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

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Boris U. Serazetdinov

The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: bserazetdinov@yandex.ru

THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIALIZATION IN WESTERN SIBERIA DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

The article analyzes the industrialization process for the development of the military economy of Western Siberia, its shape and its problems. The author states his standpoint on this phenomenon and its impact on further industrial development of this region during the years of World War II. Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Barnaul and other cities turned into the hubs of evacuated enterprises of the defense industry for the production of ammunition and various weapons.

Through the exploitation of evacuated equipment was and qualified personnel arrived with it industrial complex in Western Siberia has undergone significant changes: the base has been created for further, more in-depth industrial development. Construction of large industrial enterprises, which symbolized priorities for technical progress such as air, tank, electric lamps, instrument, cable and other industries, along with reconstruction and expansion of older plants became the main feature for deployment of regional industrial complex.

Western Siberia was fully affected by an intense impact of the exogenous factor influencing modernization – forced industrialization process, implemented in emergency mode during the World War II. Generally this phase of the industrial history had positive implications for the future development of the province and regions, largely paved the way for their independent regional development, initiated and enhanced by creation of technical military potential.

Keywords: Western Siberia, the great patriotic war, industrialization, modernization of the economy, structural changes, industry, enterprises, factories, evacuation, the State Committee of defense, industrial policy.

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