DEVELOPMENT OF THE MINING INDUSTRY OF THE USSR OVER 40 YEARS

G. E. Bakanov

The Mining Industry before the October Revolution and during the Civil War

Mining on the territory of the USSR arose very long ago. There are unquestionable indications of the existence, in remote antiquity, of mining activity in the Caucasus, among the Scythians in the south of the USSR, among the Chud tribe in Altai and Kazakhstan, and among the Eastern Slavs in central Russia and the Cis-Urals. The beginning of copper-ore mining within the USSR dates back to the second millennium before our era. In Altai and the Urals, iron ore was mined in the most remote times and processed in large clay pots, fragments of which are still found together with stone and copper tools. In the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, ironmaking folk industries spread in Tikhvin, Novgorod, Cherepovets, Tula, and other places in Russia \[1, 22\].

From the seventeenth century, mining enterprises of an industrial character began to arise on the territory of the USSR. In 1632 the Gorodishche ironworks was built near Tula. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the construction of the Kamensk and Nevyansk works, iron production began to develop intensively in the Urals, where by 1725 there were already 65 ironworks. At that time pig-iron smelting in Russia reached 0.1 million tons per year, and part of the iron was exported abroad. In 1789 the Lugansk Metallurgical Works was built, marking the beginning of the development of the iron-ore industry in the south of Russia. In 1698, in the Transbaikal region, a deposit of silver-lead ore was discovered, which began to be developed at the beginning of the eighteenth century with the construction of the first Nerchinsk works on the Argun River. In 1744, auriferous silver was first obtained from the ores of the Zmeinogorsk deposit in Altai, and in 1745, in the area of the Berezovsky mine, located 12 km from the city of Sverdlovsk, Erofey Markov discovered lode gold in the Urals. The discovery of the Berezovsky deposit marks the emergence of the gold-ore industry in Russia. In the same area in the Urals, placer gold was found in 1814. Platinum was discovered in Russia in 1819 during the mining of gold from placers in the Urals. In 1669 the world-famous Murzinsk deposit of “patterned” precious stones was discovered. In 1623 the blacksmith Fyodor Eremeev discovered iron ore near Tomsk, from which the first cannon was made there in 1625 \[3, 28\].

From the data presented it is evident that more than three centuries have passed since the emergence of the mining industry in our country. Russia had all the prerequisites for mining to develop normally. From ancient times Rus’ was renowned for the wealth of its mineral resources and for the high skill of its ore prospectors, miners, blacksmiths, and ironworkers. In Russia, earlier than in all other countries, the theoretical foundations of mining were developed, set forth in the remarkable book by M. V. Lomonosov, The First Foundations of Metallurgy or Ore Mining, published in 1763. In our country, mining and metallurgy stood at a high level. In the eighteenth century Russian iron was considered the best in Europe and was in wide demand in England. Russian foundry masters were famous throughout the world. In Rus’, from ancient times, people knew how to make “bells wondrous to the ear” [3, 24]. Thus the large bell for Westminster Abbey, where the English Parliament now sits, was made by Moscow craftsmen [4, 9]. Despite this, before the October Socialist Revolution the mining industry developed slowly and was the most backward branch of the industrial economy of tsarist Russia.

The mines were poorly equipped and had only small production capacity. Enterprises with annual ore output of 150–200 thousand tons were considered the largest in prerevolutionary Russia. There were few such enterprises in Russia before the October Revolution. In 1913, in Krivbass, the Urals, and Central Russia, 8,480 thousand tons of iron ore were mined at 400 mines [2], or 92.2% of its total output in Russia (within the borders of the USSR). These data show that even in 1913, during the flourishing period of Russia’s ore industry, iron-ore mines had an average annual productivity of 21.1 thousand tons. The larger enterprises were in Krivoi Rog (on average about 130 thousand tons per year), and the smallest in the Urals (5.7 thousand tons). In the same year, in the Urals and the Caucasus, 1,049.7 thousand tons of copper ore were mined at 50 mines. Consequently, the average annual productivity of copper-ore mines was also about 21 thousand tons. The more powerful mines were in the Urals, the smaller ones in the Caucasus. Iron and copper mines were of this same capacity. Gold, silver-lead, zinc, and other enterprises, with few exceptions, were still smaller.

