Azerbaijani oil industry in 1941. Part 2

No evacuation plan had been completed before the war began The beginning of the German military campaign against the USSR put the country's economy on a war footing. This process included changes in Azerbaijan’s oil industry. The draft took the major part of the able-bodied population away from factories, and railroads were overloaded with military shipments, thus cutting supplies to Absheron.

The “great evacuation” of 1941 was, in fact, nothing but an improvisation, only outlined in advance. According to A. Meliya, the historian who wrote a book on Soviet evacuation plans, plans for evacuating the Absheron oil-processing facilities were drafted in 1937, however, this plan was copying one from 1932. Therefore, the increase in the numbers of factories and personnel were not taken into account in the document. Work on a new plan began before the war started, but by the time the attack was launched no real plan was ready.

The Military-Industrial Commission under the Defense Committee approved general plans for the evacuation of all strategically-important plants from endangered territories in January 1939. But this document contained only the most general instructions;  all particular cases were to be managed according to more specific evacuation plans. General as it was, this document contained certain shortcomings, for example, early evacuation was not stipulated at all, any facility was to be evacuated only in the face of immediate impending danger. N. Dubrovin, who was deputy People’s Commissioner for Transportation, admitted that there were simply no viable evacuation plans at the time. The situation was aggravated by the fact that factories moved to the immediate vicinity of the frontline had to work non-stop to provide enough ammunition for the army, so they had no time to prepare for the evacuation in advance and had to evacuate under enemy fire. In addition, the personnel didn'tave the experience required for such a venture: the authorities even ordered the search of all Moscow archives and libraries for any information about how the evacuation was carried out during the First World War, but nothing was found in time. Evacuation managers had to gain their experience as they acted. From their own mistakes. 

Of course, the oil-production facilities themselves could not be moved, but a lot of factories supplying the Azerbaijani oil sector with the necessary equipment were evacuated, others were re-deployed to provide for military needs. This break in the production chain had a profound effect on te Azerbaijani oil industry.  

At first glance, the first year of the war didn’t seem to have had a great impact on Azerbaijani oil production, which grew 3.5%. However, if we take a closer look, we will see that production rates started dropping dramatically in November 1941. The figures are different for  different types of oil production: pump production dropped 20%, compression – 30% and fountain – 48%.   

To be continued Mikhail Muhin, PhD