The Problem of Providing Industrial Enterprises of Stalingrad with Technical Personnel during the Reconstruction Period (1943 – 1950).

Lozin Dmitrii Ivanovich Master's Degree, Assistant, Department of Russian History and Regional Historical Education, Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University 400050, Russia, Volgograd region, Volgograd, Prospekt Lenina str., 27, office 3 - 04 dil199734587@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Bolotova Elena Yur'evna ORCID: 0000-0001-6432-2373 Doctor of History Professor, Department of Russian History and Regional Historical Education, Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University 400131, Russia, Volgograd region, Volgograd, Prospekt Lenina str., 27, office 3 - 04 eubolotova@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The period of the Battle of Stalingrad became one of the turning points of the Great Patriotic War for the Soviet Union. He marked the beginning of a radical turning point, after which the Soviet army went only forward. However, this achievement was achieved at the cost of the selfless feat of the entire multinational Soviet people and huge losses. One of these losses was the loss of Stalingrad's industrial potential. According to the research of E.V. Kuzmina, the damage during the fighting only to the economy of Stalingrad itself without accounting for residential buildings was estimated at 8,909 million rubles. The total damage to the Stalingrad region was estimated at 19186. 9 million rubles. During the Battle of Stalingrad, almost all 126 enterprises of the city were damaged. Only for the main enterprises of Stalingrad: the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the Barricades gun enterprise and the Krasny Oktyabr metallurgical enterprise, the damage amounted to 400, 400 and 800 million rubles, respectively ^{[5, pp.25-27]}.

Despite the scale of the destruction and the ongoing hostilities, already in April 1942, the act "On priority measures for the restoration of Stalingrad" was issued, where the first point was the task of restoring the production capacities of the city's factories ^[8].

The scale of the destruction, the lack of a number of necessary resources and tools required the presence of a huge number of qualified personnel, among whom an important place was occupied by engineering and technical workers. However, almost immediately after the beginning of the restoration of Stalingrad, an acute shortage of them is revealed. So, at the metallurgical enterprise "Krasny Oktyabr" in March 1943, there were 17 engineers and technicians. By June 26, 1943, there were 167 engineering and technical personnel at the plant, but the vast majority consisted of young people who had no work experience at metallurgical enterprises ^{[19, p.38]}.

At the same time, the shortage of personnel was observed not only during the continuation of the 1943 – 1945 war, but also after it. Thus, from an article by the chief engineer of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, L.E. Makoed, prepared for publication, it is noted that the issue of personnel for the plant was in the first place during 1945 – 1946. 67% of technical positions were occupied by practitioners who did not have a secondary technical education. L.E. Makoed clarifies that most of the practitioners were young people who lacked serious theoretical training. In general, the number of engineering and technical workers at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant decreased by 800 people compared to the pre–war period ^{[21, l. 38]}. Researcher N.V. Kuznetsova notes that by 1946 the staffing of Stalingrad enterprises was 33.5%. The greatest shortage was noted in the largest enterprises – "STZ", "Barricades" and "Red October". The same problem, according to the author, existed in nomenclature positions. Of 96.2% of the directors of enterprises, chief engineers and technologists of the Stalingrad region, less than half had a higher technical education ^{[4, p. 126 - 127]}.

    That is why, since 1943, the question of overcoming the personnel shortage in the factories of Stalingrad has arisen. At the same time, external sources of recruitment were quite limited. So, for example, as N.V. Kuznetsova notes, the personnel of Stalingrad enterprises were replenished from the demobilized, as well as by recruiting from rural areas only from 1945 to 1946. ^{[4, p. 126]} However, at the same time, the monthly reports of plant No. 221 on the training and advanced training of personnel report the absence of personnel admission to the plant and, moreover, there are even prospects for this, even from the demobilization of the 3rd queue. One of the main reasons for the absence of such was the lack of housing ^{[11, L. 12]}.   Style

Therefore, one of the most important sources of the formation of engineering and technical personnel were practitioners who, having no professional education, occupied, by necessity, certain technical positions. Such workers, as noted in the research, had sufficient competence to carry out work in stable conditions, but with increasing complexity of technical tasks, for example, modernization of production, they could no longer solve their tasks ^{[4, p.127]}.

  For the training of practical engineers at the time of the recovery period, there were two main forms of obtaining technical education: 1) receiving education within secondary and higher educational institutions in correspondence, part–time and full-time forms of education; 2) training and advanced training within the framework of training directly at the factory.

