Stalin Automobile Factories during 1941-1945: Challenges of War and Paths to Adaptation
https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2025-14-7-487-508
Abstract
This study examines the operation of the Stalin automobile factories during the Great Patriotic War, focusing on their evacuation, reorganization, and adaptation to wartime conditions. It addresses issues of production management, technological cooperation, and crisis resolution. The research aims to analyze the processes of evacuation and reorganization within the Soviet automobile industry, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of production management under wartime circumstances. The sources utilized include archival documents from the Russian State Archive of Economics, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, and other repositories, encompassing regulatory, reporting, and statistical materials. Methods employed include retrospective analysis, content analysis, and statistical data processing. The author concludes that the evacuation of the Moscow Stalin Automobile Plant and the establishment of new facilities in the Urals and Volga region enabled the preservation of the production capacity of the automobile industry. It is established that the organization of the Main Administration of Stalin Automobile Plants (Glavavtozis) facilitated the coordination of operations among disparate enterprises. The study illustrates that the management experience and design developments accumulated during the war were instrumental in the post-war reconstruction of the country.
Keywords
About the Author
S. A. PyankovRussian Federation
Stepan A. Pyankov - PhD in History, senior research scientist, Center for Economic History
WoS ResearcherID F-3990-2017
Yekaterinburg
References
1. Bely, K. V., Naumova, G. R. (2021). The factory disappeared, but its history remained. Klio, 2 (170): 177—181. DOI: 10.51676/2070-9773_2021_01_00. (In Russ.).
2. Ermolov, A. Y. (2012). State management of the military industry in the 1940s: tank industry. Saint Petersburg: Aleteya. 407 p. ISBN 978-5-91419-676-6. (In Russ.).
3. Gordin, A. A. (2012). Gorky Automobile Plant. History and Modernity, 1932—2012. Nizhny Novgorod: Quartz. 320 p. ISBN 978-5-903581-62-7. (In Russ.).
4. Gordin, A. A., Kolesnikova, N. V., Kulakov, A. A. (2021). How the consequences of the Nazi air raids on the Gorky Automobile Plant were eliminated. June—October 1943. Historical Archive, 6: 4—17. (In Russ.).
5. Greenstein, D. E. (2014). Assembling “Fordism”: The Production of Automobiles, Americans, and Bolsheviks in Detroit and Early Soviet Russia. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 56 (2): 259—289. DOI: 10.1017/S0010417514000048.
6. History of the Moscow Automobile Plant named after I. A. Likhachev. (1966). Moscow: Mysl Publ. 647 p. (In Russ.).
7. Hlevnyuk, O. V. (2022). The Soviet rear during the Great Patriotic War. Studies on the nature and evolution of the mobilization system. Russian History, 3: 122—134. DOI: 10.31857/S0869568722030098. (In Russ.).
8. Khlevnyuk, O. V. (2018). Soviet People’s commissariats and decentralization of economic management during the Great Patriotic War. Russian History, 4: 58—72. DOI: 10.31857/S086956870000132-6. (In Russ.).
9. Link, S. J. (2020). Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 328 р. ISBN 978-0691177540.
10. Melnikov, N. N. (2025). The Soviet model of armored vehicles production (1920—1940’s). Ural Historical Bulletin, 1 (86): 89—98. DOI: 10.30759/1728-9718-2025-1(86)-89-98. (In Russ.).
11. Mukhin, M. Y. (2022). Economic support of the turning point in the Great Patriotic War. Historical notes, 21 (139): 124—169. (In Russ.).
12. Mukhin, M. Y. (2024). Industrial mobilization during the Great Patriotic War: the Mechanism of Economic Victory. Russian History, 2: 172—191. DOI: 10.31857/S2949124X24020168. (In Russ.).
13. Mukhin, M. Yu. (2011). The Soviet aviation industry during the Great Patriotic War. Moscow: Veche. 347 p. ISBN 978-5-9533-5586-5. (In Russ.).
14. Potemkina, M. N. (2020). Modern Russian historiography and prospects for studying industrial evacuation during the Great Patriotic War. Modern History of Russia, 10 (3): 757—772. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu24.2020.312. (In Russ.).
15. Potemkina, M. N. (2025). Organizational experience of evacuation of industrial enterprises in 1941—1942: problems and results. Ural Historical Bulletin, 1 (86): 62—70. DOI: 10.30759/1728-9718-2025-1(86)-62-70. (In Russ.).
16. Prokofieva, E. V. (2010). Domestic automotive industry: stages of development, structure and organization of management, scientific research base (1896—1991). Tolyatti; Samara: Publishing House As Gard, LLC. 290 p. ISBN 978-5-4259-0024-1. (In Russ.).
17. Prokofieva, E. Y. (2009). Historiographical review of the domestic automotive industry. Proceedings of the Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 11 (2): 257—261. (In Russ.).
18. Pyankov, S. A. (2023). Stages of the difficult path: The Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant during the Great Patriotic War. Questions of history, 7 (2): 22—37. DOI: 10.31166/VOPROSYISTORII202307STATY47. (In Russ.).
19. Pyankov, S. A., Sushkov, A. V. (2024). Evacuation of Moscow Automobile Plant named after Stalin during Great Patriotic War: from Projects to Implementation. Nauchnyi dialog, 13 (6): 435—455. https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2024-13-6-435-455 (In Russ.).
20. Shelepenkov, M. A. (ed.). (2016). Plant and people. 1916—2016: in 3 volumes. The origin of the automotive industry, 1. Moscow: Moscow Polytechnic University. 548 p. ISBN 978-5-2760-2389-2. (In Russ.).
21. Siegelbaum, L. (2008). Cars for comrades: The life of the Soviet automobile. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. XIV, 309 p. ISBN 978-0-8014-4638-2.
22. Sorokin, A. K. (2022). At Victory Headquarters: Essays on the history of public administration in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War 1941—1945. Moscow: Political Encyclopedia. 239 p. ISBN 978-5-8243-2499-0. (In Russ.).
23. Tarkhova, O. I. (2021). Stationary internal combustion engines of the “L” series on land and on water. Engine, 5—6: 27—29. (In Russ.).
24. The History of Russian automobile transport, 3: 1941—1945. (1998). Moscow: NIIAT. 368 p. ISBN 5-900841-01-4. (In Russ.).
25. Zapariy, V. V., Melnikov, N. N. (2020). The Soviet interpretation of the ideas of Fordism as the basis for the transformation of the Soviet tank industry during the Great Patriotic War. Economic history, 16 / 3 (50): 317—332. DOI: 10.15507/2409630X.050.016.202003.317-332. (In Russ.).
Review
For citations:
Pyankov S.A. Stalin Automobile Factories during 1941-1945: Challenges of War and Paths to Adaptation. Nauchnyi dialog. 2025;14(7):487-508. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2025-14-7-487-508