Transport in the Soviet Union
Encyclopedia
Transport in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was an important part of the nation's economy
. The economic centralisation of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure at a massive scale and rapid pace. Before the Soviet Union
's collapse in 1991, there were a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air. However, because of government policies before, during and after the Era of Stagnation, investments in transport
were low. The railway network was the largest and the most intensively used in the world. At the same time, it was better developed than most of its counterparts in the First World
. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the strain from the railways and to improve the state budget. The Civil aviation
industry, represented by Aeroflot
, was the largest in the world, but inefficiencies plagued it until the USSR's collapse. The road network remained underdeveloped, and dirt road
s were common outside majors cities. At the same time, the attendance of the few roads they had were ill equipped to handle this growing problem. By the late-1980s, after the death of Leonid Brezhnev
, his successors tried, without success, to solve these problems. At the same time, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than the construction of new roads. By the mid-1970s, only eight percent of the Soviet population
owned a car.
Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making by the central authorities. The demand for transport infrastructure and services was rising, but the Soviet authorities proved to be unable to meet the growing demand of the people. The underdeveloped Soviet road network, in a chain reaction
, led to a growing demand for public transport
. The nation's merchant fleet was one of the largest in the world.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation was, according to the Air Code of the USSR, responsible for all air transport enterprises and airlines established by it. Soviet civil air transport was the largest by total destinations and vehicles during most of its post-war existence. In the USSR, Aeroflot
had a monopoly
on all air transport. This ranged from civil transport to transporting political prisoners to the gulag
s.
In the First Five-Year Plan the goal for civil aviation was "to rid itself of foreign dependence". This goal was never accomplished, and the Soviet air industry would continue to copy First World design throughout most of its history. The plan may not have accomplished its main goal but the aviation industry had become much larger, by both personnel and vehicle stock estimates. Before the First Five-Year Plan there were only twelve aircraft factories; by the end of the plan there were 31 aircraft plants. Stalin boasted of his success to the Party, saying "We had no aviation industry. Now we have one." The number of airplanes grew from 608 before to 2,509 after the plan. By the late 1930s the Soviet leadership worried about the new-found threat of fascist Germany, and at the same time leading party members were worried that the Great Purge
had weakened the Soviet aviation industry.
Most historian
s agree that Aeroflot's expansion after 1959 was impressive, but in the area of technological innovation Aeroflot was far behind its First World competitors. By the 1980s the Soviet Union lacked equivalents to the American Boeing 747
, DC-10
and Lockheed L-1011
among others. Behind the facade created by the Soviet authorities, critics from other sectors of the economy, began to criticise what they saw as the inefficiencies of planned co-ordination between the central and regional authorities. Equally troubling was that, by Western standards, the Soviet civil aviation was ill equipped and several of the nation's airplanes were frequently seen in conditions that would have been unacceptable in the First World. To make matters worse, a presidential decree
in 1990 threatened to destroy Aeroflot's monopoly. The decree allowed the Soviet airline company ASDA to start operations in June 1990. While competition was one problem, another more stressing issue facing Soviet civil aviation was the opening of the once closed Soviet interior, as Mikhail Gorbachev
allowed international airlines to land in the Soviet Union. This weakened Aeroflot's dominance, while at the same its republican branches started splitting off from the center. Aeroflot did, however, survive the dissolution of the Soviet Union
, even if its position was weakened considerably.
s, of which 1,163 had pavement as surface, 33 runways and over 1,150 airports have their own runways. By the 1980s most airports were having capacity problems, an example being the Lviv airport which had to cope with an average of 840 passengers each day, while the airport was built to handle 200. Another daunting problem was the lack of modernisation, with the Sheremetyevo International Airport
(Moscow's main airport) being the only airport in the USSR to have been fully computerised.
