates under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and others ministries and departments.
Establish that the Special Committee:
— determines plans for the development of special work, the amount of monetary allocations and material and technical resources required to implement these plans and submits them for approval by the Government;
— monitors the progress of special work and takes measures to ensure the implementation of established plans;
— makes operational decisions regarding special work, mandatory for ministries and departments, and in cases requiring approval by the Government, makes its proposals to the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
To carry out the tasks assigned to it, the Special Committee has its own apparatus.
II. On the First and Second Main Directorates under the Council of Ministers of the USSR
1. To combine the First and Second Main Directorates under the Council of Ministers of the USSR into one Main Directorate - the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
2. Release Comrade B.L. Vannikov. from his duties as head of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR in connection with his transfer to work in the Special Committee.
3. Appoint Comrade A.P. Zavenyagin. Head of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
4. Assign:
Comrade Slavsky E.P. - First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate
Comrade N.I. Pavlova - Deputy Head of the Main Directorate
T. Antropova P.Ya. — - " - - " -
Comrade Emelyanova V.S. - member of the Glavka board
Comrade V.S. Kandaritsky — - " - - " -
Comrade A.N. Komarovsky — - " - - " -
Comrade Polyakova V.P. — - " - - " -
Comrade A.M. Petrosyants — - " - - " -
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov
Administrator of the Council of Ministers of the USSR M. Pomaznev
AP RF. F. 93, collection of resolutions and orders of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for 1953. Certified copy.
Background of military industry management bodies
Russian historical traditions of managing the military industry from a single center go back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when, in the conditions of the First World War, special bodies were created to manage the military economy - special meetings. The main one - “Special meeting to discuss measures for the defense of the state” - was headed by the Minister of War, and was attended by representatives of government bodies (the State Duma, the State Council, etc.), industrialists and entrepreneurs. The tasks of the Special Meeting included the distribution of military orders and control over their implementation at enterprises that produced military products, and issues of supplying the army. Public control bodies—military-industrial committees—became a kind of intermediary between the state and private industry in the distribution of military orders and the issuance of advances. At the end of May 1915, at the 9th All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Trade and Industry, the Central Military-Industrial Committee was elected, headed by the leader of the Octobrist party A. Guchkov and the progressive A. Konovalov.
After the total mobilization of the country's military resources during the First World War, the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War, under the conditions of the NEP there was a sharp, almost landslide reduction in military spending, the size of the armed forces and the defense potential of the country as a whole.
As a result, at the turn of the 20-30s of the twentieth century, the USSR had a limited system of “personnel” military enterprises, collected in trusts and associations under the general leadership of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh).
After the liquidation of the Supreme Economic Council, in January 1932, defense enterprises transferred to the system of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (NKTP). At the end of 1936, the period of creation of a specialized defense industry began within the framework of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry (NKOP). In connection with the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, in the conditions of a direct military threat, the USSR began accelerated preparations for war, the growth of the armed forces and the increase in weapons production. The signs of the new period were such facts as the adoption of the emergency mobilization plan - MP-1 for the “special” IV quarter of 1939, the reorganization of management carried out in the same year - the division of the NKOP into specialized people's commissariats: the aviation industry, weapons, ammunition, shipbuilding industry.
The military-industrial complex as an industry mobilization body
Mobilization work related to preparation for war was a “bottleneck” in the system of Soviet defense construction in the 1930s. The leaders of the military and industrial departments advocated the creation of a single “mobilization” body that would concentrate the functions of preparing industry and the economy as a whole for war. The Permanent Mobilization Commission under the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars became such a governing body. At its first meeting, on May 4, 1938, K. E. Voroshilov, N. I. Ezhov, L. M. Kaganovich, P. I. Smirnov, N. A. Voznesensky (Chairman of the State Planning Committee), B. M. were present. Shaposhnikov, M.I. Kulik, I.F. Tevosyan and others. Thus, the commission included representatives of the military leadership, heads of industry, and security agencies.
On June 14, 1938, a meeting of the commission took place under its new name - the Military-Industrial Commission. At the meeting, among other issues, it was decided to accept the project proposed by L. M. Kaganovich “On the tasks of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and on the construction of its apparatus.”
