History of the Baku Oil Industry. Part 28

After the discovery of oil fields, Baku became a special place, where various economic and political interests of international coalitions, industrial clans and leaders were concentrated and clashed. VK begins publishing chapters from the book by Ismail Agakishiev "History of the Baku Oil Industry and the Second Oil Boom (second half of the 19th century - beginning of the 20thcentury.)". The book presents a historical analysis of the emergence and current state of the Azerbaijani oil industry.

The postwar history of the Soviet oil industry has clearly demonstrated this point. The main cause of the decline in oil production in Azerbaijan during the war years is to be found elsewhere. It was noted earlier that in the 1920-1930s the pursuit for high performance in the planning process was accompanied by violations of the rules of production. This led to the use of wasteful methods in oil production. In the harsh conditions of war, this tendency was developing even further. The depletion of the upper layers of oil, the narrowing of the areas of drilling and exploration work became the main reason for the decline in oil production.

During the war, not many thought about this. In this regard, the memoirs of the oil industry veteran, former oil minister and chairman of the USSR's Gosplan, N. Baibakov, are very interesting. He noted that sometimes due to problems with oil deliveries to other parts of the country and the fact that the storage tanks were already filled up, the oil remaining after processing had nowhere to go. The remaining oil was "injected... into the layer", unused. 1 Such a primitive way to save oil supplies could not, of course, keep oil production at least at the same level. Moreover, it led eventually to the emergence of new problems. In this connection, the speech given in 1944 by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, Mirdzhafar Bagirov, seems very symbolic: "Besides the fact that we cannot fail the country, cannot fail the national economy, and today also the front, and have to comply with all of this, there are also our purely local interests, so to speak, there is an issue of pure republican patriotism. The question is whether Baku will occupy the leading place in the oil industry of the Soviet Union, or whether we will give up this place .... But... I cannot see Baku and Azerbaijan not occupying it..." 

Obviously, the leader of Azerbaijan of that period was well aware of the problems awaiting the oil industry of Azerbaijan in the postwar period. According to the memoirs of the former Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Mirgasan Seyidov, in December 1943 on his way to Tehran, Stalin stayed in Baku. On his return from Tehran, Stalin once again stopped in Baku, summoned Bagirov and the CPC of the republic, Teymur Guliyev, thoroughly scolded them about... atrocities in the oil fields and said: "This artificial metal "forest" on the territory  of Apsheron - oil rigs are the source of our inestimable wealth. Thanks to them we are at war. How can they be kept in such a state?.. Go to Romania and see for yourselves roses growing around them. What kind of mess do you have here?" Bagirov explained it by the lack of funds to carry out improvement work. Then, Stalin ordered his assistant Poskrebyshev: "On arrival in Moscow, prepare a decision of the Politburo on the allocation from the union budget at the disposal of the government of two rubles per ton, exceeding the plan as an oil fund. Half of the fund was to be spent on draining and landscaping the oil fields, and the second half - on political, educational and cultural activities." Shortly after that, the Politburo created the Oil Fund, which was to be administered by the government of Azerbaijan.

The Oil Fund existed until 1959, when the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, N. S. Khrushchev, found it unnecessary to further stimulate the development of the oil industry of Azerbaijan and liquidated it by decision of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers. Meanwhile, in the second half of the 1940s and 1950s, the fund played a major role in training specialists for Azerbaijan in the central universities. The fund also played a great role in improving the living conditions of oil experts. Thanks to new opportunities, dozens of apartment buildings as well as cultural centers, cinemas, libraries and other cultural and educational institutions were built in Baku. Of particular importance was the use of the fund to increase the incentive for labour in oil. The creation of the Oil Fund and the entrustment of the republic's leadership with the right to administer it was connected with an increase in the production of crude oil and petroleum products in the USSR. Everyone pinned their hopes on Baku. Immediately after the war, Stalin set out the task of achieving the level of oil production to 60 million tons. Traditionally, it was expected that Baku would play a great role in achieving the result. Indeed, in the near future the plan was accomplished. Moreover, in the early 1950s the country produced over 100 million tons of oil. However, the breakthrough in this field was achieved thanks to new oil fields in the "second Baku" - the area between the Urals and the Volga River.

As for Azerbaijan, its share in the country's total production steadily decreased. Although in the post-war years oil production in Baku steadily grew in absolute terms, its increase rate was not enough to accomplish the plan. In the postwar years, a lot of work was done to develop the offshore fields in the Caspian Sea. Thanks to the selfless labour of oil workers and the purposeful work of the party and economic policy-makers,as well as large state support, by the end of the 1940s an entire complex for the production of oil was created in the sea - the legendary city on stilts, Neft Daslari. The production of crude oil in the sea was a serious contribution to the general increase in oil production. Nevertheless, the failure to accomplish the plan on the land field became chronic. The main reason for this, of course, were the dire consequences of irrational exploitation of oil wells in the past, especially during the war. It was very difficult to compensate for the loss. But the republic's leadership could not admit it. The reason behind the problems, as previously, was seen in failures of individual managers.