The most common form, due to the need for the constant presence of technical personnel at the enterprise, was the second form. Technical training was carried out practically at all the main factories of the city. Thus, the engineer of the enterprise "Red October" P.N. Sporyshkov recalls that since 1943 the departments of technical studies have been working at the plant. Both workers and a number of engineering and technical workers passed through them. At the same time, the technical training itself also varied. Thus, targeted courses were introduced to study new equipment being put into operation, and individual training was introduced to master specialties requiring more thorough training. For example, at the time of May 1, 1944, 683 people had passed through technical training at the Krasny Oktyabr plant, 382 of them had been trained in targeted courses, 201 people had studied the mandatory technical minimum, 24 people had advanced training and 16 people had completed individual training.

With the increase in the flow of employees undergoing technical training, the general system of organizing this training was also improved at the enterprise. So, already in the first half of 1944, the department of technical studies of the "Red October" was transformed into a training course combine – UKK, which was able to cover at least 70% of the workers and engineering and technical workers of the plant. At the same time, this organization was headed not by teachers, but directly by engineering and technical employees of the plant P.E. Darmanian and E.S. Sharov ^{[20, pp. 75-76]}.  

A similar system of personnel training and professional development was carried out at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Thus, from the annual report on the training of qualified workers, it can be seen that during the period of 1945, 5,149 people were trained, of which 980 took technical training courses, and 361 carried out advanced training of craftsmen, adjusters, foremen and normalizers, that is, medium-technical personnel. Separately, the report notes that the training of secondary technical personnel was carried out, as a rule, by course and brigade training ^{[2, L. 1]}.

In addition, a series of lectures on technical and economic topics was compiled by teachers of the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant in order to improve the skills of engineering and technical personnel. At the same time, lectures were given by both the teachers of the institute themselves and qualified engineers with extensive production experience. In 1945, 15 lectures were delivered at the STZ, which were focused specifically on the needs of the plant, namely: "The quality of the STZ tractor in operation", "Self-accounting and cost", "Automation, mechanization of machine tools" and others. Moreover, in the tasks of technical training for 1946, the head of the personnel department of the STZ, A.P. Vetlugin, noted the need to increase the number of technical and economic lectures, both for the command staff, and for IT and plant workers ^{[2, L. 1-10]}.

     Similar work was also actively carried out at the Barricades plant. The existence of a special department for personnel training is noted in the statistical reports on personnel training for 1946. At the same time, it is indicated that the training programs for this plant were compiled by the engineers themselves, and the teaching staff are engineers and technicians of the plant, as well as experienced practical engineers. At the same time, the administration conducted accounting of practical engineers for the first half of the year.   However, out of 624 people identified during the inspection, only 6 people were trained. As noted in the report, in the new academic year it was necessary to deploy a large network of courses to improve the skills of IT practitioners.

As in the STZ, Plant No. 221 was engaged in organizing lectures for general technical education and advanced training. So, for the command staff, certified specialists and masters, economic training was organized under the direct supervision of the chief engineer. In total, 503 people were engaged in such a program in 1946 ^{[11, L. 22]}.    

Separately, in the report for 1946, the need for training of the middle technical level, namely masters, was noted. However, attention was drawn to the fact that it is not possible to start this preparation due to the lack of premises ^{[11, l.12]}. Nevertheless, already in 1947, in accordance with the order of the People's Commissar of Armaments, a two-year school of masters with a coverage of 100 people was organized at the Barricades plant. Of these, according to the report, 10 people dropped out during the training and in the 1948-1949 academic year 120 more people were admitted to the school of masters. The recruitment took place taking into account such specialties as mechanics, metallurgists and power engineers. In the first year of study, the groups received general education training (school level), and in the second they were trained in specialties.  However, as noted in the report, during the training period 71 people received unsatisfactory grades and 123 people.   could not pass the certification in full. This result was explained by unsatisfactory attendance and academic performance, which in turn was caused by the workload of students with work related to the implementation of production programs. To correct this problem, consultations were introduced, where employees were provided with conditions for mastering the missing material ^{[12, 9-14]}.

