The Restoration of the Ilyich Mariupol Plant “Is the Most Important Military and Economic Task” (September 1943 — September 1945)

Based on documents from the Russian Archive of Socio-Political History, the Russian Archive of Economic History, and the State Archive of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the author reveals the activities of the GKO, the USSR People’s Commissariat of Tank Industry, and the labor collective of the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Illich to restore the enterprise in the period from September 1943 to the September of 1945. The objective difficulties of rebuilding an enterprise that survived the targeted actions of the enemy to destroy it are shown. Management decisions are described, which allowed commissioning open-hearth, rolling and iron foundries and other important structural divisions of the plant. The author also revels contribution of enterprises of various People’s Commissariats, including those in the Urals, to setting up the production cycle. Considerable attention is paid to the implementation by the plant’s staff of the GKO resolutions “On the restoration of pipe production at the Mariupol Plant named after Ilyich of the People’s Commissariat of Tank Industry” and “On the organization of the production of railway tanks at the Mariupol Plant named after Ilyich of the People’s Commissariat of Tank Industry”. In 1947, the plant was awarded the Order of Lenin for outstanding services to the Motherland, more than five hundred workers and engineering staff of the enterprise were awarded government awards, director A. F. Garmashev and leading specialists for the development of the latest technology for the production of railway tanks received the Stalin Prize.