Construction of the TM-1-14 artillery railway transporter with a 356 mm gun at the Leningrad Metal Plant (1932)
According to this document, the Military-Industrial Commission was a working body of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The military-industrial complex had the main task of “mobilizing and preparing industry, both defense and non-defense, to fully ensure the implementation of the plans and assignments of the Defense Committee for the production and supply of weapons to the Red Army and the Navy.”
The functions of the military-industrial complex included:
- consideration of mobilization applications;
- checking calculations of needs and consumption standards based on mobile applications;
- distribution of mobilization tasks between the people's commissariats of the Union and union republics and verification of the correct distribution of orders between enterprises;
- drawing up a consolidated industrial mobilization plan for all its sections;
- coordination of the mobilization-industrial plan with the national economic plan (together with the Mobsector of the USSR State Planning Committee);
- surveying the production capacities of enterprises, determining their mobilization purpose, developing measures to build up new production capacities, assimilate civilian production and their proper implementation;
- checking the implementation of the mobilization plan and the program of current military orders by enterprises and people's commissariats;
- development of logistics plans, mobilization tasks for all main types of supply (equipment, raw materials, tools, semi-finished products, etc.);
- establishing a production zoning system to reduce transportation and achieve complete production;
- development of measures to increase production output by main enterprises through their cooperation with related enterprises;
- development of a plan and measures to provide mobilized industry with labor and engineering personnel in wartime;
- development of standards for the accumulation of industrial mobile stock, checking their availability and quality, establishing rules for storing and refreshing mobile stock;
- carrying out, by special decision of the CO, experimental mobilizations of individual industrial enterprises or entire industrial sectors;
- development of issues related to the use of all kinds of technical inventions in the military industry, especially the replacement of acutely scarce materials in the production of weapons;
- development of instructions on military mobilization work in the People's Commissariats, main departments, trusts and enterprises; monitoring the work of military departments in the above-mentioned bodies, organizing the selection and training of moborgan personnel and maintaining military-industrial secrets.
The military-industrial complex consisted of the chairman of the commission with the rank of deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (L. M. Kaganovich became the chairman), two of his deputies and a secretary, as well as seventeen permanent members of the commission. The latter included representatives of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the NKVD (as the main customers of military products) - the People's Commissar of Defense, the People's Commissar of the Navy, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, the chiefs of the General Staff of the Red Army, the Main Naval Staff, the Red Army Air Force, the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, the Armored Directorate of the Red Army; heads of defense and heavy industry: people's commissars of the aviation industry, shipbuilding, ammunition, weapons, chemical industry, heavy engineering, medium engineering, general engineering; and also the Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR.
The decisions of the Military-Industrial Commission required the approval of the chairman of the Defense Committee and only after that were mandatory for implementation. To carry out daily work within the military-industrial complex, a secretariat was allocated, consisting of an organizational planning sector, industry sectors and the general part of the secretariat.
The organizational planning sector of the military-industrial complex was responsible for “studying the historical and modern foreign experience of industrial mobilization and finding on this basis the most rational organizational forms of mobilization preparation of industry, developing instructions and regulations for mob work, developing the structure and staff of moborgans, ensuring the preservation of military-industrial secrets, conclusion according to mob orders from the military people's commissariats, distribution of mob requests by industry sector, generalization of summary data on the mobilization plan, issuance of mob orders to the people's commissariats and other organizations and applications for raw materials and semi-finished products, identification of production capacities, supply of "labour technical forces", etc.
The secretariat of the military-industrial complex also included industry sectors responsible for the mobilization preparation of the relevant industries: 1) weapons, with groups of small arms, artillery materiel, military equipment; 2) ammunition, consisting of groups of cases, tubes, fuses, cartridges, gunpowder, explosives, equipment and closures; 3) aviation; 4) armored vehicles; 5) military chemical; 6) shipbuilding; 7) engineering property and communications.
