Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev on the morning of March 23 said that he recently read the telegrams of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Joseph Stalin on the issues of the military-industrial complex (DIC) of the USSR, which he sent to enterprises during the Great Patriotic War. After that, the ex-president of Russia decided to “cheer up” the managers of Russian factories for the production of military equipment and weapons with them. RTVI tells what the Soviet Generalissimo wrote in his messages.
On the evening of March 23, at a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission’s working group, Medvedev told the military and defense industry business leaders that “he could only pay attention to how “such work” was valued in a “similar situation”. Then, as promised, the ex-president of Russia read Stalin’s telegram dated September 17, 1941, addressed to the director of Uralmashzavod, Boris Muzrukov.
“I ask you to honestly and timely fulfill orders for the supply of hulls for the KB tank at the Chelyabinsk Tank Plant. Now I ask and hope that you will fulfill your duty to the Fatherland. In a few days, you will find yourself violating your duty to the Fatherland, I will start calling you criminals who neglect the honor and interests of their Fatherland. We cannot tolerate our troops suffering at the front from a lack of tanks, while you cool off and slow down in the far rear,” the Soviet head of state wrote.
Medvedev called Stalin’s telegram proof that “no production, no organization is perfect”.
“Colleagues, I want you to hear me and remember the words of the Generalissimo. As you understand, the results of such an appeal were very impressive”, concluded the Vice-President of the Security Council in his speech.
The scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, Mikhail Myagkov, in an interview with the RIA Novosti agency, noted that Stalin’s telegrams disciplined the factory management, harsh measures were then “not only desirable, but necessary”.
“Whether it is possible to apply such measures today is for our leaders to decide. But, in my opinion, for a small part of those people (in the management of companies) who have not still realized that we are at a turning point where the question of the future of our state, of our people is decided and that it is necessary to be in a mobilized state, such instructions will perhaps become an incentive to understand the situation “, he believes.
As RIA Novosti notes, after receiving a telegram from Stalin, Uralmashzavod rectified the situation and no longer received such messages, and the director of the enterprise Boris Muzrukov became one of the key figures in the project Soviet nuclear.
Boris Muzrukov State Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom”
But it was far from Stalin’s most radical telegram to the defense factory during the war. One of the most famous is a letter dated December 23, 1941, to the directors of the Moscow and Voronezh aircraft factories No. 1 and No. 18 Anatoly Tretyakov and Matvey Shenkman.
In the first year of the war, both companies were evacuated to Kuibyshev (now Samara). At the new site, their management had to set up production as soon as possible. Both directors coped with the assigned tasks, since the aircraft was assembled from ready-made parts brought with them: already in early December, the first MiG-3 rolled off the assembly line, and at the end of the month, the first IL-2s were also produced.
However, the supply of parts quickly ran out and production slowed down accordingly. Stalin, who at that time headed the State Defense Committee (GKO), expressed his dissatisfaction with this situation and demanded to speed up the pace.
“You have failed our country and our Red Army. You still don’t deign to produce IL-2. Our Red Army needs IL-2 aircraft now, like air, like bread. Shenkman gives one Il-2 a day and Tretyakov gives one MiG-3, two each. It is a parody of the country, of the Red Army. We don’t need Migis, but Il-2. If the 18th factory thinks of breaking with the country by giving an IL-2 a day, then it is sorely mistaken and will suffer punishment for it. I ask you not to make the government lose patience and I demand that more They be released. I’m warning you for the last time.” said in a telegram from the Secretary-General addressed to the directors of aeronautical factories.
Shenkman read out loud its workers, declaring that “Stalin’s telegram is at the same time a lesson, a mandate and a help”, and soon sent a reply to the Kremlin: “In application of your telegraphic instruction, we inform you that the factory has reached a daily production of 3 cars, January 19 – 6 cars, January 26 — 7 cars,” he wrote.
At the same time, the director of Aircraft Plant No. 18 noted that the unfinished parts of the enterprise were the cause of the backlog and asked Stalin for help in speeding up construction and supplying the factory with finished products and materials.
“We ask for your help to expedite the completion of construction and expedite the supply of finished goods and materials to the plant. We ask you to compel the relevant organizations to mobilize the workers for us and improve their nutrition. The factory team is committed to eliminating the shameful backlog, ”- assured Shenkman.
At the beginning of 1942, a large echelon of brand-new Il-2 attack aircraft left the 18th factory for the front, and just six months after the start of work, both companies were already producing products with an overrun of the plan.
Assembly of the IL-2 attack aircraft at the Kuibyshev Aircraft Plant, in 1942 TASS
No less moving telegram Stalin sent in January 1941, Dmitry Mikhalev, director of the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipbuilding Plant, urgently had to change specializations and began to mass-produce tanks. The company was entrusted with the production of the last T-34s, with the obligation to supply the army with 700-750 tanks by the end of 1941, and in 1942 – already 3,000 tanks.
However, having huge technological and personnel problems, the plant could not cope with the task.
“Your plant poorly fulfills the T-34 tank production plan and undermines the country’s defense. It can no longer be tolerated that at a time of grave danger to the country and the capital, a large factory in the rear has cut off the supply of tanks that the army badly needed. In the next few days, I demand that the production of at least three tanks per day be ensured, bringing the production by the end of the month to 4-5 (4) units per day. I hope the factory will fulfill its duty to the country,” wrote the General Secretary
On the appointed date, “Krasnoye Sormovo” could not produce the required number of tanks. As a result, Mikhalev was removed from office and tried. Later, they decided not to judge him, and he continued to work in the company as the chief engineer.