The Soviet Union had, at its height, a pipeline
network of 82000 kilometres (50,952.6 mi) for crude oil and another 206500 kilometres (128,313.5 mi) for natural gas
. The Soviet authorities, under Leonid Brezhnev
, began focusing on the national pipeline
system in the 1970s. Soviet pipelines experienced a fast growth in the 1970s; by the late 1970s the pipeline network was the largest in the world. The average
moving distance for oil
and natural gas
increased from 80 km in 1970 to 1,910 km in 1980, and 2,350 in 1988. Just as with many other sectors of the Soviet economy, bad maintenance led to deterioration. By the late 1980s only 1,500 km pipelines were under maintenance, half of what was minimally needed. Also, the storage facilities were inadequate to handle the growing Soviet oil supply. Failures in the pipelines network became, in the 1980s, a common feature of the system. Oil pipeline ruptures at oil fields were increasing up to an all-time high in 1990 and reached a 15 percent failure rate that year alone.
Among the better known pipelines were the Northern Lights line
from the Komi petroleum deposit to Brest
on the Polish border, the Soiuz line running from Orenburg
to Uzhgorod near the Czechoslovak and Hungarian
borders, and the Export pipeline from the Urengoy
gas field to L'vov and thence to First World countries, including Austria
, Italy
, West Germany
, France
, Belgium
, and the Netherlands. The 1,420-millimeter Export pipeline was 4,451 kilometers long. It crossed the Ural
and Carpathian Mountains
and almost 600 rivers, including the Ob', Volga, Don
, and Dnepr. It had 41 compressor stations and a yearly capacity of 32 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
, some within the Soviet leadership claimed that the railways were not sustainable if congestion
s continued to increase. Those who advocated for an enlargement of rail transport felt that increased investment
and the lengthening of already established rail tracks could solve the ongoing congestion crisis. The majority agreed on increasing investments, but there was no clear consensus on how these investments were to be used. There were even some who believed in the recapitalisation
of the railways. Gosplan
economists in the meantime advocated for the rationalisation
of the railways, coupled with tariffs based on actual cost, which would reduce traffic demand and provide funds for investment. The leadership was unable to reach a conclusion and the rail system continued to deteriorate. In 1931, in a Central Committee
(CC) resolution, it was decided that increased investments coupled with the introduction of newer trains could solve the crisis. This resolution was never carried out, and yet again, the system continued to deteriorate.
The Central Committee ordered Lazar Kaganovich
to solve the railway crisis in 1935. Kaganovich first prioritised bottleneck
areas over other less-traveled areas; his second priority was investing in heavy traffick lines, and thirdly, the least efficient areas of the rail network were left to themselves. Another problem facing rail transport was the massive industrialisation
efforts pushed on by the authorities. The industrialisation proved to be a heavy burden on the railways, and Vyacheslav Molotov
and Kaganovich even admitted this to the 18th party congress. Even so, the Soviet Government continued their industrialisation efforts to better prepare themselves for a future war with Germany, which became reality in 1941.
Soviet rail transport became, after the Great Patriotic War
, one of the most developed in the world, surpassing most of its First World
counterparts. The Soviet railway system was growing in size, at a rate of 639 km a year from 1965 to 1980, while the growth of rail transport in First World countries was either decreasing or stagnating. This steady growth in rail transport can be explained by the country's need to extract its natural resources
, most of which were located close to, or in Siberia
. While some problems with the railways had been reported by the Soviet press, the Soviet Union could boast of controlling one of the most electrified railway systems at the time. During much of the country's later lifespan, trains usually carried coal
, oil
, construction material (mostly stone, cement and sand) and timber
. Oil and oil products were one of the key reasons for building railway infrastructure in Siberia in the first place.
