Soviet historians and economists have written considerable literature on the problem of electrification in the USSR. A review of this literature was made in 1969 by I. M. Nekrasova [1]. However, it did not specifically consider documentary publications. Meanwhile, they are one of the most effective incentives for scientific research, in particular on this problem, and an effective means of promoting the ideas and experience of electrification. V. I. Lenin personally took care of publishing the materials of the GOELRO and the generalizing work of the "Commission" - the report to the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets "Plan of electrification of the RSFSR" 2 .
Lenin's concept of electrification, grounded in his numerous works, forms the methodological basis for the study of the topic. The theoretical and political importance of this concept led to the publication of V. I. Lenin's works in the form of special thematic collections. In the 1930s, the collection "V. I. Lenin on Electrification"3 was published three times . The collection of 1936 is the most complete in terms of the number of documents, structure and state of the scientific reference apparatus. The thematic publication of V. I. Lenin's documents on electrification theoretically armed researchers and stimulated generalization of electrification experience.
In the concrete historical aspect, the publication of documents and materials on this problem was started in 1939 by the magazine "Red Archive". Here, for the first time, a collection of documents "On the History of Electrification of the RSFSR"4 , which covered the activities of state institutions - the Electrical Engineering Department of the Supreme Economic Council, the Department of Electrical Construction (Elektrostroy) of the Supreme Economic Council and the Scientific Advisory Body of the Central Electrical Council (CES), which led the work on electrification in 1918-1919. The scientific value of this collection is that it highlights the initial stage of planned, research and practical work on electrification, which was carried out two years before the formation of GOELRO.
After a long break, in the 50s and 60s, the publication of sources on the history of electrification was resumed. In connection with the 90th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin and the 40th anniversary of the GOELRO plan , a revised and expanded collection "V. I. Lenin on Electrification"5 was reissued, including 259 Lenin documents, of which 119 were not included in the collections published in the 30s. In 1964, the collection was reprinted and again significantly expanded: it included about 400 works of V. I. Lenin (in full or in extracts), and more than 100 of them were not included in the previous (1958) edition, and 30 documents stored in the Central Administration of the IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU were published for the first time 6 . In our opinion, this collection should be reprinted again, supplemented with newly identified documents and, in some cases, clarified the scientific reference apparatus. The need for a new edition of the collection is explained, in particular, by the fact that bourgeois falsifiers continue to encroach on the priority of V. I. Lenin as the creator of the electrification concept, the inspirer and organizer of the creation of the GOELRO plan. Thus, the English economist L. Smolinsky claims that the scientist-heat engineer of pre-revolutionary Russia V. Grinevetsky allegedly "pre-Soviet".-
1 I. M. Nekrasova. Problems of electrification of the USSR in Soviet historical science. Voprosy Istorii, 1969, No. 8. Note, by the way, that it is hardly legitimate that the author refers to the collections of documents and materials of the technical report on the design and construction of the Volga hydroelectric power station named after the XXII Congress of the CPSU (p. 135).
2 " Proceedings of the State Commission for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO)", Moscow, 1960, pp. 208-209.
3 "V. I. Lenin on electrification", Moscow, 1932; Moscow, 1934; Moscow, 1936.
4 "Red Archive", 1939, N 4 (95), N 5 (96).
5 "V. I. Lenin on electrification", Moscow, 1958.
6 "V. I. Lenin on electrification", 2nd ed., supplemented. Moscow, 1964, p. 3.
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I admired Lenin's later formulation" (on electrification - V. Z. )7 . Soviet historical science has a sufficient number of documents that refute such claims of falsifiers.
In the 1950s, a systematic publication of documentary publications on the history of electrification was launched. The first collection to be published in 1952 was "On the History of the Electrification Plan of the Soviet Country"8 edited by I. A. Korotkov. A. Gladkov, in which the initial (1918 - 1919) stage of electrification is presented more fully and comprehensively than in the publication of the "Red Archive". The collection documents reveal the content of research, survey and design works carried out by CES and Elektrostroy and their local bureaus and committees in six economic districts of the republic: North (Petrograd), Central Industrial, Southern, Ural, North Caucasus and Volga regions. Interesting documents about the design and construction of the first seven power plants in these areas in 1918-1920. They contain technical and economic characteristics of power plants, give an idea of the difficulties of material and financial supply and providing construction sites with labor, tell about the facts of the labor boom, recreate the flavor of the era. From the report of the head of Elektrostroy A.V. Vinter to V. I. Lenin on April 21, 1919, about the construction of the first power plants, it is clear that V. I. Lenin was well aware of the progress of this construction. Many documents also tell about local urban and rural electrical construction, which was directed by central institutions - the SNK, SRT, Gosplan, VSNKh. It is clear from the collection's documents that as early as June 1919, the Bureau for Electrification of Agriculture of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the RSFSR began to develop methods for implementing Lenin's instructions on the need to pay special attention to "the application of electricity to agriculture" (p. 535 - 537, 544 - 545, 564 - 567). The publication of the collection was of great scientific importance, as the periodization of the initial stage of electrification of the country was detailed on a broader documentary basis and, most importantly, the role of V. I. Lenin, who directed electrification work on a planned basis on a national scale already in the first months after October, was specifically shown.
