The 1941-1942 Evacuation of Factories

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its European allies, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia, initiated Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mile) front.

Operation Barbarossa launched an explosive German and Axis air and ground assault into western Russia that surprised and stunned Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Russian high command.

Although Stalin had accurate intelligence earlier in 1941 about the imminent German attack, he refused to believe it, and did not order a mobilization of the Red Army, fearing that it might provoke Germany. As a result, the understrength and out of position Soviet forces were caught completely unprepared when the massive German air and ground assault began.

The overwhelming German firepower and the lightning encirclement and destruction of entire Russian armies resulted in the catastrophic devastation and collapse of Soviet resistance during the first five months of the German and Axis invasion of Russia.

Just two days after the start of Operation Barbarossa, it became obvious that many Soviet cities were in imminent danger of being surrounded and captured by the Germans. The emergency evacuation of Soviet industrial factories from the frontline areas suddenly became crucial.

Encountering this reality at the outset of the invasion, the Politburo (Политбюро) decided that the People’s Commissariat of Railroads (Народный комиссариат путей сообщения) should play the main role in the emergency evacuation.

All-Union Communist Party Central Committee Decree VKP(b) and the USSR SNK Council of People’s Commissars (Совет Народных Комиссаров) of June 24, 1941 established the Evacuation Council.

Evacuation commissions were formed in the people’s commissariats, the frontline republics and oblasts, while evacuation points were set up at major railroad junctions, stations and sidings responsible for the prompt receiving and dispatch of trains (transports) carrying personnel, equipment and materiel.

Responsibility for the location, rapid reconstruction and starting up of the evacuated enterprises was entrusted to the Deputy Chairman of the USSR SNK and Chairman of the USSR Gosplan.

Of course, the situation did not develop as planned, and it became clear that evacuation would assume enormous proportions. There was neither sufficient time nor transport available to evacuate everything all at once. It became essential to choose what should be evacuated first, and to what regions in Russia the various factories and enterprises should be evacuated.

On July 3, 1941, the GKO made the decision to evacuate 26 plants of the People’s Commissariat for Armament from the central regions and from Leningrad. Factories producing tanks, tank engines, metallurgical equipment, machine tools, and other industrial products were evacuated into the distant rear.

Defense industries were evacuated first and set up in the rear. Simultaneously, scientific institutions, agricultural products, livestock and cultural properties were evacuated from the danger zones. Regardless of persistent German attacks, the extreme shortness of time, and other unfavorable factors, the evacuation was carried out in an organized and precise manner.

The collapse of the front made the emergency evacuation and relocation of industrial factories from western Russia to the east a crucial priority, that was accomplished according to a unified plan on a colossal scale.

The leaders of the VKP(b) Central Committee and the GKO managed the task of evacuating many factories and their workers, in the shortest time possible from an enormous territory, and move them to a new region, and put them back into production.

The plan was to evacuate approximately one-half of the personnel of the people’s commissariats with two or three deputies. After the evacuated portion of the people’s commissariat had begun to function normally at the new place, the remaining portion was to be moved, headed by the people’s commissar.

One of the deputy commissars was to remain in Moscow, with a small group of workers, to carry out the assignments of the people’s commissar and maintain contact with governmental institutions.

The success of the evacuation depended largely upon the precise operation of rail transport. The dimensions of the evacuation were enormous, and managing the railroads was extremely complex. In mid-December 1941, an unusually large number of trains with evacuated equipment and other freight had come to a stop on the railroads. There were not enough empty railroad cars.

The people’s commissars were in no hurry to unload the trains arriving full of equipment and materials, because destinations had not yet been prepared to receive the equipment, and there were not enough warehouses.

Proceeding from their own narrow departmental interests, commissars simply turned the trains into rolling warehouses. In less than 10 days, the Committee for Unloading Transit Freight adopted measures which made it possible to break the log-jam in rail transport.

The German conquest of a considerable part of western Russia, attacks by German aircraft and artillery, and sabotage in the rear, led to the destruction of roads, rail lines, and other means of communication, and the loss of labor resources, production equipment, and supplies of ordinary products.