The functions of the industry sectors included the development of the entire range of issues related to the mobilization preparation of this branch of production, and in particular:
- accounting and identification of existing production capacities of the relevant branch of production and comparing them with the volume of mobile applications for this type of weapons;
- preparation of conclusions on mobile applications for this type of weapons;
- finding additional production capacity and developing measures to increase new capacity;
- development of issues of industrial cooperation between enterprises;
- placing a mobile application and checking the mobile readiness of enterprises;
- generalization of the consolidated needs for equipment, raw materials, tools, labor, etc.;
- introduction of new technical improvements and highly profitable technological processes into production, as well as development of issues related to the replacement of acutely scarce and imported materials;
- determination of standards for the accumulation of mobile stocks and control over their creation and refreshment;
- preparing decisions for this industry and monitoring the timeliness and quality of their execution;
- monitoring and ensuring the implementation of the program of current military orders in this branch of production;
- monitoring the development of issues related to unloading and evacuation of industrial enterprises located in threatened areas.
The procedure for developing a mobilization plan was also established. Within the deadlines established by the Defense Committee, the military people's commissariats (NKO, NKVMF, NKVD) had to submit to the military-industrial complex mobile applications for the war year for “weapons and military equipment.” The consolidated mobilization plan for industry was gradually developed by the military-industrial complex in one copy and consisted of the following sections: a supply plan, a production cooperation plan, a logistics plan, a capacity expansion plan, a plan for providing labor and technical equipment, a plan for the accumulation of mobile stocks, a financial plan, and a transportation plan.
The military-industrial complex sectors were obliged to monitor the mob readiness of enterprises and people's commissariats and, in accordance with the changes taking place, make the necessary adjustments to the mob plan.
In addition, the military-industrial complex as a whole was supposed to act as an “arbiter” in resolving controversial issues between departments. The decision of the military-industrial complex dated September 27 on the issue “On the configuration of an artillery round,” in particular, stated: “If there are disagreements on supply issues between the people’s commissar of the defense industry and the people’s commissars of other supplying commissariats, the controversial issues are resolved by the military-industrial complex.”
Thus, the military-industrial complex has done a lot of work to prepare the national economy for a future war. All issues of the adoption of new types of weapons and military equipment, their development in mass production were under the personal control of I.V. Stalin, who headed the USSR Defense Committee for the last two pre-war years. According to the memoirs of the People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR B.L. Vannikov, “Stalin studied daily reports on the production of aircraft and aircraft engines, demanding explanations and measures to be taken in each case of deviation from the schedule... The same can be said about his participation in considering issues of the tank industry and military shipbuilding."
Stalin also demanded daily attention to the development of the defense industry from his immediate circle. According to the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated September 10, 1939, the Economic Council (chairman A. I. Mikoyan, deputy N. A. Bulganin, members: S. M. Budyonny, E. A. Shchadenko, L. Z . Mehlis) and the Defense Committee (chairman I.V. Stalin, first deputies V.M. Molotov and N.A. Voznesensky, members: N.G. Kuznetsov, A.A. Zhdanov, A.I. Mikoyan, L. P. Beria, B. M. Shaposhnikov, G. I. Kulik, F. I. Golikov) pledged to “meet daily.”
At the same time, according to experts from the First Department of the USSR State Planning Committee, who in the late 1950s were engaged in summarizing the experience of developing the military-industrial base of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War: “... we began to carry out military mobilization preparation of our industry too late. Our country essentially did not have a comprehensive mobilization plan for preparing the entire national economy for the needs of war, which was, of course, a major drawback and was largely due to the untimely organization of mobilization planning.”
During the war, all functions of managing the defense industry were transferred to the State Defense Committee (GKO), formed on June 30, 1941 by a joint resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The need to create the State Defense Committee as the highest governing body was motivated by the difficult situation at the front, which required that the leadership of the country be centralized to the maximum extent possible. The said resolution states that all orders of the State Defense Committee must be unquestioningly carried out by citizens and any authorities.