In the 50s, the history of the creation of the Lenin GOELRO plan was also reproduced in documentary publications. In 1955, the Plan of Electrification of the RSFSR, identical to the first edition (1920), which became a bibliographic rarity, was republished. 9 "an extensive and excellent scientific work," according to V. I. Lenin, 10 . The GOELRO plan embodies a program of technical and economic transformation of the country, rational use of natural resources and allocation of productive forces in concrete, scientifically based tasks. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of GOELRO, Academician V. S. Kulebakin edited a valuable publication-a collection of documents and materials from the archive of the State Commission for Electrification of Russia - "Proceedings of GOELRO" 11 . It contains 38 minutes of the commission's meetings (from February 11 to December 14, 1920), as well as appendices to them: excerpts from transcripts, abstracts and some texts of reports discussed in the commission. The protocols are preceded by the corresponding works of V. I. Lenin, the regulations on GOELRO, approved by the chairman of the SRT on March 24, 1920, and the program of its work with V. I. Lenin's litters. The materials of Trudov reveal in detail the history of the commission's organization, its structure, the composition of its members and participants, the content of issues that were put forward in the reports and during their discussion, and cover a wide range of socio-economic, technical and industrial problems of national, district and industry significance that arose during the development of the electrification plan. The scientific significance of these materials is all the greater because some of them contain the content of G. M. Krzhizhanovsky's reports about his conversations with V. I. Leni-
7 See Voprosy Istorii, 1970, No. 2, p. 182.
8 " On the history of the electrification plan of the Soviet country. 1918-1920". Documents and " materials. M. 1952.
9 "Plan of electrification of the RSFSR", Moscow, 1955.
10 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 42, p. 341.
11 "Proceedings of the State Commission for Electrification of Russia - GOELRO". Documents and Materials, Moscow, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as" Proceedings " of GOELRO, 1960).
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The range of issues that were the subject of these discussions was very diverse: the program and charter of the commission, its regulations, financing of work and material support for the staff employed in the commission; problems of economic zoning and geographical boundaries of electrification of the country; prospects for the development of natural resources and economic development of districts; organization of promotion of electrification and the work of the commission; production electromechanical equipment; publication of current materials of the commission, preparation and publication of a consolidated generalizing work-report to the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The discussion of all these and other issues reveals Lenin's methods and style of organizing the work of the commission's staff. It should be noted that the publication is provided with an inventory of its archival materials, compiled on a thematic basis, which facilitates the study of documents, biographical information about the participants in the work, and a bibliography of electrification works published by the time the volume was prepared for publication.
The first volume is organically connected with the second publication of the "Proceedings" of GOELRO-materials on electrification of certain districts 12 . This volume contains some of the papers prepared by scientists and specialists for discussion at plenary or sectional sessions of the commission. These are the final, generalizing scientific studies of technical and economic problems of electrification and prospects for the development of productive forces in eight economic regions: Northern, Central Industrial, Southern, Volga, Ural, Caucasian, Western Siberia and Turkestan. The vast majority of these materials are kept in handwritten form in the GOELRO foundation. The exception is the work on the Northern Region, which is included in the "Proceedings" of the GOELRO, but was carried out by scientists of the Hydrological Institute and the Conference on the North of the Russian Academy of Sciences 13. V. I. Lenin highly appreciated the scientific level of work on the Northern (as well as on the Central Industrial) region, noting that they are particularly good, accurate, detailed, based on based on the richest scientific material 14 . The high scientific level was due to the joint coordinated activities of the Academy of Sciences ' institutions and the Petrograd Branch of the GOELRO, headed by Professor M. A. Shatelen. However, unfortunately, the works of the members of this group, preserved in the GOELRO Foundation, are not included in the publication.
