Capital Construction in the USSR River Transport Industry by the Great Patriotic War (The Volga Steamship Lines Case)

Introduction. The article is about capital construction in the Volga River transport industry at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. In the mid-1930s, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Volga autonomous steamship lines were organized. At that time and up until the beginning of World War II, infrastructure facilities were intensively erected in the Volga river transport industry. Methods and materials. The study is based on objective principles and applies general scientific as well as specific historical methods. Research is done using archival materials. Analysis. In the second half of the 1930s, the material base of the Volga steamship lines was reconstructed. Capital construction in river transport included new shipbuilding, major fleet repairs, the building of pier facilities, and the acquisition of equipment. The goal of the study is to establish the capital investments in the Volga Steamship Lines and the general situation of capital construction in the river transport industry. The planned and actual data before the Great Patriotic War are considered in detail. Results. Capital construction in the Soviet river transport industry (the Volga included) in the second half of the 1930s suffered from interruptions, underfinancing, shortages of building materials, and bad planning. For those reasons, many construction projects got delayed. Besides, the outdated equipment of river transport needed a larger investment to be renovated, as it was much inferior to that of railway transport. All of that affected the work of the Volga Steamship Lines at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.