The development of the electric power industry of Russia in 1917 - 1940.
In modern domestic journalism, two extreme points of view on the process of electrification of our country dominate. Supporters of the first, let's call it traditional, point of view completely deny the significance of the achievements in this field of pre-revolutionary Russia.
In order to confirm the truth of such a view of the problem, data on the volume of electricity production are often underestimated, manipulation of comparison criteria, dates, and dimensions of quantities is permissible. However, it is difficult to prove the unprovable, electric power in pre-revolutionary Russia existed, in one way or another consumers of electricity were up to 20% of the country's population, in terms of electricity production, Russia took the eighth place in the world.
The second point of view is that the high pre-revolutionary rates of development of the Russian electric power industry are arbitrarily extrapolated for future periods. Supporters of this point of view operate with speculative plans for the development of the industry without regard to the assessment of the possibility of their implementation in the conditions of the pre-revolutionary economic system. Not taken into account the outstanding ability of the new administration to concentrate efforts in key sectors of the economy, as well as in the definition of these key industries.
Both these points of view are seen as inherently vicious, because they violate the principle of the continuity of history, deny continuity and consistency in the development of the country's electric power industry. It seems to us that the following view on things is more balanced: the dynamic development of the electric power industry in Russia was struck by the outbreak of the First World War, and then it was interrupted by the succession of socio-political cataclysms that shook the very foundations of Russian statehood. This period, which lasted until the end of 1920, is characterized by industry degradation despite efforts by power engineers and a number of functionaries of the new government to preserve it. However, in the years that followed, these efforts began to bear fruit.
It should be noted that in general, the restoration of the electric power industry was led by the same cadres who carried out the pre-revolutionary electrification of Russia. Precisely because of their experience and organizational skills, as well as the determination of the representatives of the new authorities, in the framework of the GOELRO plan adopted in December 1921, the pre-war level of electricity production was achieved by 1925. The present article is devoted to the implementation of this plan and the history of the development of the electric power industry of the USSR prior to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
After coming to power in October 1917, the Bolsheviks had to immediately face the problem of supplying large cities and industrial enterprises with energy. Given the difficulties encountered in bringing coal from the Donets Basin, oil and oil products from the Baku and Grozny fields, the new authorities viewed the electrification of Moscow and Petrograd as a way to compensate for the deficit of traditional energy carriers.
In March 1918, in order to improve the supply of electricity to the capitals, the construction of five power plants was planned, but for a number of reasons in the summer of that year it was only possible to resume construction of the Volkhovskaya and begin construction of the Kashirskaya and Shaturskaya power stations. But the implementation of these initiatives, severely curtailed relative to the plans and undertakings, was jeopardized by the unfolding Civil War: the workers were mobilized for military service, the material security was carried out according to the residual principle, as a result, the first-born of Soviet energy were commissioned only in 1922 (Kashirskaya) and In 1926 (Volkhov) years already in the framework of the GOELRO plan adopted in 1921.
Against the backdrop of such a long-term construction, a curious phenomenon was observed-the construction of local power plants and local electrification by local residents in rural areas-the most famous (but not the only) example-the Yaropolets HPP on the Lame River , which provided electricity to several nearby villages until the occupation of the territory by the Germans during the Great The Patriotic War.
In February 1920, the development of the Soviet long-term plan for the development of the national economy based on the electrification of the country was begun. The work of the commission for the creation of the future GOELRO plan was led by G.M. Krzhizhanovsky. The commission included the largest specialists in the field of electrical engineering and energy, such as G.O. Graftio, K.A. Krug, M.A. Shatelen and others, in general 22 scientists - permanent members of the commission and more than 200 specialists from all sectors of the economy involved in its work as needed.
When working on the plan, the principal considerations on the development of electrification in Russia were formulated before the revolution by Professor K. Kleneggsborg . It is worth noting, a happy coincidence for the industry - the head of the commission G.M. Krzhizhanovsky, in addition to being a personal friend of VI. Lenin and one of the oldest members of the RSDLP (b), was also a major electrical engineer, an employee of the Society for Electric Lighting in 1886, from 1907, a colleague of R.E. Klasson in the construction of the first district power plant on peat - "Power Transmission". Including this fact, the high efficiency of the work of the commission, which enabled it by December 1920 to present the main provisions of the GOELRO plan to the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which they unanimously approved, was determined by this fact.
Work began on the popularization and implementation of the plan. In December 1921, the 9th All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved a government decree on the specific timetable for the implementation of the plan, which gave it the force of law.
The peculiarity of the GOELRO plan is that, in addition to the arithmetic buildup of power generation capacities, it presupposed a comprehensive development of the country's economy on the basis of a new driving force - electricity, combining its producers first into a series of large local networks, and then, in the future, into a global energy network, Whose functioning is aimed at the uninterrupted supply of energy to enterprises of heavy industry, transport and other branches of the national economy of Russia.
For the implementation of energy interconnections, the construction of high-voltage transmission lines was planned , the lack of which was one of the bottlenecks in the pre-revolutionary electric power industry. (Here, for the sake of justice, it should be noted that this concept - the concept of a unified energy system originates from the connection in 1915 to the parallel operation of two power plants, in Moscow and the Moscow region, the transmission line at 70KV, 76 km long - unfortunately the only high-voltage power line Empire.)
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