Let us consider those published materials that, in our opinion, are of particular interest, since they develop the prospects for electrification and industrial development of the eastern and national regions of the country outlined by V. I. Lenin. Thus, in the Volzhsky district, N. E. Kobylina gave feasibility studies on the possibility of using the Volga's hydro resources near the Samara Luka, and outlined a scheme for the construction of Middle Volga hydroelectric power stations. 15 V. I. Lenin, who was personally interested in this issue, approved the program for electrification of the Volga region .16 Among the materials on the Ural region and Western Siberia, the report of P. P. Evangelulov is particularly interesting 17 . As can be seen from the GOELRO protocol of March 2, 1920, V. I. Lenin, in one of the first conversations with G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, noted that when developing a program for the Urals, the Kuznetsk district should be taken into account .18 In the report of P. P. Evangelulov, discussed by the GOELRO commission on June 23, these Leninist instructions were implemented. In specific technical and economic calculations, the author justified the model of formation of the Ural-Kuznetsk Industrial Combine 19 . Research on the Turkestan region also embodied V. I. Lenin's ideas on electrification and irrigation of this region, which is the most important in economic and political relations. In the detailed works of specialists of the Turkestan GOELRO group-V. V. Alexandrova-Zaorskaya, V. M. Buzinova, E. E. Skornyakov and others. - characterized by-
12 " Proceedings of the State Commission for Electrification of the RSFSR-GOELRO. Materials on electrification of certain districts", Moscow, 1964 (hereinafter - "Proceedings" of GOELRO, 1964).
13 These documents are found in the archives of the Geographical Society of the USSR; the GOELRO Foundation does not have them.
14 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 42, p. 342.
15 "Trudy" GOELRO. 1964, p. 113 - 117, 117 - 123, 123 - 128.
16 See "Proceedings" of GOELRO, 1960, p. 248.
17 See Proceedings of the GOELRO, 1964, pp. 172-202.
18 See Proceedings of GOELRO, 1960, p. 107.
19 "Trudy" GOELRO, 1964, pp. 172-202.
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Specific features, potential opportunities and prospects for the development of natural resources and economic specialization of Central Asian regions are discussed 20 .
Materials on the Kavkazsky District are insufficiently presented: only one report is published on the prospects for using the water resources of the Belaya River, a tributary of the Kuban 21 . This report does not reflect the full range of problems that the group of young specialists, students of Professor G. O. Graftio, worked on. It seems that it was necessary to publish (at least in extracts) the report of G. O. Graftio "On the question of electrification of the Caucasus" 22, which served as the basis for a generalizing section on this area in the "GOELRO Plan".
These and some other materials, which were first published in Trudy, show that the State Commission for Electrification of Russia comprehensively worked out technical and economic problems not only for the next ten to fifteen years, but also for a more distant future; V. I. Levin considered this to be one of the main achievements of GOELRO. "We know the minimum program, the program of the next few years, but in this book on electrification we also have a maximum program, where gigantic work is planned for many years," 23 he noted in a speech at a meeting of the RCP(b) faction of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The documents and materials reproduced in two volumes of the "Proceedings" of the GOELRO significantly enrich the source base of the development of Lenin's electrification plan, reveal the creative laboratory, style and methods of organizing the scientific activities of a large team, the energy of which was directed by V. I. Lenin.
The history of the implementation of Lenin's GOELRO plan is presented in two generalizing publications edited by I. A. Gladkov24 . In the first of them - " Development of electrification of the Soviet country. 1921-1925" - shows the performance of work on program " A "and on the first stage of program "B", as well as "super-program" work: construction of local power plants and conducting pilot work on electrification of agriculture. The most detailed documents, rich in facts and figures, reflect the construction of seven district power plants of the first stage, and also show the beginning of the design of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station from March 1921. Numerous documents and materials tell about the development of the construction of urban and rural, small and medium-sized power plants based on local energy sources at the initiative of party, Soviet and economic organizations. A number of materials give an idea of the initial stage of technical progress and reconstruction works on an electric power basis in heavy industry, as well as the technical and economic results of its electrification. Interesting materials indicate that the task set by V. I. Lenin - "electricity must be promoted"25 - was successfully carried out and that Lenin's idea of electrification evoked a lively response from the peasantry. This is evidenced by numerous petitions and applications received from villages and counties of the RSFSR, Ukraine and other republics. Organizing centers of electrification in rural areas were the joint-stock companies "Electroselstroy" under the People's Commissariat of Land of the RSFSR and "Electrica" in Ukraine, which provided loans to cooperative associations for electrification and electricity supply.