The efficiency of the railways improved over time, and by the 1980s it had many performance indicators superior to that of the United States
. By the 1980s Soviet railways had become the most intensively used in the world. Most Soviet citizens did not own private transport, and if they did, it was difficult to drive long distances due to the poor conditions of many roads. Another explanation has to do with Soviet policy, the first being the autarkic model created by Joseph Stalin
's regime. Stalin's regime had little interest in rail transport, or any other form for transport, and instead focused most of the country's investments in rapid industrialisation. Stalin's regime was not interested in establishing new railway lines, but decided to conserve, and later expand, much of the existing railways left behind by the Tsar
s. However, as Lev Voronin
, a First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, noted in a speech to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1989; the railway sector was the "main negative sector of the economy in 1989". As industrial output declined in the late-1980s so did the demand for transportation, which led to a decline in freight transport in return.
system was seen as the quickest, cleanest and cheapest way of urban transport
, and eventually another point acquired greater significance; the authorities could allocate their resources from the automobile industry to the rapid transit sector and save a substantial volume of the country's diesel and petrol. Because rapid transit system usually were cheaper to operate and less energy consuming, the Soviet authorities managed to construct 20 rapid transits nationwide, with a further nine in construction when the Soviet Union collapsed. Twenty other stations were under construction in 1985. The country's rapid transit system was the most intensively used in the world.
played a minor role in the Soviet economy, compared to domestic rail transport or First World road transport. According to historian Martin Crouch, road traffic of goods and passengers combined was only 14 percent of the volume of rail transport. It was only late in its existence that the Soviet authorities put emphasis on road construction and maintenance because of the vital role road transport usually played in the regional economies of the USSR. Road transport was of vital importance to agriculture
, mining and the construction industry, but it also played a significant role in the urban economy. The road network had problems meeting the people's demand, a problem which the Soviet leadership publicly acknowledged. A resolution by the Central Committee laid down a plan for the improvement in planning
, organisation and the efficiency of local road transport enterprises.
Freight transport by motor vehicles, commonly called "motor transport" by the Soviet authorities, due to the underdeveloped nature of the nation's road network, was of considerable significance to certain areas of the economy. In the 1980s, there were 13 million laborers employed in the transport sector. Of those, about 8.5 million were employed in motor transport. Inter-city freight transport remained underdeveloped during the whole Soviet epoch, with it constituting less than 1 percent of the motor-borne freight average. These developments can again be blamed on cost and administrative inefficiencies. Road transport as a whole lagged far behind that of rail transport; the average distance moved by motor transport in 1982 was 16.4 kilometres (10.2 mi), while the average for railway transport was 930 km per ton and 435 km per ton for water freight. In 1982 there was a threefold increase in investment since 1960 in motor freight transport, and more than a thirtyfold increase since 1940. Inter-city transport and the volume of road freight transport had also increased significantly. Motor transport was much cheaper and flexible over short distances (defined as less than 200 km) than rail transport. There were many Soviet economists who argued that transferring some 100 million tons from the railways to road transport would save up to 120 million rubles
. But in 1975, road transport was
27-times more expensive than railway transport, due to long distances between starting points and destinations.
The deteriorating quality of roads was due to bad attendance, and the then ongoing growth in road transport made it even harder for the Soviet authorities to focus their resources on attendance and maintenance projects. The transport of freight by road had increased by 4,400 percent in the past thirty years, while the growth of hardcore surfaced roads had grown only by 300 percent. Growth of motor vehicles had increased by 224 percent in the 1980s, while hardcore surfaced roads only increased by 64 percent. As Soviet economists in the early-to-mid 1980s said, the Soviet Union had 21 percent of the world's industrial output, but only a meager 7 percent of the world's top quality roads. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan
(1981–85; spanned through the rules of Leonid Brezhnev
, Yuri Andropov
and Konstantin Chernenko
) called for the construction of an additional 80,000 km hardcore surfaced roads, but this was far from adequate in solving the serious shortage, and the planners needed to build at least twice as many roads to meet consumer demand. Another obstacle was that Five-Year Plans in the USSR's later life were rarely fulfilled due to economic malfunctions. Many roads were not paved, and because of this shortage, several dirt roads were created. By 1975 only 8 percent of rural households owned a car. Productions of cars, however, had increased dramatically in the late 1970s. From 1924 to 1971 the USSR produced 1 million vehicles, and the government passed another milestones five years later when it had produced 2 million vehicles.
