The Initial Period of Soviet Gas Exports to Europe (1944-1967)

Based on the analysis of declassified documents of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the Gosplan of the USSR, and the Russian State Archive of Economics, the article examines the history of Soviet gas exports to Europe. Among documents used for the first time, the documents of the CMEA Department of the Oil and Gas Industry, of the Permanent Commission on Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in the Oil and Gas Industry, the CMEA Permanent Commission on the Oil and Gas Industry, as well as the documents of the departments of the USSR Gosplan on heavy industry and foreign trade, and the Commission of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers for Foreign Economic Affairs, are of primary significance. The aim of the article was to determine the date of the beginning and the time frames of the initial period of the development of Soviet gas exports, and to identify the reasons why the USSR started gas exports. The main research methods were: problem-chronological, historical-genetic, historical-typological, and retrospective. In the course of the research, the following conclusions were made. The initial period of the development of Soviet gas exports to Europe covered 1944-1967. It began with the supply of natural gas to Poland. Gas supplies to Poland continued throughout the period under review and increased in volume. Under pressure from the CMEA member countries, the USSR made a difficult decision in the late 1950s to expand gas exports. Strictly classified work began on the design and construction of the gas pipeline network both on the territory of the CMEA countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland) and the USSR. For a long time, the natural gas resource base of the USSR was very limited. The USSR tried to transfer the demand of Eastern European countries for natural gas to the development of the resource base of the CMEA member countries, increasing their production of artificial gases, and supplying gas to Romania. However, under the influence of the severity of the problem of fuel and energy resources in the countries of Eastern Europe, the shortage of coal, the insufficient resources for export in the USSR, the persistent appeals of the leaders of the CMEA countries, as well as the increasing number of natural gas fields opened in the USSR in the late 1950s and early 1960s (in Central Asia, Komi Republic, Tyumen region), the USSR accelerated the rate of gas production and forced the construction of gas pipeline systems from pipes of maximum diameter. Given that the main gas transport systems were initially built in the direction of the Western borders of the USSR, ensuring gas exports was one of the main reasons for the development of the gas sector of the USSR.

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