By the end of 1942, the losses of production capacity caused by German invasion reached approximately one-third of its prewar value. The forced evacuation of defense enterprises and supporting services to remote regions of Russia for a long period of time caused large production losses. Also, a considerable number of industrial workers were called into the armed forces.

Factories that produced two-fifths of the gross output of all USSR industry in 1940 were evacuated to the remote regions of Russia. Almost 75 percent of arms and shipbuilding factories, all specialized tank factories, and more than 150 machine-building and metal-processing factories were evacuated. Before the end of 1941, more than 10 million people were sent to the rear areas.

Moving factories and workers to new regions involved overcoming many difficulties. There was not enough electric energy, especially in the Oral area, which received most of the evacuated factories. The production ties between factories and clients which had been formed over the years were broken. Transportation operated irregularly. In many places there were no supplies of raw material and fuel, nor did they have the necessary construction base.

There was a critical shortage of available labor. Only about 30 to 40 percent of factory workers were transferred with their factory, and in the new places there was almost no trained labor force. The evacuated population also found very poor living conditions. In a number of cities in the rural areas, there was only 2-2.5 square meters of dwelling space for each individual. The people also suffered immense food deprivation, and industrial goods and services were lacking.

On June 24, 1941, from the very start of the war, leadership for the difficult task of evacuating major factories, workers, engineers, and technicians from the frontline areas to the east had been entrusted to the Evacuation Council, in accordance with a precise plan.

From July through November 1941, some 1,523 industrial factories were relocated to the East (667 to the Urals, 224 to Western Siberia, 78 to Eastern Siberia, 308 to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, and 226 to the Volga). During the second half of 1941, according to incomplete data, the equipment of 2,593 industrial factories was moved from threatened areas to the east.

The VKP(b) Central Committee was responsible for relocating and reestablishing the factories.

Not only industrial factories were evacuated to the East. The kolkhozes and sovkhozes in the eastern regions of the nation during the second half of 1941 received 2,393,300 head of livestock, evacuated from the frontline zones in western Russia.

The evacuation of industrial factories from the frontline areas deep into the rear made it possible to maintain a significant portion of national wealth and use it to increase military production.

The evacuation of an entire industrial base over thousands of kilometers caused enormous strain in transport operations. The volume of operational shipments increased sharply, requiring the reorganization of transport operations.

A major element was to convert train traffic to a special military schedule called the “A” travel warrant. This moving of troop trains and freight involved with the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces had first priority. Other measures were also carried out by the mobilization plan, including a special freight control system to be employed in rail transport.

Because transport was more difficult, leadership had to be strengthened. In February 1942, under the GKO the Transport Committee was formed the membership of which included I. V. Stalin (chairman), A. A. Andreyev (deputy), A. I. Mikoyan, I. V. Kovalev, A. V. Khrulev, Z. A. Shashkov and others.

With the aid of the Transport Committee, it was possible to achieve a greater coordination in the planning and carrying out of shipments and to coordinate the work of the means of transport. The GKO altered the management structure of the railroads and strengthened the leadership of the NKPS [People’s Commissariat of Railroads].

On March 25, 1942, the USSR Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense and Chief of the Main Directorate of Rear Services of the Soviet Army, Gen A. V. Khrulev, became the head of the NKPS.

Representatives of the NKPS were responsible for managing transportation to the fronts. Party workers and representatives of the NKPS, and representatives of the chief of the rear services of the Soviet Army, were sent to accelerate troop train traffic to many junctions through which the main flows of military cargo were moving to the fronts.

Due to these measures and the diligent work of railroad workers, shipments for the army and the national economy increased significantly. For just the 10 main lines, the volume of loading and unloading by the beginning of May 1942 had increased by 50 percent, car stoppages had declined noticeably and railroad capacity had increased.

Along with the measures taken to improve transport operations, the GKO and the USSR government gave great importance to mobilizing the material and labor resources in agriculture to continuously supply the Armed Forces with food and industry with raw materials.