By 1948, the situation with personnel training at Plant No. 221 was gradually improving. So, if by 1946 the plan for new personnel was fulfilled by 6.2% ^{[11, l. 12]} or, if in absolute numbers, 302 people completed the course of study, then by 1948 3367 people graduated, the plan was exceeded by 12.9% ^{[12, l. 1]} (it is worth noting that these statistics show both workers and engineering and technical personnel).

At the same time, since 1948, the forms of work with practical engineers and forms of advanced training of certified engineering and technical personnel have been expanding. One of these forms was the courses organized on the basis of the department of the chief designer and chief technologist, where 13 and 21 practical engineers, respectively, were trained, as well as in the technical control department for master practitioners - 16 people. According to both programs, the chief designer and the chief technologist created programs designed for 120 hours. Classes were held once a week. At the end of the training, all students of the courses passed the exam ^{[12, L. 6]}.    

In addition, opportunities were created for certified engineering and technical workers to improve their education. So, in 1947, out of 16 willing graduate engineers, a group of graduate students was organized, which was engaged in training in the field of foreign languages, as well as philosophy for the subsequent completion of the candidate's minimum ^{[12, L. 6]}.

It should be noted that such training formats were not new to Soviet industry. For example, researcher V.A. Cholakhyan notes that already in the second pre-war five-year plan, the use of industrial and technical courses, brigade and individual training becomes widespread for the training of workers and technical personnel ^[24]. The use of such forms of training and advanced training, as in the post-war period, was explained by the huge shortage of qualified personnel and the need for mass training of unskilled workers coming to industrial enterprises.      

However, the use of these forms of education during the recovery period in Stalingrad had some peculiarities. Firstly, the improvement and expansion of the coverage of such training. So, a striking example is the reorganization of the personnel training department described above in the training and course combine at the Krasny Oktyabr plant, the appearance of separate courses in the chief technologist department specifically for practical technicians, as well as courses to prepare for the candidate minimum for certified engineers directly at the plant. All this made it possible to maximize the coverage of training with minimal use of external resources, which were sorely lacking at that time. And this was the second feature of the recovery period. According to the researchers, Stalingrad was destroyed by more than 91% after the battle, which caused numerous problems in organizing the training of new personnel. So, as noted in the training reports, one of the main problems was the absence or shortage of educational and residential premises. Separately, the problem associated with the lack of professional pedagogical knowledge among the engineers leading the classes was noted, which complicated the learning process itself. One of the main difficulties was that practical engineers undergoing training had to combine it with work at the same time.  

To solve the above-mentioned problems, special bodies were created at the industrial enterprises of Stalingrad. For example, in 1947, a special training council was created at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. This body was engaged in the development of a program to improve the quality of the educational process. During 1947-1948, this body carried out a revision and improvement of curricula for master training courses, the teaching staff of technical studies was revised. Also , this council was able to obtain   materials (notebooks, pencils, etc. stationery) to provide training courses and circles ^{[8, L. 2]}.

At the same time, a system of personnel certification is being introduced at the levels of industrial ministries. It was designed to determine the level of training of personnel and their professional competencies for the positions they held, as well as the rationality of the placement of personnel and the creation of a reserve of the most qualified personnel. The certification was conducted under the guidance of leading specialists of enterprises, as well as party bodies. The disadvantage of this system was that in addition to technical and economic knowledge, political loyalty was also tested. According to the research of N.V. Kuznetsova, in 1949, out of 439 unapproved STZ, 226 engineers were recognized as such by political criteria. Much attention was paid to the fact that 13% of the engineering and technical staff of the plant were in the occupied territory during the war ^{[4, p. 128]}.

  The second form, important for creating a base of highly qualified engineering and technical personnel, was the presence of a system of universities and colleges of full–time and part–time education. So, at the Barricades gun company in 1946, 12 technical personnel studied in absentia at the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute, and 3 plant engineers studied in the correspondence department of the Leningrad Mechanical Institute. Already in 1948, the number of such engineers is increasing significantly. Thus, 62 engineering and technical workers were trained at the Mechanical Technical School, 3 people were trained at the Leningrad Correspondence Industrial Institute, one person was trained at the Stalingrad Pedagogical Institute and the Leningrad Correspondence Industrial Technical School, and 5 ITR were trained at the Stalingrad Institute of Agricultural Engineering ^{[12, L. 15]}.

During the same period, forms of full-time and distance learning are also implemented at the STZ. In 1947, 68 people studied full–time and part-time, 15 technical workers studied full-time. Finally, 12 engineering and technical workers were trained in absentia at the branch of the Leningrad Industrial Institute ^{[8, L. 8]}.

