Expert board:

• Scientific Council of RAS on economic history;
• Research and Educational Center «The economic history of Central Russia and the Middle Volga region» of Ogarev Mordovia State University;
• Center of Economic History of  Lomonosov Moscow State University

Aleksey V. Maklyukov

Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography Far-Eastern Branch of the Russian

(Vladivostok, Russia),

e-mail: alekseymaklyukov@yandex.ru

 

Formation of Regional Energy Systems in the Far East of the USSR in 1957–1966: prerequisites, problems and features

 

Abstract

Introduction. The study analyzes the historical aspects of the formation of regional energy systems in the Far East of the USSR in 1957–1966, and identifies the prerequisites, conditions, and technical and economic features of this process.

Materials and Methods. The study is based on unpublished archival records, including declassified documents found in the funds of federal, regional and departmental archives. The study uses traditional historical methods and historical-economic (systemic, statistical, quantitative).

Results. Strengthening of the eastern vector in state policy in the post-war years, administrative and territorial transformations of the Far Eastern territory, creation of new structures for managing the national economy, resumption of energy construction and conducting scientific research – all this together created the prerequisites for the formation of regional energy systems in the Far East. However, departmental principles of managing the electric power industry, which had taken root since the times of industrialization, became a serious problem on the way to the transition of the energy industry into independently managed and developing elements of the economy – energy systems.

Discussion and Conclusion. The key prerequisite for the formation of energy systems in the Far East was the management reform of 1957. As a result of the active economic activity of the economic councils, district energy management systems gradually appeared in each Far Eastern entity. Far Eastern energy systems were formed under conditions of limited financial and material and technical resources, inconsistency between the center and the region in solving the problems of the industry, insufficient volumes and rates of energy construction, and weak centralization of electricity supply to consumers. The distinctive features of the Far Eastern energy systems from the Central, Ural and Siberian ones were that they were noticeably inferior to them in technical and economic indicators, were isolated from each other and did not yet represent a single whole within.

Keywords: power system, power generation, electrification, the national economy, the Russian Far East, USSR.

For citation: Maklyukov A. V. Formation of Regional Energy Systems in the Far East of the USSR in 1957–1966: prerequisites, problems and features. Ekonomicheskaya istoriya = Russian Journal of Economic History. 2025; 21(2): 165–178. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.24412/2409-630X.069.021.202502.165-178.

 

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