To carry out this task, it was essential to alter the procedure for distributing the food resources. The state channeled the existing food primarily to supply the Red Army and the population of the industrial centers.

According to a decision of the Politburo of the VKP(b) Central Committee, from July 1941, a rationing system was introduced. The amounts were set depending upon the degree of importance of the work performed for defense purposes, as well as the nature of the job and working conditions.

The most important conditions for solving the food problem were the rapid reorganization of agricultural production to a wartime footing, and controlling the placement of grain and other agricultural products. In the spring of 1942, the planted area of the kolkhozes and sovkhozes in the regions of the Center, Volga, Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Transcaucasia and the Far East increased by 3.7 million hectares in comparison with 1940.

The establishment of factory subsidiary farms, and the raising of potatoes and vegetables by rear area troop units augmented food production.

On June 26, 1941, the Ukase of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet promulgated “On the Working Hours of Manual and White Collar Personnel in Wartime.”

With the permission of the USSR SNK (Council of People’s Commissars), factory leaders were granted the right to assign compulsory overtime to employees, lasting from one to three hours per day.

Also, regular and supplementary leaves were cancelled, which increased the use of production equipment by approximately one-third without increasing the number of personnel.

Adjustments were made in the weapons system. It was essential to abandon individual models which were difficult to produce or required large material outlays and imported raw materials. Certain weapons were simplified, and finishing requirements were reduced, when basic combat qualities were not compromized.

Thus, while it required 2,080 parts to manufacture a Model 1936 76-mm cannon, the 1939 Model required 1,057 parts For producing one of the best cannons of the Second World War, the Model 1942 (ZIS-3) 76-mm cannon, just 719 parts were required.

In producing weapons, maximum use was made of local resources and materials, and advanced equipment and progressive production methods were constantly introduced.

Beginning in December 1941, industrial production increased, and from March 1942, began to grow rapidly. In March 1942, the output of military products, just in the eastern regions of Russia, reached the production level that had existed at the start of the war on all Soviet territory.

Compared to June 1941, the maximum decline in industrial production occurred in November 1941, when the volume of industrial output decreased to less than one-half of its previous output.

At the same time the evacuated enterprises were either still “on the road” or had been located in new places. During the subsequent winter months this critical peak was passed, but the increase in output was unstable and insignificant.

The 1942 German summer offensive worsened conditions for the Russian military economy, causing a second, although not as strong, wave of evacuation, and breaking the production and transportation ties between the rear regions, the Northern Caucasuses, and the Transcaucasian areas.

The scale of evacuation was enormous. Over the entire period of the war, some 2,593 factories were relocated completely or partially just by rail. Prior to the war these factories produced 33 percent of all the nation’s industrial product.

Over 10 million persons were evacuated to the eastern regions, and around 11,000 tractors, a large number of livestock, and the property of many kolkhozes, sovkhozes and MTS. In essence, an entire industrial nation was moved thousands of kilometers, and this ensured the fastest fundamental restructuring of the national economy to a wartime footing.

The critical shortage of labor force caused the Soviet Union to temporarily reduce the age limit for workers from 16 to 14 years (the length of the work day for adolescents was limited to 6 hours). The proportion of youth under 18 years of age in the overall number of workers and employees in industry increased from 6 percent in 1939 to 15 percent in 1942.

Naturally, the mass replacement of experienced workers, who had been called into the armed forces, with less skilled workers who were not trained at all, considerably reduced the overall skill level of industrial workers and employees.

By the middle of 1942, more than 1,200 of the 1,360 large industrial enterprises that had previously been evacuated were restored, and began to produce products in growing amounts.

Defense production was increasing at many of the “root” enterprises of the rear regions. Associated plants were transferred over to new interbranch territorial ties. Additional labor was enlisted, and the length of the work day was increased.

By the end of 1942 the changeover of enterprises from ordinary production to defense production was complete, and mass flow-line output of new kinds of military equipment and accessories was organized.