It is a pity that in the collection, in the section on experimental works on the electrification of agriculture, there are no documents revealing the role of V. I. Lenin in organizing the production of electric ploughing tools. The author's concise reference in the footnote (page 643 )cannot make up for this essential shortcoming. 26
20 Ibid., p. 210 - 213, 214 - 226, 271 - 290 etc.
21 Ibid., pp. 152-168.
22 TSGANKH USSR, f. 5208, op. 1, 22, ll. 1-90. Only the minutes of the discussion of this report on June 19, 1920 were published in Trudy (Trudy GOELRO, 1960, pp. 156-159).
23 "Lenin's Collection" XXXVI, p. 151.
24 " Development of electrification of the Soviet country. 1921-1925". Collection of documents and materials. Moscow (956; " Electrification of the USSR. Collection of documents and materials. 1926-1932". Moscow, 1966.
25 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 52, pp. 39-40.
26 The existence of a special publication "V. I. Lenin and the Creation of Electric Ploughs (1920-1922)" is not mentioned in this reference (see Historical Archive, 1956, No. 4).
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The second publication - "Electrification of the USSR 1926-1932" - presents the culminating and at the same time final stage of the implementation of the GOELRO program in the minimum ten-year period stipulated by the plan. The documents describe a significant increase in the scale of electrification works. Instead of the planned 30 state-owned power plants, 42 large-scale GRES and hydroelectric power plants were built (p. 32-39). The construction of new factory power plants was widely expanded, and the electric power industry at old enterprises was intensively reconstructed. New methods of using electricity as a technological factor (electrothermy, electrometallurgy, electrochemistry, electric welding) and for heating were also developed. The specific content of electrification works in the Union republics is disclosed both by generalizing documents (plans, reports, reports) and materials on the construction of individual district power plants. Particularly interesting are the documents on the electrification of the eastern districts and the start of work in the more distant future. Thus, in the Urals and Western Siberia, the problem of electricity supply to the Ural-Kuznetsk Combine, the country's new coal and metallurgical base, was practically solved (p. 162 - 168, 169 - 173, 183 - 191 etc.). In the Volga region, according to the directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of March 23, 1932, the design and construction department "Srednevolgostroy" was created, which developed schemes for future cascades of the Volga and Kama hydroelectric power stations (p.51).
In the early 1930s, scientific and economic organizations and the Energy Center developed the Angara-Yenisei problem-prospects and practical ways to use the energy of these mighty rivers for electrification and the formation of industrial complexes in Eastern Siberia (pp. 175-179). As you know, V. I. Lenin anticipated the prospect of these works when, while reading the GOELRO program, which outlined that the electrification of Siberia "takes into account only its western part", he clarified this provision by writing the word "for now"27 . In the republics of Central Asia, extensive hydrological, topographical and design work was carried out in the basins of the Chirchik and Vakhta rivers. Several hydroelectric power stations were constructed in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan (pp. 277-288, 291-294, etc.).
The process of electrification of leading industries is described in some detail in the documents. Technical and economic indicators of the efficiency of electric power re-equipment of the coal industry of Donbass, Karaganda, enterprises of the Dalugol trust; oil industry - trusts Azneft, Embaneft, Grozneft, metallurgical, chemical and textile enterprises are interesting. Among the few documents on the state and long-term plans of agricultural electrification, two projects are interesting: the use of energy from district power plants and continuous electrification (on a pilot basis) of seven agricultural districts. The implementation of the GOELRO program for the country as a whole and for all the union republics and regions is shown in the summary table (p.52-59). It reveals in digital indicators the scale of electrification and the results of the implementation of the GOELRO plan, implemented with a significant excess in the minimum ten-year period.
In the 60s, collections of documents and materials on the construction of individual hydroelectric power plants, unique for certain stages of electrical construction, were published. The initiators of these publications were employees of the party archives. In 1960, the party archive of the Zaporozhye Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine published a collection on the construction of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station named after V. I. Lenin . The collection documents reveal the most important aspects of construction: economic activity of the construction department and its main sections (organization, degree of mechanization, dynamics and content of work over different years, etc.); solving the personnel problem: methods of recruitment and forms of industrial and technical training of builders and power engineers; organizational, party and political-educational work, leadership of the party committee in the activities of trade union and Komsomol organizations; mass labor entu-
27 "Trudy" GOELRO, 1960, p. 83.
