Alexey Isaev — about the impressive results of the mobilization of the USSR industry on the example of one of the giants of industrialization80 years ago, on September 22, the first T-34 tank, entirely created at this enterprise, came out of the gates of the Uralmash plant.
This is especially impressive when you consider that Uralmashzavod (Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, Uralmash, UZTM) did not produce any military products at all until the summer of 1941 and did not even have a mobilization plan and military acceptance at the enterprise.
From general purpose to military
During the industrialization of the country, the Uralmash plant in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Urals was built specifically to serve the needs of ferrous metallurgy and was subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Heavy Engineering. Often, the industrialization of the 1930s itself is presented as a purely military event with a bias towards the construction of tank, artillery and aircraft factories. But in fact, this was far from the case. At that time, a general-purpose industry was being created, without which, of course, the existence of military production was unthinkable. UZTM, in particular, was first entrusted with the production of large rolling mills, mining and blast furnace equipment. In addition, the plant produced powerful excavators.
However, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War forced the leadership of the USSR to reconsider all pre-war plans. Firstly, it was necessary to compensate for the large losses of military equipment. Secondly, the Fascists' seizure of territories in the European part of the USSR posed the threat of losing key factories of the military industry. To compensate for this (and then only partially) could be the evacuation of some of the machines and equipment of similar plants to the east.
As one of the answers to these challenges, on September 12, 1941, a special management structure was created — the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry (NKTP). In addition to the enterprises that already produced armored vehicles, a number of industry giants, including Uralmash, were transferred to his subordination on September 19. Boris Muzrukov, who was not yet 40 years old, was in charge of the industrial enterprise at that time. At first, the plant was reoriented to the production of hulls and towers for heavy KV tanks — their assembly was carried out by the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (CHTZ). In essence, it was the mobilization of enterprises for the production of military products. At the same time, if ChTZ was supposed to be involved in the production of tanks even before the war, which entailed some technical features, then Uralmash had to solve all new production tasks for it "from scratch".
Despite the high status of one of the leaders of the Soviet industry, Uralmash had a lot of specific equipment that was not applicable to the construction of tanks (some machines were never used during the entire war). Therefore, it was necessary to hastily carry out a significant reconstruction of workshops, rearrangement of the machine park with replenishment with a large amount of equipment from the outside — the evacuated factories became the main source. In this respect, Muzrukov was in a sense even lucky, since a central base of evacuated equipment for the factories of the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry was created at Uralmashzavod. All this made it possible to achieve success in a new field.
Transition to T-34
So on March 17, 1942, by decree of the State Defense Committee (GKO) No. 1459, Uralmash began producing T-34 hulls and turrets. In July of the same year, Joseph Stalin dismissed Vyacheslav Malyshev, the People's Commissar of the tank industry, and appointed Isaac Saltzman, the successful director of the Kirov Plant, instead of him: Stalin's main claim to Malyshev was the disruption of plans for the production of T-34 tanks, which by that time had become the basis of tank troops and the most combat-ready model of Soviet armored vehicles.
Saltzman's situation was complicated by the obvious threat hanging over the production of "thirty—fours" in Stalingrad - the fighting was already on the distant approaches to the city. This is what motivates Saltzman to turn to Muzrukov with a proposal for the production of T-34 tanks at UZTM. Boris Muzrukov believed that Uralmash was quite capable of making a tank entirely. On July 28, 1942, GKO Resolution No. 2120 was adopted, according to which UZTM was to master the full production of the T-34.
The new People's Commissar Isaac Saltzman had a completely sensible plan for implementing Stalin's demands to increase the production of tanks. The Moscow plant No. 37, which was evacuated to Sverdlovsk and produced light tanks, was merged with Uralmash (the production of light tanks at this plant was curtailed). Muzrukov, meanwhile, forms an assembly shop at his enterprise, installs the necessary equipment and equipment, builds narrow-gauge tracks for transporting tanks during the assembly process. The biggest problem here was the heavy load of foundries. Nevertheless, a way out was found — unexpected and even, I would say, witty: instead of casting the turret of the T-34 tank, it was decided to stamp it from a 45 mm sheet with a powerful unique press with an effort of 10 thousand tons. Such towers cost twice as much as cast ones, but then the country needed tanks at any cost. Moreover, the strength of the stamped tower was even higher than that of the cast one. The stamping of the UZTM on the T-34 with characteristic rounded corners can, for example, be seen in the movie "Lark" about the feat of Soviet tankers in the German rear. Later, Uralmash was entrusted with the production of self-propelled guns with a gun in a fixed armored wheelhouse, which solved the problem of lack of capacity for casting towers.
Far-sightedness of the solution
The first five T-34K tanks at Uralmash were handed over to military acceptance on September 21, 1942. The very next day they left the factory workshops and were sent to the Red Army. The pace of output increased. In November 1942, 101 tanks were produced at the industrial giant; in total, 267 T-34s were produced by the end of 1942.
The decision to involve Uralmash in the production of the T-34 turned out to be more than far-sighted: on August 23, 1942, German tanks reached the Volga, and the production of "thirty-fours" in Stalingrad stopped. However, thanks to the Uralmash and Chelyabinsk Tankograd capacities involved in the production of the T-34, the pace of production of these tanks was maintained. This made it possible to equip tank units for the general counteroffensive of the Soviet troops in the winter of 1942-1943.
In this regard, it is not surprising that after the war, Boris Muzrukov, the director of Uralmash, who successfully coped with the most difficult organizational and technical tasks, was sent to create a Soviet "nuclear sword": in 1947 he became the director of combine No. 817 (now the Mayak enterprise) in the Chelyabinsk region, where plutonium was produced for nuclear charges. Subsequently, Boris Muzrukov became one of the most significant figures of the Soviet atomic project.