It is worth noting that these forms of personnel training for industrial enterprises of the city could not fully ensure the influx of qualified specialists. Therefore, higher and secondary educational institutions are becoming one of the central and promising links in the system of training engineering and technical workers.

In Stalingrad, they were represented by the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute (SMI) and the Stalingrad Mechanical Technical School (SMT). Both educational institutions in August 1942, that is, with the beginning of the city battles, were evacuated to Chelyabinsk and continued their activities there.

However, in February 1943, immediately after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, a decision was made to return educational institutions. Thus, as noted in the work on the history of the Stalingrad Engineering College, already in March 1943, the director of the college V.N. Kostromitin was returned to Stalingrad to solve organizational issues ^{[22, p. 33]}. On February 15, 1944, the college officially begins its work in extremely difficult conditions. As noted in the minutes of the Pedagogical Council for 1944-1945, among the main problems was the lack of residential and educational facilities, lack of equipment for classrooms and a library. Particular attention was paid to the fact that the library was extremely poor in textbooks on general technical and special disciplines, the acquisition of which was refused at the local level by the authorities ^{[18, l. 1-2]}.  Often, students were forced to cut firewood for heating and make textbooks on their own.  

Nevertheless, by the time of its opening, in November 1943, 200 first-year students and 12 second-year students were studying at the college ^{[22, pp. 33-42]}.   

By the end of 1944, the conditions of study at the college were significantly improved.  By this time, physics and chemistry classrooms were equipped with equipment worth 18,000 thousand rubles; a drawing room for 30 workplaces and equipment worth 8000 thousand rubles. The library of the college was significantly expanded and numbered 4,000 copies of books. These improvements made it possible to expand the enrollment of students to 325 by 1945. However, at the same time, the dropout of students also increased, the reasons for which were primarily: financial insecurity; poor attendance; desertion from the college of persons using the college to leave production or come to Stalingrad, taking advantage of the call of the college, as well as due to family circumstances ^{[3, L. 12]}.  

At the same time, in 1945, the first post–war graduation of college students by profession of technicians - technologists of tool production took place. So, plant No. 264 receives 4 specialists, STZ – 6. Another 9 specialists were distributed to factories in other cities of the USSR, which caused dissatisfaction with the plants of STZ and No. 264, which were engaged in practical training of students and equipment of educational premises.

In the 1947-1948 academic year, 700 students studied at the SIT in such specialties as: ship–building, cold metalworking, construction of mechanisms and devices, tool manufacturing, tractor construction ^{[22, pp. 46-47]}. This indicates a gradual increase in the role of the college as a source of recruitment of professional personnel.

However, one of the main links in the training of highly qualified personnel in Stalingrad was the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute. His work in the war-torn city begins, according to L.V. Kharinina's research, already in November 1943, when the first teachers and students of the institute return ^[23]. However, it was impossible to start a systematic and full-fledged educational process at this time. As noted in the report of the special commission on the damage inflicted by the Nazi invaders during the Battle of Stalingrad to the institute, its volume amounted to 8656134 rubles. The academic building of the Institute, educational and auxiliary buildings, a library and valuable equipment were completely destroyed ^{[7, L. 2]}. For these reasons , classes at the university could only begin on February 15 , 1944 . At that time, 408 people were studying in the media. The specialties in which these students studied are as follows: mechanical engineering technology – 159, foundry machines and foundry business – 39, tank building – 101, internal combustion engines – 72, cars and tractors – 37 ^{[13, L. 14]}.

Initially, this training was conducted with great difficulty. One of the main problems was the loss of three months of training by students, during which the media re-evacuation took place. At the same time, there was an acute shortage of professional teaching staff and educational equipment. All this reduced the quality of training and eventually led to the disruption of the planned graduation of students (instead of 52 students scheduled for graduation, only 24 students were trained) ^{[13, L. 11]}.

These difficulties, however, did not prevent the growth of admission control figures. Since 1944, the student admission plan, launched by the People's Commissariat of Industry, was quite high. It was planned to enroll 150 students at the Faculty of Mechanics and Technology, and 175 at the tank faculty ^{[10, L. 143]}.