28 "The firstborn of the country's industrialization-Dneproelectric power Station named after V. I. Lenin". Collection of documents on the construction of the Dneproges named after V. I. Lenin. 1926-1932 Zaporozhye. 1960 (hereinafter - "Dneproges named after V. I. Lenin").
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The publication about Dneprostroy significantly enriched the source base of the history of electrification at the final stage of the implementation of the GOELRO plan 29 . It gives a concrete picture of the technical milestones achieved by the Soviet electric power industry: the Dnieper HPP was unique in terms of capacity in Europe, in terms of technical perfection of the project and in solving the most important national economic tasks of the hydroelectric power station.
In 1963, the party archive of the Kuibyshev Regional Committee of the CPSU published a documentary collection about the construction of the Volzhskaya hydroelectric power station named after V. I. Lenin . This publication has a clear structure and allows you to follow all the stages of construction: preparatory work, the deployment of major construction and installation works, including the overlap of the Volga and the start-up of the first hydroelectric unit; the final stage, the commissioning of the main units and the commissioning of the hydroelectric power station. The materials of the introductory section reflect the patriotic movement of Komsomol members and young people who went to this construction site, the forms of participation in the construction of hydroelectric power plants of the workers of the Kuibyshev region, the role of Ural, Moscow and Leningrad factories and research institutions in its design, construction, and equipment with technically advanced equipment. Problematics of the collection's content is multidimensional. In the documents for each stage of construction, the versatile work of the party organization that mobilized the team to complete planned tasks within the established time frame is revealed; the organization of socialist competition; the formation and education of the team and the training of qualified personnel for builders and operators.
A notable event was the publication in 1964 and 1967 of a two-volume publication on the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station, prepared by the party archive of the Irkutsk Regional Committee of the CPSU.31 This fundamental publication, which contains more than 450 documents, gives an idea of the grand scale of work carried out over ten years in the almost uninhabited territory of the Angara region. It is noteworthy that it shows not only the process of constructing its own hydroelectric power station, but also a complex of related, largest-scale works: the creation of the Bratsk Reservoir and the solution of complex national economic tasks related to this, the construction of the Bratsk timber and energy Industrial Complex - the main consumers of HPP energy, and the creation of a new city - Bratsk. The documents reveal the current level of technical progress of Soviet hydroelectric construction, methods of its organization, economic management and engineering innovation, forms and methods of multi-faceted activities of party and public organizations to increase the labor and political activity of builders and the formation of new industrial and social relations in the team. The publication is characterized by a high scientific and archaeological level. Its scientific and reference apparatus is described, which includes a detailed chronicle of the construction, labor and life of the team; a detailed personal index is given; information is provided on the supply of equipment and on the results of the economic activity of Bratskgesstroy; there is a bibliography.
Summing up the results of publishing activities on the history of electrification, it should be noted that in documentary publications only the initial stage of electrification work, the history of the creation and implementation of the GOELRO plan, is presented in detail. Grandiose in scale and unsurpassed in the world in terms of technical level, the electric power construction of the USSR, especially in the 50s and 60s, is not reflected in the publications of sources. The scientific relevance of the problem of electrification and its still insufficient development in the concrete historical aspect, the practical need to expand the source base, strongly require that the development of the new technology should be considered.-
29 The documents on Dneprostroi included in the collections edited by I. A. Gladkov reflect mainly the organizational and preparatory work for construction. This aspect is also reflected in three documents about the Dneproges published in Materials on the History of the USSR (vol. VII, Moscow, 1959).
30 " Volzhskaya HPP named after V. I. Lenin (1950-1958)". Documents and materials. Kuibyshev, 1963.
31 "Bratskaya HPP". Collection of documents and materials. Vol. 1 (1955-1961); vol. 2 (1961-1966). Irkutsk, 1964-1967.
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continuing publication work on the history of electrification. In the future, it would be advisable to publish documentary collections both generalizing, within the framework of administrative or economic regions (especially Eastern Siberia, the Arctic, Central Asia, Kazakhstan), and local, on the construction of individual technically unique power plants - energy centers for the formation of new industrial complexes. The combination of these two types of publications will undoubtedly encourage further development of poorly researched problems of electrification, reveal the scale and qualitatively new technical level of modern electrical engineering, and show the international significance of the experience of electrification in the USSR.
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