M. Mysl'. 1983. 263 p.

In the literature, the problem of the development of ferrous metallurgy in 1941-1945. it's pretty well lit. To one degree or another, it is reflected in multi-volume publications on the history of the Great Patriotic War, in major works written on topics that cover this problem. There are also several special works1 . Having collected and summarized a large amount of factual material, a significant part of which is found in the archives, the authors ' team ² described many processes that took place in the ferrous metallurgy industry during the war in a deeper and more complete way than in previous works.

The authors dedicate the book "to the workers of fiery labor - metallurgists and all their comrades in the profession, as well as to all the workers of the national economy who provided unforgettable assistance in increasing the production of metal for arming the army and defeating the enemy" (p. 3). And this dedication fully corresponds to the content of the book: from beginning to end - this is first of all a lively story about people, ordinary metallurgists and managers of various ranks, starting from the master and ending with the People's Commissar. Information about many heroes of labor and production commanders is contained in special biographical references (pp. 17, 25, 26, etc.).

Among the advantages of the monograph is that it reveals more thoroughly than in other works the role of the main headquarters of the industry-the People's Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy, which directly supervised the solution of the unheard-of complex tasks that the war put before one of the leading branches of the Soviet economy, the main base of all military production. The book examines the great work done during the war by the staff of the People's Commissariat as a whole and its leaders: People's Commissar I. F. Tevosyan, deputy People's Commissars acad. I. P. Bardin, V. S. Bychkov, P. I. Korobov, F. A. Merkulov, S. I. Reznikov, A. G. Sheremetyev, heads of glavkov Yu. N. Kozhevnikov, S. M. Meleshkin, V. B. Khlebnikov and others. As a rule, they managed the assigned task not from their office offices, but directly at those production sites where the situation was particularly difficult and required not only qualified instructions, but also immediate assistance.

The opening essay on the development of ferrous metallurgy in the pre-war years briefly describes the history of the struggle of metallurgists to overcome objective and subjective difficulties, to strengthen and improve the industry. The authors have shown that the success of ferrous metallurgy during the Great Patriotic War was largely predetermined by its previous achievements.

Highlighting the restructuring of the industry as a whole and its individual enterprises in relation to the needs of the front, the authors show that especially difficult problems had to be solved by metallurgists in the eastern regions of the country: before the war, mainly ordinary metal was smelted here, and now high-quality, alloyed steels were needed first of all. The monograph shows how the teams of factories in the Urals and Siberia, using the experience of peacetime and helping each other, developed and mastered the technology of smelting special steels in conventional, heavy-duty open-hearth furnaces, dramatically increased the production of high-quality rolled products, changed the range and launched on a large scale the production of pipes for aviation, tank, mortar and other defense industries industry.

"As a result of the implementation of the entire program of measures planned by the party for the restructuring of industry, the metallurgists overcame the enormous difficulties that developed in the first period of the war. Already in the second half of 1942, they began to systematically increase production and ensure that-

¹ Lipatov N. P. Chernaya metallurgiya Urala v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny (1941-1945 gg.) [Black Metallurgy of the Urals during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945)]. Ocherki istorii stroitelstva [Essays on the History of construction], Moscow, 1960; Morekhina G. G. The Great Battle for Metal], Moscow, 1974; Vasiliev A. F. Razvitie chervoy metallurgii Urala v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny. In: Historical Notes, vol. 101.

² V. S. Bychkov, S. N. Belorusov, N. I. Gorbasev, A.V. Mitrofanova, V. D. Romanov, V. N. Shapritsky.

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"the needs of the military industry in high-quality metal, which is necessary for arming the Soviet Army," the authors of the monograph conclude (p. 68).

With the involvement of a significant amount of new archival materials, the book narrates one of the most heroic pages of the labor feat of the Soviet people - the evacuation of ferrous metallurgy enterprises from front-line and threatened areas. Having described the features of relocation of plants in this industry, the authors drew a vivid picture of the dismantling and transportation of metallurgical units, their placement at plants in the Urals and Siberia. At the same time, the book shows the great help that the regional party committees, and first of all their secretaries, provided to the plant administration and representatives of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in solving the colossal complexity of tasks related to evacuation. They personally toured the enterprises, checked the state of affairs and the progress of preparations for the relocation of material assets and personnel.

