The morale of the Russian women, conscious of working for their husbands or sons or
brothers in the Army was particularly admirable. Though less spectacular than the Battle of Stalingrad, the stupendous mass-effort made by the women of Russia during the war, whether in industry or agriculture, had nothing to equal it.
Despite these efforts, the shortage of coal, metals and electric power was still serious even in 1943. Though coal production in the east increased substantially in 1943 the total produced was still nowhere near the 166 million tons produced in 1941.
[In 1943, the principal coal areas in the east produced the following amounts: Karaganda, 9.7 m. tons (an increase by 2.5 m. tons over 1942); Kuzbas, 25 m. tons (4 m. tons more than in 1942); Urals, 21 m. tons (5 m. more than in 1942 and 9 m. more than in 1940).
Finally, the "Moscow coal basin", with its very inferior coal, produced in 1943 14 m.
tons. After the liberation of the Donbas its badly-wrecked mines were producing only 35,000 tons a day at the end of 1943—i.e. at the rate of 11 million tons a year.]
In 1943 oil resources were very low, too; Maikop had been put out of action by the
retreating Russians; Grozny, with its refineries, had suffered severely from German
bombing; and during the temporary breakdown of communications, in the Stalingrad
period, many of the Baku wells had to be temporarily closed down. Instead, a special effort was made to develop the "Second Baku" in the east at top speed.
The coal shortage had to be met (particularly for transport and urban needs) by the
substitution of peat and timber; in Moscow, thousands of students, office and factory workers were made to spend their summer holidays in improvised timber camps.
New industrial "giants" had to be speedily built—thus an enormous new power station was built in 1942 at Cheliabinsk to supply dozens of armaments works over a large area, and a gigantic new blast furnace (the famous "No. 6") was completed during the year at the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine. Altogether, although the Soviet engineering
industry had lost half its potential through the German occupation of the Ukraine and other areas, it had, in the main, overcome its difficulties by 1943.
[IVOVSS, vol. III, p. 161.]
All this had a decisive effect on Soviet arms production. A tremendous effort was put into creating an air force superior to the Luftwaffe; gone were the grim days of 1941 when most of the Russian planes were suicidally obsolete. The principal planes that began to be produced in quantity in 1942 were the Il-2 stormovik (low-flying attack plane), and the Pe-2 operational dive-bomber; and the La-5 fighter, which was better than the
Messerschmidt 109, but not as good as the Messerschmidt 109F or 109G. In 1943 the La-5-FN, which proved better than any German fighter, including the Fokke-Wulf 190, went into mass-production, and, in May, so did the Yak-9, with a 37 mm. gun, which was
superior to German fighters with their 20 mm. guns. The Tu-2 dive-bomber went into
mass-production in September, and the Il-2 stormovik was steadily improved and was
developed by the end of the year into a two-seater plane, with increased fire power. The average monthly production of planes rose from 2,100 in 1942 to 2,900 in 1943, of which 2,500 were combat planes. Altogether, in 1943, 35,000 planes were produced, thirty-seven per cent more than in 1942, and including eighty-six per cent of combat planes.
The proportion of stormoviks and fighters was particularly high. At the height of the summer battles of 1943 more than 1,000 Il-2's were produced every month—over one-third of the total of aircraft produced.
A little grudgingly the present-day History adds that there were also some Western planes in the Red Army; but the Hurricanes and Tomahawks were obsolete, and much inferior to both Russian and German fighters; the Airocobras and Kittyhawks which began to be
used on the Russian front in the autumn of 1943, were excellent, "but there weren't enough of them."
[ IVOVSS, vol. Ill, p. 216.]
The output of tanks had also been seriously slowed down by the evacuation of industry to the east; nevertheless, great progress was made in tank construction throughout 1942.
Two-thirds of all Soviet tanks were made by three "giant plants" in the east—the Ural-mashzavod, the Kirov Plant at Cheliabinsk, and Plant No. 183. Some spectacular
improvements were made in 1942 for speeding up the production of tanks; thus the
turrets of the T-34 medium tank were stamped instead of being cast. The T-34 was,
altogether the best medium tank of World War II—as many German experts were to
agree—and it continued, throughout 1943, to undergo various further improvements. In September 1943, to meet the challenge of the new German Tiger tank, the Russians
began mass-producing the heavy JS ("Stalin") tank, with armour one-and-a-half times thicker than that of the Tiger, and described in the Soviet History as "the best heavy tank in the world."
The average monthly output of Soviet tanks in 1943 was over 2,000, which was a little less than in 1942; but in 1943 the production of light tanks was almost discontinued, whereas, at the beginning of 1942, these still accounted for half the total. Altogether, in 1943, 16,000 heavy and medium tanks were made; 4,000 mobile guns and 3,500 light
tanks. This total was eight-and-a-half times more than in 1940 and nearly four times more than in 1941.
A substantial number of tanks was received from Britain and the USA in 1942 and 1943, but Soviet historians are even more critical about them than about the British planes.
Fifty-five per cent of the tanks received in 1942 were light tanks; in 1943 the proportion of light tanks was even higher—seventy per cent. The quantities received were described as "mediocre", and the quality left much to be desired.
[ IVOVSS, vol. Ill, p. 214. The History adds that Allied authorities, e.g. Liddell Hart, now readily admit that "the tanks the Russians used were almost entirely home-made."
Some of the tanks the Russians had received in 1941-2, particularly the Matildas, had proved to be particularly bad, and "as inflammable as a box of matches", as a disgruntled colonel told me at the Rzhev front in the summer of 1942.]
The output of guns and mortars was also greatly increased by 1943, that of guns of
different calibres amounting that year to no less than 130,000; altogether, as D. F.
Ustinov, the Minister of Armaments wrote in 1943: "A great density of fire for every kilometre of front is now the usual thing." From the beginning of 1943, there was also a vast improvement in the fire power of the infantry: in 1943 the number of submachine-guns was three times, and of light and heavy machine-guns two-and-a-half times, that of 1942. The vast superiority in fire-power of the German infantry of 1941 was now a thing of the past. One can well imagine the difference this made to Russian morale. The
German avtomatchik was no longer, as he was in 1941, an object of terror or despair; practically every Russian soldier was now an avtomatchik himself.
*
Food production presented another major problem. Many of the Soviet peasants may
have remained fundamentally hostile to the kolkhoz system; but there is no doubt that, by and large, they were as deeply affected as the working-class by the patrie-en-danger mystique of 1941-2. Almost all able-bodied men from the villages were drafted into the Army in the course of the war, and very many tractors and horses were requisitioned by the Army. Yet the remaining village population, consisting almost entirely of women, adolescents and old people, worked heroically, often in the most appalling conditions, to produce food. Cows were often used as draught animals, and some cases are even known of women drawing ploughs themselves. Even more than in the factories was there a deep consciousness of working "for" the sons and husbands and brothers who had gone to fight the Germans.