Energy Sector Construction in the Far East of the USSR in the 1950s - Mid-1960s

The article examines the historical experience of energy sector construction in the Far East of the USSR in the 1950s - mid-1960s. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that the Russian government has now developed a new model of economic development of the Far East, which provides for the modernization of the regional electric power industry. The analysis of the Soviet experience in energy sector construction allows identifying the difficulties of its implementation in the Far East, determining the specifics of creating an energy infrastructure, on which the modern regional electric power industry is mainly based. The source of the research is unpublished sources found in the funds of federal and regional archives. The methodological basis of the research is traditional historical methods, as well as the method of systems analysis, which allows considering energy construction in the Far East in the 1950s - mid-1960s as an element of state policy for the accelerated rise of the productive forces of the region. The article is structured based on the problem-chronological principle. The first part reveals the problems of organization and operation of the Dalenergostroy and Dalelektromontazh trusts in the 1950s, the second during the implementation of the seven-year plan for the development of the regional economy in 1959-1965. Power plants and power lines throughout the period under consideration were constructed in the region with great difficulties associated with the severe natural and climatic conditions, poor development of the construction industry, limited labor, material, and technical resources. A feature of energy sector construction in the Far East was that it proceeded only through the creation of thermal power plants operating on coal and oil products. Other energy sources were not yet used here, unlike in Siberia and Kazakhstan. The author comes to the conclusion that in the 1950s - mid-1960s energy sector construction in the Far East solved two problems: (1) to fulfill the 1939 program for the development of the regional electric power industry, interrupted by the Great Patriotic War, and (2) to increase the energy potential and create energy management in each administrative region. However, it was not yet possible to overcome the shortage of electricity and provide all consumers with a centralized supply of electricity from the regional power systems. Only large-scale power construction and the use of new energy sources in the second half of the 1960s-1980s made it possible to qualitatively change the structure of the power industry in the Far East.

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