. Due to a shortage of cars and good quality roads, the Soviet people travelled twice as much by bus, train and rapid transit than the people in the First World. Soviet bus transport, as throughout most of its history, was controlled either by the regional or the republican branches of the Ministry of Transport. Since rail transit systems were more environmental
and consuming little fuel, the Soviet planners concentrated their efforts in constructing electricity-driven, rather than fuel-consuming transport. In the mid-1980s, the government initiated a programme for compressed gas energy for buses. By 1988, only 1.2 percent of buses used gas energy, while 30 percent used diesel. Soviet bus enterprises ran for the first time in their history a deficit by the mid-to-late 1980s.
. Marine industry was under the control of the Ministry of Merchant Marine of the USSR.
concentrated much of its investment on constructing new shipbuilding
facilities, and not enlarging their merchant marine; this policy continued in the prewar USSR. By 1913 85 percent of all merchant ships were foreign built. The merchant marine was overlooked during the regime of Joseph Stalin
, because the USSR traded mostly with its neighbouring countries in the Eastern Bloc
. Soviet trade
later expanded to its neighbouring countries in Asia. When Stalin died in 1953, his successor started to increase trade with non-communist countries, most of which were on other continents. Due to this policy, the merchant marine increased from 2 million deadweight tonnage
in the early 1950s to 12 million in 1968. By 1974 it had reached 14.1 million deadweight tons, about 3 percent of the world's total. Of the 114 million tons moved by the Soviet merchant marine in 1974, 90 million of it was export
and import
.
While the merchant marine was technologically outdated, and slower than that of the First World, it still attracted a consistent volume of cargo. The reason for the technological backwardness of the merchant marine were First World induced boycott
s of Soviet shipping. This led the Soviet Union to become isolated from the international shipping industry, and skip over such important innovations as shipping containers. Under Mikhail Gorbachev's rule the Soviet Union became the largest buyer of new ships in the world. Because of the size of its navy, the Soviet Government advocated for the traditional freedoms of the sea.
s. There were 70 ports in total. None of the ports could be considered major by world standards. By the 1980s the majority of Soviet ports were lagging behind the First World technologically. There were also a high number of obsolete workers, many of whom would become redundant if the USSR would introduce new, more advanced, technology. Also, in the northeast territories of the USSR most ports were closed down due to cold climate.
Economy of the Soviet Union
The economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning...
. The economic centralisation of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure at a massive scale and rapid pace. Before the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
's collapse in 1991, there were a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air. However, because of government policies before, during and after the Era of Stagnation, investments in transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
were low. The railway network was the largest and the most intensively used in the world. At the same time, it was better developed than most of its counterparts in the First World
First World
The concept of the First World first originated during the Cold War, where it was used to describe countries that were aligned with the United States. These countries were democratic and capitalistic. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term "First World" took on a...
. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the strain from the railways and to improve the state budget. The Civil aviation
Civil aviation
Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and work together to establish common standards and recommended practices...
industry, represented by Aeroflot
Aeroflot
OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year...
, was the largest in the world, but inefficiencies plagued it until the USSR's collapse. The road network remained underdeveloped, and dirt road
Dirt road
Dirt road is a common term for an unpaved road made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Dirt roads are suitable for vehicles; a narrower path for pedestrians, animals, and possibly small vehicles would be called a...
s were common outside majors cities. At the same time, the attendance of the few roads they had were ill equipped to handle this growing problem. By the late-1980s, after the death of Leonid Brezhnev
Death and funeral of Leonid Brezhnev
On 10 November 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, the third General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the fifth leader of the Soviet Union, died a 75 year-old man after suffering a heart attack following years of serious ailments. His death was officially acknowledged on 11...