On December 8, 1942, an Operations Bureau was created under the State Defense Committee, consisting of: V. M. Molotov, L. P. Beria, G. M. Malenkov and A. I. Mikoyan, to control and monitor the work of the People's Commissariats of the military industry, development and submission to the Chairman of the State Defense Committee for consideration of draft decisions on certain issues of industrial and transport development. Based on applications from NGOs, NKVMF, NKVD and NKGB, the GKO Operations Bureau drew up, with the participation of departments of the USSR State Planning Committee, monthly and quarterly plans for the production of “military” and “civilian” industrial products and material and technical supplies for the most important sectors of the national economy. On May 18, 1944, the Operations Bureau was approved with a new composition: L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, A. I. Mikoyan, N. A. Voznesensky and K. E. Voroshilov.
Over the 50 months of its existence, the State Defense Committee adopted 9,971 resolutions, of which approximately two-thirds concerned the problems of the military economy and the organization of production of military-industrial products. At the local level, local party and Soviet bodies were responsible for the implementation of GKO resolutions. Particularly important tasks were under the control of authorized State Defense Committees.
Military Industry Coordination Center
In the first post-war years, there was no single body for managing military-industrial affairs. By resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR in February 1947, sectoral bureaus for industry and agriculture were created under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Nine industry bureaus, including mechanical engineering and shipbuilding, headed by V. A. Malyshev, were involved in defense industries. Supervision of the Ministry of the Armed Forces was carried out directly by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and from April 1949 this work was entrusted to N.A. Bulganin, including responsibility for the work of the ministries of aviation industry and weapons, which were removed from the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding.
In May 1948, the leaders of the defense industry D.F. Ustinov and M.Z. Saburov took the initiative to create a single center in the government for military and military-industrial affairs. This body was supposed to be in charge of current issues of the military industry, the development and implementation of mobilization plans, the creation of new types of weapons, and the coordination of the work of branches of the defense industry. According to defense industry leaders, the need to create such a body is long overdue.
These actions were a sign of the formation of a community of interests among the leaders of the military-industrial complex. In practice, this resulted in the creation in 1951, under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, of the Bureau for Military and Military-Industrial Issues, chaired by N.A. Bulganin, which operated from February 1951 to October 1952. Members of the bureau were A.M. Vasilevsky - Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR, D. F. Ustinov - Minister of Armaments of the USSR, M. V. Khrunichev - Minister of Aviation Industry of the USSR, I.S. Yumashev - Minister of Navy of the USSR.
Assembly of T-34 tanks at the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant, 1943
The bureau was engaged in the consideration of plans for military orders, research work on military equipment, the adoption of new models and the removal of obsolete ones from service, and other issues related to the provision of the army and navy with weapons and military-technical equipment. Fundamental issues on military equipment were considered and approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The bureau did not have a special apparatus (with the exception of a small secretariat); the functions of the apparatus were performed by sectoral groups of the Administration of the Affairs of the USSR Council of Ministers.
In 1953, sectoral bureaus under the USSR Council of Ministers were abolished. In 1953-56. The issues of coordinating the activities of defense industries were dealt with by the deputy chairmen of the Council of Ministers of the USSR - N. A. Bulganin, V. A. Malyshev, M. Z. Saburov, M. V. Khrunichev. General supervision and resolution of fundamental and cross-sectoral issues of the defense industries and the Ministry of Defense was carried out by the Bureau of the USSR Council of Ministers.
In December 1956, the functions of managing defense industries were transferred to the State Economic Commission. She prepared proposals on military equipment issues and provided operational management of defense industries. The commission was given the right to issue orders and regulations in the field of industry that are binding. In December 1957, the State Economic Commission was liquidated. On December 6, 1957, the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues was created under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The role of the commission as a coordinator was especially high under the conditions of N. S. Khrushchev’s reform of 1957-1958. to decentralize economic management through the system of “economic councils”. However, even after the restoration of the ministries in 1965, the commission retained its functions and became the most stable organizational form of coordination of the multifaceted activities of the country’s military-industrial complex, until the end of the Soviet period.