In total, during the war years, the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute trained 91 specialists in the field of wheeled tracked vehicles, 57 in internal combustion engines, 80 machine-building technologists, 46 specialists in the field of artillery, 14 in the field of foundry, a total of 288 engineers who worked at NCTP distribution enterprises ^[14].

In 1945, the admission plan, launched by the People's Commissariat of the Tank Industry, amounted to 320 people ^{[16, L. 5]}. However, due to the persistence of problems with the quality of training, the lack of training facilities, educational and other methodological manuals, poor and insufficient nutrition, this plan was also not implemented.  According to the data in the study by L.V. Kharinina, in 1945 the institute accepted 172 people ^[23]. In general, 550 students studied in the media in 1945 ^{[1, p. 52]}.

With the end of the Great Patriotic War, the position of the institute is gradually improving.   Educational laboratories are being opened: a laboratory for cutting metals, wheeled and tracked vehicles, as well as a laboratory for spectral analysis of metals at the Department of Physics. In addition, new training courses are being opened, for example, "Fundamentals of the plane problem of elasticity theory" at the Department of Materials Resistance, and the list of equipment necessary for training is also expanding ^{[16, l. 22-25]}. These measures allowed to increase the academic performance of students by 18% to the planned plan (in total, 90% of the plan was achieved in terms of academic performance) ^{[1, pp. 52-53]}.

All these measures have contributed to a significant increase in the number of students admitted to the university. By 1947, 659 students were already studying in the media, 217 of whom were first-year students ^{[17, l. 22 -25]}.

The contingent of students increased even more by 1948 - 705 full-time students and 70 evening students, as well as 8 graduate students ^{[17, L. 5]}.

Expansion of the academic building of the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute in 1949 by 1,943 . 5 sq . m . m and a laboratory building with an area of 1,026 sq. m. also allow to increase the enrollment of students. In 1949, the student body consisted of 719 full-time students and 50 evening students. According to the researchers, the number of graduates of the Institute is also increasing - 172 engineers were graduated during the 1949-1950 academic year ^{[6, L.1]}.

The gradual increase in graduates of mass media and SMT during the recovery period makes them the main sources of replenishment with qualified personnel of industrial enterprises of Stalingrad. At the same time, professional development of practical engineers at industrial enterprises of Stalingrad is gradually losing its importance.

   The built-up system of training engineering and technical personnel made it possible by the beginning of the 1950s to provide a quantitative and qualitative increase in certified specialists. According to N.V. Kuznetsova, from 1948 to 1952, the proportion of specialists increased at the Krasny Oktyabr plant - from 37% to 42%, "Barricades" - from 32% to 35%, at the STZ – from 28% to 35% ^{[4, p. 128]}.

Based on the above, the following conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, the reconstruction period of 1943 – 1950 began in Stalingrad in conditions of almost completely destroyed industrial enterprises.  Nevertheless, since 1943, resolutions have been issued on the restoration of Stalingrad's industry to provide the front with military products. However, this activity was hampered due to the lack of professional engineering and technical personnel. Secondly, the recruitment of Stalingrad industrial enterprises with technical personnel from external sources was difficult due to their general shortage throughout the country. That is why during this period in Stalingrad, the system of internal training of technical personnel is actively beginning to develop. This system consisted of three interconnected elements. Initially, an important part of the training was advanced training and education by practical engineers, that is, people who perform the duties of an engineer, but do not have an education for this. The basis of this form was the pre–war practice of individual, brigade and course training, laid down in the 1930s. During the recovery period, it is being improved and the coverage of students is expanding.   The training took place right at the factories, and the teachers were basically qualified and experienced engineers working at the same enterprise. At the same time, these courses had an extensive system (from the school of masters for the middle technical level to the courses of technologists and designers). At the same time, there was both an internal system for testing knowledge and skills, and certification organized by relevant ministries. This system worked in conditions of acute shortage of resources for training - from teaching aids to educational and residential premises. The second element of this system was the form of correspondence and part–time education both in educational institutions of the city and in other universities of the USSR. It was attended by both practical engineers and certified specialists wishing to enroll in graduate school. Finally, the third link of this system was the specialized educational institutions of Stalingrad – the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute and the Stalingrad Mechanical College. These educational institutions became one of the main suppliers of professional engineering and technical personnel in the late 1940s. Thirdly, the functioning and development of this system by the beginning of the 1950s eventually allowed to increase the influx of qualified specialists to the industrial enterprises of Stalingrad.