CONSTRUCTION OF THE «GIANT» IN CHEBOKSARY IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE ECONOMIC AND YOUTH POLICY OF THE SOVIET STATE IN THE 70s AND 80s OF THE XX CENTURY (to mark the 50th anniversary of the first tractor output at Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant)

DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2025-6-2-24-40

УДК 94:629.3.014.2(470.344)”197/2025″

ББК У305.483-03(2Рос.Чув)63

Vyacheslav B. LASTOCHKIN

Key words

the USSR, the Chuvash ASSR, Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant, heavy machinery, technical and technological modernization of the national economic complex, innovations: political and organizational work, All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, youth policy of the Soviet state, import substitution.

Abstract

Studying the historical experience of constructing large national economy facilities in the USSR makes it possible to identify effective forms of interaction between enterprises, educational institutions, scientific institutes and design bureaus that contributed to successful solution of important economic and political tasks. The construction of Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant lasted three five-years and became the All-Union Komsomol shock construction project. The analysis of the Komsomol’s activities in this construction helps to study more deeply the specifics of the youth policy of the Soviet state during this period.

The purpose of the study is to identify the socio–political factors that influenced the course of design, construction, staffing, further modernization of production and development of Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant, and to analyze the role of the Komsomol in these processes in the context of the youth policy of the Soviet state.

The scientific novelty of the research lies in using modern methodological approaches to the study of specific aspects of the economic and youth policy of the Soviet state in the 70s and 80s of the XX century, which determined the course of construction and further development of Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant, the importance of this facility for domestic national economic complex and the socio-economic development of Cheboksary and the Chuvash Republic, as well as introducing new insufficiently studied facts into scientific circulation.

Materials and methods. The sources of the research were the archives of a unique Cheboksary Museum of Tractor History and the National Museum of the Chuvash Republic, the memories of veterans. The principles of historicism, objectivity, complexity, methods of comparative historical and historical-genetic analysis were applied.

Results. In accordance with the directives of the XXIV Party Congress on the ninth five-year plan for the development of the USSR national economy for 1971–1975, the construction of the largest enterprise of the Ministry of Tractor and Agricultural Engineering of the USSR, an industrial tractor plant was launched in Cheboksary, and at the same time – a residential Novoyuzhny area near it, with modern socio-cultural, transport and household infrastructure. Workers and specialists, enterprises of related industries, educational institutions and research and design institutions of the entire Soviet state took part in the construction of this industrial giant and its provision. The Komsomol, which patronized it, played an important role in the construction. It declared one of the key national economic facilities of that time at its XVII Congress in April 1974 to be the All-Union Komsomol shock construction project. In October 1975, the first Cheboksary tractor was officially output from the main assembly line of the plant. Subsequently, Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant became the leading domestic enterprise in producing heavy industrial tractors, bulldozers and pipelayers adapted for mass use in a wide variety of natural conditions including extreme ones in all regions of the USSR and many foreign countries. Since 1977, the company has operated a large multidisciplinary metallurgical production «Promtractor – Promlit» (industrial casting plant). The tractor complex has contributed and continues to contribute to intensification of Chuvashia’s industrial development and has made a great contribution to ensuring the economic security of the USSR and modern Russia.

Conclusions. The construction and further development of Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant was a successful result of systematic coordination and cooperation in the work of party and government bodies, enterprises and institutions of the Soviet Union within the framework of a megaproject for intensification of the USSR national economic complex. The Komsomol played a crucial role in solving this problem. The success with which the Komsomol coped with this responsible task was evidence of the effectiveness of the youth policy implemented by the Soviet state at the historical stage under consideration. The experience of construction, development and modernization of tractors production in Cheboksary, cooperation and coordination of related enterprises, logistics structures, life support, research and development work, and personnel training can be in demand in the process of solving urgent problems of Russia’s economic modernization on a modern innovative technological basis.

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Information about the author

Vyacheslav B. Lastochkin – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of Russian History, Chuvash State University, Russia, Cheboksary (vyacheslav_lastochkin@mail.ru).

For citations

Lastochkin V.B. Construction of the «giant» in Cheboksary in the discourse of the economic and youth policy of the Soviet state in the 70s and 80s of the XX century (to mark the 50th anniversary of the first tractor output at Cheboksary Industrial Tractors Plant). Historical Search, 2025, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 24–40. DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2025-6-2-24-40 (in Russian).

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