The main tasks of the Military-Industrial Commission were:
- organization and coordination of work on the creation of modern types of weapons and military equipment;
- coordination of the work of defense industries, other ministries and departments of the USSR involved in the creation and production of weapons and military equipment;
- ensuring, together with the USSR State Planning Committee, the comprehensive development of defense industries;
- increasing the technical level of production, quality and reliability of weapons and military equipment;
- operational management and control over the activities of defense industries, including in terms of the creation, production and supply of weapons and military equipment, production of consumer goods and other civilian products in volumes equal in value to the wage fund of enterprises in the industry, as well as control over the activities other industries on these issues;
- preparing, jointly with the USSR State Planning Committee and the USSR Ministry of Defense, weapons programs, five-year and annual plans for the creation, production and release of weapons and military equipment and submitting them for consideration and approval;
- preparation and submission, together with the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the ministries of defense and finance, for consideration by the USSR Defense Council and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, of proposals on target figures for the country's expenditures on the creation and production of weapons, military and other special equipment of defense significance in the corresponding planning periods;
- coordination of foreign economic relations of defense industries for military-technical cooperation.
Due to the reduction in arms spending in the 1980s. The military-industrial complex was entrusted with the task of coordinating and implementing work in the field of conversion of military production. In this regard, the military-industrial complex was entrusted with a number of important operational tasks for the development of the civilian sector of the national economy:
- organization of development and production of equipment for processing industries of the agro-industrial complex, light industry and trade;
- organization of development and production of non-food consumer goods; organization of technical means and works in the field of communications; coordination of work on the creation of nuclear energy facilities;
- management of the implementation of programs for electronization of the national economy; coordination of work in the field of air, cargo and passenger transportation and other tasks.
At different periods of the work of the military-industrial complex, its composition, as a rule, included the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR - chairman of the military-industrial complex, the first deputy chairman of the military-industrial complex - with the rank of minister of the USSR, deputy chairmen of the military-industrial complex, the first deputy chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee in charge of defense industry issues, ministers of defense industries industry, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for Armaments, as well as well-known and authoritative scientists and industrial organizers.
Ustinov D.F. - first chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Council of Ministers of the USSR
Since the formation of the Military-Industrial Commission in 1957 during the Soviet period, it was successively headed by Dmitry Fedorovich Ustinov (1957-1963), Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov (1963-1985), Yuri Dmitrievich Maslyukov (1985-1988), Igor Sergeevich Belousov (1988-1991).
By the mid-1980s. in the military-industrial complex there were 15 departments involved in the creation of weapons and military equipment, analysis of the production activities of ministries and the economic efficiency of the military-industrial complex, the introduction of scientific and technological progress, advanced technologies into production, and military-technical cooperation with foreign countries.
The staff of the military-industrial complex apparatus included representatives of the main branches of the complex: 50% came from ministries with leadership positions, 10% from the USSR State Planning Committee, 6% from the USSR Ministry of Defense, 34% from research institutes, design bureaus and factories. The most numerous were the leaders of the defense industry and the scientific and technical elite, the smallest percentage came from the military department. Scientific and technical personnel, including prominent scientists, participated in the work of the Scientific and Technical Council, which operated under the military-industrial complex.
The procedure for making decisions on military-industrial issues, basically established since the 60s, demonstrated the unity and joint work of all the main divisions of the Soviet military-industrial complex. Final decisions usually came out in the form of joint resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which carried various classifications of secrecy and were secretly sent to the interested departments. The same special decisions of the highest authorities formalized any changes in policy related to the activities of the military-industrial complex. However, this was preceded by lengthy work by a number of departments.
Draft solutions were developed at the initial stage by those research and production departments that were involved in the development of one or another weapon system (some technical orders were also developed by scientific and technical organizations of the military department). Then all interested ministries submitted their proposals for the project to the Military-Industrial Commission, which was the main coordinating body of the entire complex. The commission made a lot of efforts, trying to harmonize the provisions of the document with the interests and capabilities of all interested departments, scientific, technical and scientific-production organizations. The final version of the project prepared by the commission was then sent to the Department of Defense Industry of the CPSU Central Committee, where it was subject to additions and adjustments and was issued in the form of a joint directive of the main bodies of the party and state leadership. This was the general scheme of decision-making in this area during the period of the “developed military-industrial complex,” when the latter occupied a leading place in the economy of the USSR.
