Soviet “never-ending construction projects” of the industrialization period in the defense industry: causes, essence, consequences

Overcoming discrepancies between the Soviet Union economic capabilities in the beginning of the industrialization period, on the one hand, and goals and objectives of industrialization itself in the context of the heavy and defense industries development in the USSR, on the other, appears to be one of the most interesting problems in Russian history. State of the construction industry in national economy, especially in the housing construction, is its little-studied aspect. The paper shows inability to provide industrial construction sites in the Soviet Union with the required housing for the construction workers was leading to a shortage of the latter, which, in turn, did not allow for the timely use of the allocated funds and significantly delayed construction of the separate industrial facilities turning them into the never-ending construction projects. The article examines documentary materials stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (SARF), Russian State Military Archive (RSMA) and the Russian State Archives of Economics (RSAE), as well as those published in various collections of documents on the history of the Soviet period. The paper analyzes a set of reasons that prevented improvement of the housing conditions at the industrial construction sites, and examines the impact of those reasons on delays in the construction using examples of separate neverending construction projects in various sectors of the USSR defense industry.

EDN TGSIEF

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