, his successors tried, without success, to solve these problems. At the same time, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than the construction of new roads. By the mid-1970s, only eight percent of the Soviet population
Soviet people
Soviet people or Soviet nation was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Initially used as a nonspecific reference to the Soviet population, it was eventually declared to be a "new historical, social and international unity of people".-Nationality politics in early Soviet...
owned a car.
Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making by the central authorities. The demand for transport infrastructure and services was rising, but the Soviet authorities proved to be unable to meet the growing demand of the people. The underdeveloped Soviet road network, in a chain reaction
Chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events....
, led to a growing demand for public transport
Public transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
. The nation's merchant fleet was one of the largest in the world.
Civil aviation
Aeroflot
OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year...
had a monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
on all air transport. This ranged from civil transport to transporting political prisoners to the gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s.
In the First Five-Year Plan the goal for civil aviation was "to rid itself of foreign dependence". This goal was never accomplished, and the Soviet air industry would continue to copy First World design throughout most of its history. The plan may not have accomplished its main goal but the aviation industry had become much larger, by both personnel and vehicle stock estimates. Before the First Five-Year Plan there were only twelve aircraft factories; by the end of the plan there were 31 aircraft plants. Stalin boasted of his success to the Party, saying "We had no aviation industry. Now we have one." The number of airplanes grew from 608 before to 2,509 after the plan. By the late 1930s the Soviet leadership worried about the new-found threat of fascist Germany, and at the same time leading party members were worried that the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
had weakened the Soviet aviation industry.
Most historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s agree that Aeroflot's expansion after 1959 was impressive, but in the area of technological innovation Aeroflot was far behind its First World competitors. By the 1980s the Soviet Union lacked equivalents to the American Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
, DC-10
McDonnell Douglas DC-10
The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 is a three-engine widebody jet airliner manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. The DC-10 has range for medium- to long-haul flights, capable of carrying a maximum 380 passengers. Its most distinguishing feature is the two turbofan engines mounted on underwing pylons and a...
and Lockheed L-1011
Lockheed L-1011
The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, commonly referred to as the L-1011 or TriStar, is a medium-to-long range, widebody passenger trijet airliner. It was the third widebody airliner to enter commercial operations, following the Boeing 747 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Between 1968 and 1984, Lockheed...
among others. Behind the facade created by the Soviet authorities, critics from other sectors of the economy, began to criticise what they saw as the inefficiencies of planned co-ordination between the central and regional authorities. Equally troubling was that, by Western standards, the Soviet civil aviation was ill equipped and several of the nation's airplanes were frequently seen in conditions that would have been unacceptable in the First World. To make matters worse, a presidential decree
President of the Soviet Union
The President of the Soviet Union , officially called President of the USSR was the Head of State of the USSR from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the only person to occupy the office. Gorbachev was also General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between...
in 1990 threatened to destroy Aeroflot's monopoly. The decree allowed the Soviet airline company ASDA to start operations in June 1990. While competition was one problem, another more stressing issue facing Soviet civil aviation was the opening of the once closed Soviet interior, as Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
allowed international airlines to land in the Soviet Union. This weakened Aeroflot's dominance, while at the same its republican branches started splitting off from the center. Aeroflot did, however, survive the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
, even if its position was weakened considerably.
Airports
The Soviet Union had 7,192 airportAirport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...
s, of which 1,163 had pavement as surface, 33 runways and over 1,150 airports have their own runways. By the 1980s most airports were having capacity problems, an example being the Lviv airport which had to cope with an average of 840 passengers each day, while the airport was built to handle 200. Another daunting problem was the lack of modernisation, with the Sheremetyevo International Airport
Sheremetyevo International Airport
Sheremetyevo International Airport , is an international airport located in the Moscow Oblast, Russia, north-west of central Moscow. It is a hub for the passenger operations of the Russian international airline Aeroflot, and one of the three major airports serving Moscow along with Domodedovo...
(Moscow's main airport) being the only airport in the USSR to have been fully computerised.