Reusable rocket and space system "Energia-Buran" at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (1988)
The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR made a very important decision for the work to vest the military-industrial complex with the powers of a government body from the moment of its formation. The authorized functions of the military-industrial complex were manifested in cases of disagreement between the ministries of defense industries (MOOP) and the State Planning Committee of the USSR; MOOP and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, the State Planning Committee of the USSR and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR when considering the military-industrial complex of current annual plans for the production and supply of weapons and military equipment, weapons plans and programs, research and development work on weapons and military equipment, the creation of mobilization capacities, and also when working out these plans, taking into account their execution. The decision of the military-industrial complex in the event of disagreement was, as a rule, final. Sometimes on fundamental issues of a financial, material and resource nature, the final decision was made by the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.
Many large and important state events took place with the participation and under the control of the Military-Industrial Commission over the many years of its existence.
Thus, a network of institutes, design bureaus and factories has been formed, covering all areas of rocket science (design bureaus and institutes: B.V. Gidaspova, V.P. Glushko, B.P. Zhukova, S.P. Koroleva, V.P. Makeeva, A. D. Nadiradze, M. F. Reshetneva, V. N. Chelomey, M. K. Yangel and others), the largest enterprises and production associations: plant named after. Khrunichev, Yuzhmashzavod, Krasnoyarsk machine plant, Leninets, Omsk aircraft plant, Phazotron, Zlatoust machine plant, Votkinsk machine plant, Orenburg aircraft plant, Biysk chemical plant and many others.
Manned and unmanned space systems for various purposes have been created. Combat missile systems of the Strategic Missile Forces have been deployed - the basis of the country's nuclear missile shield. An underwater missile-carrying fleet and long-range aviation equipped with cruise missiles have been created and become a formidable force.
During the same period, strategic nuclear missile parity was achieved with the United States and NATO countries, ensuring long-term strategic stability, or simply a world without nuclear wars. This world was won by the enormous labor of the defense industry workers who created strategic nuclear forces.
Today it has become clear to everyone that only the strategic nuclear-missile parity achieved through the efforts of our entire country made the transition to a policy of reducing and limiting nuclear weapons possible, only this parity brought world politicians to the negotiating table.
The formation of a systematic organization for the development of weapons also dates back to this period. To emphasize the breadth and responsibility of the tasks solved under the auspices and with the participation of the military-industrial complex, it is enough to recall the complex programs of the most important types of rocket-space, aviation, anti-missile and other weapons systems created on the basis of in-depth scientific research.
The military-industrial complex and the ministries of defense industries fulfilled the main task set by the state to ensure a high scientific and technical level of weapons and military equipment - so that the weapons of the army and navy in their tactical and technical parameters are not inferior to or superior to the level of military equipment of foreign countries. Under the constant control of the Military-Industrial Commission, the army and navy were promptly equipped with the latest weapons in the shortest possible time and in the required quantities.
Military-industrial complex workers have always highly valued the contribution of the command and personnel of the USSR Ministry of Defense to the development of new equipment entering service with the Soviet Army and Navy.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, centralized management of industry, including its military-industrial complex, was abolished, the State Commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military-industrial issues and the ministries of defense industries of the USSR were liquidated, enterprises of defense industries entered the phase deep crisis, the country's military power and its defense capability declined from year to year.
Today, all Russian citizens should remember that thanks to the centralized management of defense and other sectors of the national economy, which made it possible to concentrate production, material and intellectual resources to provide the front with everything necessary, the Soviet Union won the Great Patriotic War, and during 1957-1991 created strategic nuclear missile parity with the United States and NATO countries, which prevented a new war with global destruction and ensured 60 years of peace on our land.
The re-establishment of the Military-Industrial Commission in the Russian Federation in 2006, along with other steps in the field of ensuring the country's military security, indicates a revival of the attention of the Russian state and society to military-industrial issues and serves as a necessary prerequisite for the development of the domestic defense-industrial complex.
The question of which event should be considered a symbol of the emergence of a central government body coordinating the tasks of building the armed forces and the work of the military industry remains open and requires further historical research. The historical process of development of Russian statehood is in fact not determined and therefore the events of 1938, 1953, and 1957 can serve as equally symbolic for the issue under consideration.