The pages devoted to the exploits of the teams of metallurgical plants during their evacuation cannot be read without excitement. Each of these feats, taken separately, is unique. At the same time, they all have one common basis: the deep feeling of Soviet people's love for their Homeland, which was fostered by the Communist Party during the period of peaceful socialist construction.

Describing the development of ferrous metallurgy in the eastern regions during the war years, namely, it made a decisive contribution to providing metal to the defense industry and other industries, the authors draw a huge scale of consistent capacity building of metallurgical enterprises in this region in 1941-1945. Although this section is written mainly on the basis of previously published information, the authors were able to collect and concentrate a wealth of factual material about construction work at giant factories built under the Soviet regime, as well as at enterprises built in pre-revolutionary times.

The authors used a lot of valuable archival materials to characterize the course of mobilization of scrap metal resources for defense needs. Thus, they report that in March 1942, the Central Commission for Collecting Ferrous and Non-ferrous scrap in the front-line zone (headed by N. M. Shvernik, a member of the GKO) was formed to manage this large and extremely important case. The Central Committee of the CPSU(b) regularly held meetings on the disposal of captured scrap (p. 158, 162). The fact that more than half of the steel produced at the end of the war was produced from scrap metal shows how large-scale and important this work was (p. 161).

The book also reflects the participation of metallurgists in the All-Union Socialist Competition, which, according to the authors ' fair conclusion (p. 172), served as a powerful lever for increasing metal smelting.

With the involvement of a significant amount of new archival materials, the authors cover the history of the revival of metallurgy in the South and Center. They show the huge scale of destruction of ferrous metallurgy enterprises that were under enemy occupation, the selfless work of workers, specialists and managers to revive the factories that provided the country with steel, cast iron, rolled products, hardware and other products. The book provides vivid facts of labor heroism shown by individuals and entire collectives during the restoration of enterprises destroyed by the enemy, bold and original technical solutions that made it possible to reduce the cost of restoration work and dramatically reduce their time. It is also a merit of the authors that, while studying the history of the revival of the iron and steel industry in the South, they do not limit themselves to the final stage of the war, but in some cases trace this process to the end of the 40s and even to the beginning of the 50s, when the healing of particularly deep wounds caused by the Nazi occupiers of Soviet industry was completely completed.

Appendices to the monograph contain statistical tables on the work of ferrous metallurgy enterprises in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as various documents and materials of the central bodies and enterprises of ferrous metallurgy, extracted with a single exception from the funds of the Central State Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Authors should not be required to cover all subjects related to the problem of their research without exception, but some of them should have been discussed at least briefly. These include construction during the war in the Kazakh and Uz regions.-

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the Bek SSR metallurgical plants that became the basis of the ferrous metallurgy of these republics. Nothing is said in the monograph about the record achievements of the blast furnace workers of the Novotagil Metallurgical Plant, who, due to the skillful use of equipment, produced 95 thousand tons of pig iron from the plan in 1943, which corresponded to the launch of a blast furnace of an average power of ³ at that time . For these successes, the blast furnace shop of the plant was awarded the Red Banner of GKO and the title "Best Blast Furnace Shop of the Soviet Union" eight times in 1943 alone ^.4 The outstanding labor victories of the Magnitogorsk steelworkers are not covered: only due to the more efficient operation of open-hearth furnaces, they gave the country an additional 278 thousand rubles in 1943. ⁵, and in 1944-470 thousand tons of steel ⁶. The authors limited themselves in this case to giving only a few examples of record metal removals from 1 sq. m of furnace hearth "" by steelworkers (p. 170).

There are repetitions in the book (for example, twice-on pages 104-105 and 115-information is given about the number of ferrous metallurgy enterprises evacuated to the East), factual inaccuracies. Thus, on page 150 it is stated that at the Pervouralsk Novotrubny plant the first batch of evacuated equipment was put into operation already in the first half of 1941, in fact-in 1942. On page 151 it says that "the first batch of solid-rolled pipes was issued on February 23, 1942, on the day of the 25th anniversary of the Red Army", but on this day its 24th anniversary was celebrated.

³ Tagil worker, 7, 27. XI. 1943; 11. I. 1944.

⁴ Party Archive of the Sverdlovsk region, f. 483, op. 3, 100, l. 87.

⁵ Chelyabinsk worker, 19. I. 1944.

⁶ Party organization of the Chelyabinsk region in the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. Sat. doc. and m-lov. Chelyabinsk. 1967, p. 25.

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