The technology of ore-deposit exploitation was at a low level. Heavy and unproductive manual labor predominated at the mines. Hand drilling of blast holes was used everywhere, as were manual delivery and haulage of ore in wheelbarrows and mine cars. In open-pit workings the main means of transport were horse-drawn scrapers and carts loaded by hand with shovels. Ore extraction was carried out by mining systems with low operating indices (“blind chambers,” “chamber-trench,” with square-set timbering, etc.). In mining ore deposits, the height of benches rarely exceeded 15–20 m and only in individual cases reached 30 m. Mechanized and hydraulic working of placers (dredges, excavators, hydraulic monitors) had only begun to be introduced by 1913. At the same time almost the entire dredging fleet of Russia was concentrated in the Ural platinum placers, which were almost completely in the hands of foreign entrepreneurs. As for gold, in 1913 only 5.3% of it was mined by dredges and 0.35% by the hydraulic method [2].

As a result of the primitive technology of mining operations, labor productivity at mines was very low. Drillers using one-manual drilling drilled 0.5–1.75 m of blast holes per shift, 20–25 times less than when drilling with modern pneumatic drills. The gross productivity of workers at iron-ore mines in 1913 was 187.4 tons per year;

Krivoi Rog—269.1; the Urals—100.0, and Central Russia—94.5 tons. Productivity was lower at the copper mines: the Urals—92.3; the Caucasus—62.9, and overall—79.1 tons per year [2]. At other ore-mining enterprises it was still lower.

The weak mechanization of work, low-productivity mining systems, and, as a consequence, low labor productivity led to the predatory use of mineral resources. Private entrepreneurs, in pursuit of high profits, worked out the most valuable parts of deposits, leaving in the ground a large quantity of ore that did not yield large returns. In most cases the ore left behind was lost forever.

In terms of the quantity of ore mined, prerevolutionary Russia lagged far behind other advanced countries. In 1913, on the eve of the imperialist war of 1914–1918, Russia ranked fifth in the world in iron-ore production (9.2 million tons—Table 1); seventh in copper smelting; ninth in zinc production, etc. In terms of the amount of iron ore mined per capita (about 0.06 tons), Russia was in ninth place. The ores of aluminum, tin, tungsten, molybdenum, nickel, titanium, and others, now obtained in the USSR in large quantities, were not mined in pre-Soviet Russia. The iron-ore deposits of Siberia were not being developed. Copper ores in Kazakhstan were mined in the most negligible quantities. The exploration coverage of ore deposits was incredibly poor.

During the imperialist war the situation with the mining of metallic ores in Russia began to deteriorate. Already in 1914, iron-ore production in the three main regions declined by almost 18% compared with 1913 [2]. The greatest reduction in ore production occurred in Krivbass, reaching 25.4% in 1914. Only in the Urals did iron-ore production increase that year, by 6.3%. But because of the Urals’ small share at that time in the overall balance of iron-ore production (about 20%), this increase could not alter the emerging general tendency toward decline in the iron-ore industry. The same was true of copper-ore production. In 1914 its output decreased by 11%: in the Urals by 2.1%, in the Caucasus by 28.8%, and in other regions by 22.6% [2]. The situation during the war was the same for the mining of lead and zinc ores.

Table 1

Iron-ore production on the territory of the USSR, 1725–1957

The main causes of the decline of the ore industry in this period were the reduction in the number of workers, the fall in labor productivity, the disruption of railway transport, the shortage of fuel and equipment, and the predatory exploitation of the mineral resources by foreign capitalists, in whose hands the overwhelming majority of Russia’s ore enterprises were concentrated [2 and 5].

By 1917, iron-ore output had fallen by a factor of 1.7 (5.3 million tons), copper production by 2.5 times, lead by 15 times, and zinc by 4.5 times as compared with 1913.

Such was the state of Russia’s mining-and-ore industry on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Characterizing the situation with the consumption of iron in pre-revolutionary Russia, V. I. Lenin wrote: “With respect to iron—one of the chief products of modern industry, one of the foundations, one may say, of civilization—Russia’s backwardness and barbarism are especially great” [15, 276].

