Abstract
The article introduces into scientific use a report of Nikolai N. Kolosovsky, founder of the Soviet local school for economic geography. It was written in 1945, in the last months of the Great Patriotic War, for a dispute held in at the Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences on mobilizing the resources of the Urals, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan for needs of national defense. During the war, N. N. Kolosovsky supervised deployment of war industry in the Urals and solved related transport organization problems. In his report, Kolosovsky expounds his views on restoring Soviet economy in light of approaching victory. The published source captures the author’s temporarily determined socio-political attitudes, as well as his professional considerations. The report was compiled several months before the beginning of the Cold War. A contains a number of references to the international cooperation of the USSR and its allies from anti-Hitler coalition. N. N. Kolosovsky does not question neither imminent assistance of the Western countries in the economic development of the postwar USSR, nor Soviet successful entry into the European market, which is subsequently to become Eurasian. The report reflects the mood of the euphoria that briefly engulfed Soviet society, soon to be destroyed by the confrontation of the two superpowers. Another valuable aspect of the report is the author’s steadfast habit of looking at any given topic through the lens of further development of Soviet Eastern regions. It allowed N. N. Kolosovsky to juxtapose direct military damage caused by the Nazis to the the occupied Soviet territories and “indirect” damage caused by forced reorganization of industry of the rear regions according to wartime demands. His observations allow Kolosovsky to predict the future problems in territorial development of the USSR and to point out concrete ways for their resolution.
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