Industrial Development of the National Republics of the Volga-Vyatka Region during the Implementation of the Reform of Industry and Construction Management in 1957-1965

Abstract

The author describes the results of the industrial development of the industry of the republics of the Volga-Vyatka region (Mari, Mordovian and Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) during the implementation of the Sovnarkhoz reform (1957-1965), when instead of the sectoral principle of industrial and construction management, a model of territorial administration represented by the councils of the national economy operated. It is shown that the reform carried out contributed to the intensification of industrial construction in the republics of the Volga-Vyatka region: the existing industrial enterprises expanded and modernized, new factories and factories were put into operation, the structure of industry changed in favor of more knowledge-intensive industries, rationalization developed, labor productivity increased. The growth rate of industry in the Mari, Mordovian and Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the seven-year period exceeded the average Russian indicators. One of the factors that contributed to the rapid industrial development of the republics at the turn of the 1950s - 1960s was the course of the Soviet government to equalize the socio-economic conditions of various national regions of the country by modernizing their industrial potential. It was concluded that the reform of territorial administration became a powerful impulse to accelerate the development of the republics of the Volga-Vyatka region. By the beginning of the administrative reform, all three republics were territories with the predominant development of agriculture, but in the 1960s they turned into industrial-agrarian republics. The increase in the level of industrial development of the republics of the Volga-Vyatka region was accompanied by an increase in the level of urbanization, the creation of new educational and scientific institutions, and an increase in the scale of housing construction.