Immediately after the October Revolution, the Soviet government set the task of the most rapid possible restoration of the country’s productive forces, which had been destroyed by the war. In the report “On the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government,” delivered at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on April 29, 1918, V. I. Lenin stated: “The restoration of the productive forces destroyed by the war and by the rule of the bourgeoisie; the healing of the wounds inflicted by the war; the economic upsurge of the country; ...” [6, 215]. At that same time, work was begun to restore the mines and ore mines nationalized by the decree issued on June 28, 1917.

However, the foreign military intervention and civil war that began in the summer of 1918 did not allow the Soviet state to proceed at once to the construction of the national economy.

By the end of the civil war, the mining industry in our country had fallen into complete decline. Most of the mining-and-ore enterprises of the South, the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan had been flooded and partly destroyed by the White Guard bands and the former owners. The technology of mining ore deposits in this period remained at the same low level as before the revolution. All this had a grave effect on the operation of ore enterprises. In 1918, the extraction of copper ore in the Urals ceased [7]. By 1920, iron-ore output had fallen almost to the level of 1725 and amounted to 2.7% of the 1913 output (Table 1).

After the end of the civil war, the young Soviet republic faced the enormous problem of the most rapid restoration of the mining industry—the foundation of the industrial might of the socialist fatherland. The heroic Soviet miners and metallurgists, led by the Communist Party and personally by V. I. Lenin, fulfilled this task with honor in the shortest possible time.

The Mining-and-Ore Industry in the Recovery Period and in the Prewar Five-Year Plans

After the end of the civil war, work on restoring the mining industry began to be rapidly expanded in the USSR. In May 1922, the restored Kalata copper-smelting plant in the Urals was put into operation [7]. To supply it with ore, the Karpushikha, Belorechensky, and Kalata mines were pumped out. Simultaneously with the restoration of the enterprises of the Kalata combine, lead-zinc mines in the Caucasus, platinum and gold mines in the Urals and Siberia, and iron mines in Krivoi Rog and the Urals were restored. In May 1925, the first copper was obtained at the Karabash plant, which began operating on the ores of the restored Pervomaisky mine, and so forth.

During the years of the reconstruction period in the USSR, enormous work was carried out to revive the ore-mining industry. As can be seen from Table 2, this work at that time proceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace. In carrying out the reconstruction work, essentially completed in 1928, the reconstruction of ore-mining enterprises was also partly undertaken. Mines were equipped with compressor installations and with new hoisting and drainage machines; the mechanization of mining operations was widely introduced, and mine transport was partially mechanized. More efficient mining systems began to be introduced at mines (with ore storage, sublevel and block caving, etc.). Individual mines began to move to higher benches, ensuring better indicators in the exploitation of deposits. At the same time, the reconstruction of the drilling-and-blasting operations of mines was partly carried out, which had a great influence on labor productivity under the conditions of the ore-mining industry.

Table 2

Ore production in the USSR in the first years of the reconstruction period
as % of 1913 [7]

In the mining higher educational institutions of the USSR during this period, specialists began to be trained in the development of ore deposits. This, together with the solution of the problem of personnel, contributed to a more rapid development of science and technology in the field of ore mining. Soviet scientists (Academician A. M. Terpigorev, Academician A. A. Skochinsky, Prof. M. M. Protodyakonov, Prof. B. M. Bokii, Prof. N. I. Trushkov, Academician L. D. Shevyakov, and others), constantly receiving assistance from the Soviet government and even personally from V. I. Lenin, through their works, created in the years of the reconstruction period, laid the foundations of a scientific method for solving questions of mining. And this was possible only under the conditions of the Soviet Union, where, for the first time in the world, the mining industry began to be built on socialist foundations.

All this contributed to the rapid development of the Soviet ore-mining industry. However, by the end of the reconstruction period, the output of ore enterprises, which before the October Revolution had been in a neglected state, still had not reached the 1913 level for a number of minerals. Thus, for example, iron-ore production in 1928 amounted to only 66.1% of its production in 1913.

The ore-mining industry of the USSR received especially powerful development during the years of the prewar five-year plans. As a result of the grandiose works carried out at that time, a new, Soviet mining-and-ore industry was created, becoming one of the leading branches of our socialist economy.

