The Soviet Union automobile industry in 1953

The Soviet Union automobile industry in 1953

The appearance of an article on various types of passenger cars and trucks that the USSR produced was welcomed by foreign readers of the magazine “The Soviet Union”. In particular, the article of the prominent Soviet scientist Academician E. Chudakov and several photographs showing the production.
The automobile industry of the USSR can rightfully be called the offspring of Soviet power. In tsarist Russia there was no automobile industry, except for attempts to organize the production of cars at the Russo-Baltic plant – an attempt that ended in failure: for 6 years this enterprise produced … 450 cars.
However, created in the Soviet Union a new branch of industry, the enterprises of which, for example, in 1937, produced more than 200,000 cars, overtaking England, France and Germany in truck production. In the same year 1937, the USSR’s road transport by tonnage of the cargo transported was ahead of the railway transport. The growth of road freight transportation continues at a very fast pace.
Noteworthy, the motorization of the Soviet Union was carried out in an extremely short time. In the first years after the Great October Socialist Revolution, the general state of industry made it impossible to seriously raise the question of automobile production on a scale corresponding to the needs of the national economy. First of all, there was no necessary metallurgical base. Nevertheless, a small production of cars started. And the Moscow plant AMO produced the first Soviet cars, the one-and-a-half-ton cargo brands AMO-F-15, in 1924.

In 1929, Stalin ordered the task of organizing mass production of cars in the Soviet Union. It was very difficult business. Within a few years the country had to create a new industry branch, train specialists, work on the design of vehicles and the technology of their production, and establish an auxiliary industry. However, as life showed, this was the most correct decision, because mass production of cars most fully corresponded to the socialist character of the rapidly developing economy of the young Soviet state.

So, the construction of two giant plants began: in Moscow (ZIS) and in Gorky (GAZ). Automobile plants and related enterprises (for the production of bearings, electrical equipment, automotive equipment, springs, tools for drivers, etc.) were created in record time. So, the Gorky Automobile Plant named after VM Molotov was built in 18 months.

The mass production of Soviet cars, corresponding to the road and climate conditions of the country, simple and convenient in operation, reliable, durable, economical, appeared on well-equipped automobile enterprises.
In the production of cars in Soviet factories used the on-line method. Automatic and semi-automatic machines quickly produced parts.

During the Second World War and in the post-war period, the Soviet automobile industry continued to develop. Automobile plants have grown in the Urals, the Caucasus, Central Russia, and Belorussia. Also, a number of large car assembly plants appeared in other parts of the country.

In the USSR, for the first time in the world began practice of auto industry, based on a new model without stopping production. Besides, as soon as the last car of the old model left the main conveyor, a new brand machine replaced it.

The Soviet Union automobile industry in 1953

The unprecedented scale of construction work in the USSR required the creation of completely new, grandiose machines. In cities (especially large ones), cars with an internal combustion engine that pollutes the air with exhaust gases had to be replaced by an economical electric vehicle.

The Soviet state provided agriculture with first-class equipment. In addition, the rural designers and inventors improved the machines. In the Soviet village, a mass movement of inventors and rationalizers has risen for an even broader improvement in technology. Only in 1952, in Kuban, according to their proposals, they converted one and a half thousand combines, and produced more than a thousand different grain-cleaning units, a lot of scrapers, stackers, etc.