During this period the following measures were carried out in the ore-mining industry.

1. At mines provided with ore reserves, the machinery was reconstructed, making it possible to mechanize blast-hole drilling and to use modern technical means and materials in the manufacture of drilling tools (sharpening machines, heating furnaces, hardening baths, thermal measuring apparatus, hard alloys).

2. Manual and horse haulage and transportation of the ore mass were replaced by mechanized transport (electric locomotives, conveyors, suspended cableways, cable cranes, scrapers, etc.); high-capacity mine cars began to be used in the mines and, where necessary, skip hoisting instead of cage hoisting.

3. New mining systems began to be widely applied (with ore broken from stopes and drifts, with ore storage, sublevel and block caving, etc.), which significantly increased the productivity of face workers. The height of mine levels, where expedient, was brought up to 80 m and more.

4. On the initiative of the miners of Krivbass, in order to increase workers’ productivity and raise the intensity of deposit development, blast-hole drilling with rods began to be widely used. At iron-ore mines, the possibility of using long boreholes for breaking ore in underground mining began to be studied.

5. In open-pit workings, hydraulic, excavator, and dredging operations were developed, as well as machine drilling of deep boreholes for blasting operations in quarries. Large-scale blasting began to be widely used in mining and overburden operations.

6. A fundamental reconstruction of enterprises was carried out in old mining regions (Krivoy Rog, Kerch, Nikopol, the Urals, Leningorsk, and others). In these regions many new mines and new powerful shafts were built. Such mines as “Gigant,” the Ordzhonikidze mine, the Kirov mine, the Comintern mine, “Kommunar,” and others in Krivoy Rog, which before the Patriotic War produced 1.5–2 million tons of iron ore per year, were built in the first five-year plans and belong among the largest mines of the world’s ore industry. The “Gigant-Skipovaya” mine, which partially went into operation in 1940, was designed for an annual output of 5.4 million tons and was the largest mine in the Soviet Union.

7. New regions were developed and turned into major centers of the ore industry of the Soviet Union (Magnitogorsk, Dzhezkazgan, Kounrad, Balei, Norilsk, Magadan, Khibinogorsk, Temir-Tau, and others). In the east of the Union a powerful coal-and-metallurgical base was created, which during the years of the Great Patriotic War played an enormous role in ensuring the glorious victory of the Soviet Union.

8. In the major mining-ore centers of the Union, large socialist cities were created with cultural and medical institutions, schools, and the necessary municipal amenities (Krivoy Rog, Magnitogorsk, N. Tagil, Karabash, Kirovograd, Stalinsk, Norilsk, Magadan, and many others, which it is not possible to enumerate). Workers of mining enterprises were forever freed from the need to live in dugouts and basements.

9. A network of specialized schools and technical colleges was created, and a number of new higher educational institutions were opened to train foremen, technicians, and engineers for the ore industry. The study and practical application of advanced labor methods, high-speed methods of driving mine workings, and the newest methods for developing ore deposits were organized.

10. A number of plants were built for the manufacture of machines and equipment, and scientific-research and design organizations were created for

...study of questions of mining and the design of new ore-mining enterprises.

1. A system of measures was developed for the safety of work in mines; the responsibility of engineering and technical personnel for violations of the rules of technical operation of mines was increased; allocations for measures to combat silicosis and for research on labor safety in the ore industry were sharply increased.

As a result of the socialist reconstruction of the ore-mining industry of the USSR, the appearance of ore-producing enterprises changed fundamentally. Mines became large plants, equipped with machines, mechanisms, and modern transport devices. The power equipment of mining enterprises changed sharply. The concepts of “small mines” and “large mines” in the USSR became different. As late as the 1920s, mines with an annual ore output of 150–250 thousand tons were considered the largest; at the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan such mines in the USSR were already classified as small enterprises.

To give an idea of the capacity of the mines created in the USSR during this period, it is enough to point out that Krivoi Rog, which in 1940 produced about 19 million tons of iron ore—almost 70% of the total output—received it from eight mines built in the first five-year plans \[8\]^1). The average capacity of mines in Krivbass by 1941 had increased 3.5 times compared with 1913 and reached 450 thousand tons per producing unit. For large mines this figure reached 1.6 million tons. The Magnitogorsk mine, built in the First Five-Year Plan, before the Patriotic War produced many times more ore than all 300 iron mines of the Urals in 1913. The largest iron mines of Gornaya Shoriya, built in the Second and Third Five-Year Plans, at present each produce 2.5–4.5 times more ore than 50 iron mines of Central Russia produced on the eve of the war of 1914–1918. It seems to us that the figures cited fully characterize the scale of the ore-mining enterprises of the USSR.

The high mechanization of work, new methods of developing deposits, and the higher qualification of workers contributed to the growth of labor productivity at ore-mining enterprises. By 1941, the gross productivity of workers at iron mines had increased 5.35 times, and at copper mines 6.32 times \[9\]. Before the Patriotic War, in labor productivity of miners, the Soviet Union held first place in Europe.

During the years of the prewar five-year plans, the output of ore-mining enterprises grew at exceptional rates. Annual iron-ore production by 1941 had increased almost 3.5 times compared with the level of 1913 and almost 120 times compared with its output in 1920. It goes without saying that such rates of development could be achieved only with a high mechanization of mining operations and the high qualification of workers in the ore industry.

During the years of the first five-year plans, the USSR began producing a number of metallic ores that had not previously been mined here (bauxites, tungsten, molybdenum, nickel, tin ores, etc.). All this enabled the USSR, even before the Patriotic War, to become the largest mining-and-metallurgical power and to take first place in Europe in the production of the most important metallic minerals.

^1) The Ordzhonikidze Mine, Kirov Mine, R. Luxemburg Mine, Comintern Mine, Kommunar Mine, Novaya Mine, and Tsentralnaya Mine.

Such were the changes that took place in the ore-mining industry of the Soviet Union during the years of the prewar five-year plans. As a result, those branches of the national economy in the USSR that required metals—machine building, power engineering, transport, and others—grew immeasurably, and the defensive might of our socialist state rose to a high level, bringing the Soviet Union its glorious victory over fascist Germany and Japan.

The Mining Industry during the Years of the Patriotic War and in the Postwar Period

During the years of the Patriotic War, the mining industry developed most intensively in the eastern regions: in the Urals, in Kazakhstan, and in Siberia. At the same time, during the war years, ore enterprises in areas that had been subjected to occupation—Krivoi Rog, Kerch, Nikopol, and others—suffered heavily. Especially sharply in the first years of the war, the output of iron ore declined because of the German occupation of the Krivoi Rog basin. Nevertheless, the ore industry, having reorganized its work on a wartime footing, honorably fulfilled the task of supplying the defense enterprises of the Soviet Union with mineral raw materials. This was especially aided by the selfless devotion of the workers of the ore industry to the interests of the Motherland and to the cause of the Communist Party.

As the occupied mining regions were liberated from the invaders, work immediately began there to restore the destroyed enterprises. The completion of restoration work was carried out in the first years of the fourth five-year plan. In the subsequent years of the fourth and in the fifth five-year plan, the domestic ore-mining industry continued to develop further.

As a result of the enormous work carried out in 1946–1955, the mining industry grew immeasurably both quantitatively and qualitatively. During this time in the USSR, the exploration of ore deposits increased considerably; the reserves of metallic ores rose sharply; many new deposits were discovered, especially iron-ore deposits (the Turgai Lowland, Tomsk Oblast, and others). A vast number of new ore enterprises were built in almost all ore basins (Krivoi Rog, KMA, the Urals, Gornaya Shoria, Kazakhstan, Khakassia, and others). The area of application of open-pit mining of ore deposits was expanded, using powerful excavators, drilling rigs, and powerful railway and motor transport. Drilling machines were created for drilling deep mine boreholes in the extraction of hard ores by the underground method. The use of mining systems with self-caving of ore and with its caving by means of mass blasts was substantially expanded. At ore-mining enterprises, integrated mechanization of mining operations and automatic control of machines and mechanical installations began to be applied more widely. The task was set of using powerful quarry-type mechanization in underground mining of ore deposits.

All this made it possible to greatly increase the output of ferrous and nonferrous metal ores, raise labor productivity, and improve the economic indicators of ore enterprises. In 1950, the output of iron ore had increased almost 2.5-fold compared with 1944 and reached 40 million tons; in 1955, 71.5 million tons of iron ore had already been mined, or 1.8 times more than in 1950 [10 and 11]. The output of copper ore in 1955, compared with 1950, increased 1.8-fold; of lead-zinc ore, 2.7-fold; ni-

iron ore—by 1.6 times, and bauxites by 2.3 times. The volume of mining work at nonferrous-metallurgy mines in 1950 amounted to 82 million \(m^3\) of rock mass, and in 1955 to 190 million \(m^3\). Labor productivity during the fifth five-year plan increased at most enterprises within the range of 50–70% [12].

In the postwar period the ore industry of the USSR developed at an extraordinary pace. This can be clearly seen from the data on the development of iron-ore production in Russia and in the USSR (Table 1). The annual increase in iron-ore output in Russia during the period 1725–1913 averaged about 0.05 million tons. In the USSR during 1920–1956 it was 2.15 million tons. In the USSR the iron-ore industry developed 43 times faster than in prerevolutionary Russia. In the last 12 years before the October Revolution, less iron ore was mined in Russia than in the USSR in the single year 1956 (Table 1). In the fifth five-year plan, iron-ore output increased annually by 6 million tons. Meanwhile, during the period from 1900 to 1917 Russia’s entire annual output on average did not reach such a figure.

Such were the rates of development of the ore industry of the USSR in the fifth five-year plan. Still more majestic plans for the development of the ore industry were adopted by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU for the sixth five-year plan. How grand the tasks set before the mining-ore industry for this period are may be judged from the fact that the volume of mining work for the extraction of ore and fluxes at the end of the five-year plan will amount to about 1.5 billion tons of rock mass [13]. In the sixth five-year plan, a number of new mining and beneficiation combines and mines equipped with the very latest technology will be built in the USSR [14]. In 1957, a large iron-ore enterprise near the city of Abakan went into operation. By the fortieth anniversary of October, the extraction of iron ore began from the giant open pit of the Sokolovsko-Sarbaiskii mining and beneficiation combine under construction. In 1957, work began to develop deposits of a new iron-ore basin discovered in Tomsk Oblast.

Soviet miners and metallurgists, constantly improving the technology of ore extraction and processing, increasing labor productivity, are working persistently to bring to life the majestic plans for the construction of the mining and metallurgical industry of the Soviet Union laid down by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU.

The fortieth year is ending since the victorious accomplishment of the Great October Socialist Revolution in our country. During this time the Soviet Motherland has become the foremost and most powerful mining-metallurgical power in the world.

LITERATURE

1. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 16, second edition.
2. General Review of the Main Branches of the Mining Industry, 1915.
3. Danilevskii V. V. Russian Technology, Lenizdat, 1949.
4. Trushkov N. I. Development of Ore Deposits, vol. 1, 1946.
5. Rachkovskii S. Ya. Economics of the Mining-Ore Industry, Metallurgizdat, 1955.
6. Lenin V. I. The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, vol. 27, 1950.
7. Proceedings of the Second All-Union Conference on Nonferrous Metals, vol. 1, 1927.
8. Patrikeev N. N. and Nedin V. V. Prospects for the Development of the Krivoi Rog Basin in the New Five-Year Plan, Mining Journal, No. 11–12, 1946.
9. Flerov V. A. On Labor Productivity in the Mining Industry, Mining Journal, No. 6, 1946.
10. Law on the Five-Year Plan for the Restoration and Development of the National Economy of the USSR for 1946–1950. Pravda, No. 68, 1946.
11. On the Results of the Fulfillment of the State Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR in 1956. Pravda, 31.I.57.

1. Kravtsov, D. S. Persistently raise labor productivity at nonferrous-metallurgy mines, Gornyi zhurnal, No. 9, 1956.

2. For further technical progress in the mining industry, Gornyi zhurnal, No. 3, 1956.

3. Directives of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU on the Sixth Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR for 1956–1960, Partizdat, 1956.

4. Lenin, V. I. Iron in the Peasant Economy, vol. 19, 1952.

ERRATA NOTED

Ed. TGIN, vol. 103.