Pipeline network
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
network of 82000 kilometres (50,952.6 mi) for crude oil and another 206500 kilometres (128,313.5 mi) for natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
. The Soviet authorities, under Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, began focusing on the national pipeline
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
system in the 1970s. Soviet pipelines experienced a fast growth in the 1970s; by the late 1970s the pipeline network was the largest in the world. The average
Average
In mathematics, an average, or central tendency of a data set is a measure of the "middle" value of the data set. Average is one form of central tendency. Not all central tendencies should be considered definitions of average....
moving distance for oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
and natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
increased from 80 km in 1970 to 1,910 km in 1980, and 2,350 in 1988. Just as with many other sectors of the Soviet economy, bad maintenance led to deterioration. By the late 1980s only 1,500 km pipelines were under maintenance, half of what was minimally needed. Also, the storage facilities were inadequate to handle the growing Soviet oil supply. Failures in the pipelines network became, in the 1980s, a common feature of the system. Oil pipeline ruptures at oil fields were increasing up to an all-time high in 1990 and reached a 15 percent failure rate that year alone.
Among the better known pipelines were the Northern Lights line
Northern Lights (pipeline)
Northern Lights is a natural gas pipeline system in Russia and Belarus. It is one of the main pipelines supplying north-western Russia and is an important transit route for Russian gas to Europe.-History:...
from the Komi petroleum deposit to Brest
Brest, Belarus
Brest , formerly also Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk , is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the city of Terespol, where the Bug River and Mukhavets rivers meet...
on the Polish border, the Soiuz line running from Orenburg
Orenburg
Orenburg is a city on the Ural River and the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies southeast of Moscow, very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 546,987 ; 549,361 ; Highest point: 154.4 m...
to Uzhgorod near the Czechoslovak and Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
borders, and the Export pipeline from the Urengoy
Urengoy
Urengoy is an urban locality in Purovsky District of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Population: Urengoy gas field was named after the settlement....
gas field to L'vov and thence to First World countries, including Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, and the Netherlands. The 1,420-millimeter Export pipeline was 4,451 kilometers long. It crossed the Ural
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
and Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
and almost 600 rivers, including the Ob', Volga, Don
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....
, and Dnepr. It had 41 compressor stations and a yearly capacity of 32 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Rail network
The Soviet Union had a non-industrial railway network of 147400 kilometres (91,590.3 mi), of which 53900 kilometres (33,492 mi) were electrified. As the quality of rail transport continued to deteriorate, in part because of the Russian Civil WarRussian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, some within the Soviet leadership claimed that the railways were not sustainable if congestion
Traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction...
s continued to increase. Those who advocated for an enlargement of rail transport felt that increased investment
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...
and the lengthening of already established rail tracks could solve the ongoing congestion crisis. The majority agreed on increasing investments, but there was no clear consensus on how these investments were to be used. There were even some who believed in the recapitalisation
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
of the railways. Gosplan
Gosplan
Gosplan or State Planning Committee was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu...
economists in the meantime advocated for the rationalisation
Rationalization (economics)
In economics, rationalization is an attempt to change a pre-existing ad hoc workflow into one that is based on a set of published rules. There is a tendency in modern times to quantify experience, knowledge, and work. Means-end rationality is used to precisely calculate that which is necessary to...
of the railways, coupled with tariffs based on actual cost, which would reduce traffic demand and provide funds for investment. The leadership was unable to reach a conclusion and the rail system continued to deteriorate. In 1931, in a Central Committee
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...
(CC) resolution, it was decided that increased investments coupled with the introduction of newer trains could solve the crisis. This resolution was never carried out, and yet again, the system continued to deteriorate.
The Central Committee ordered Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...
to solve the railway crisis in 1935. Kaganovich first prioritised bottleneck
Bottleneck
A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. The term bottleneck is taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width...
areas over other less-traveled areas; his second priority was investing in heavy traffick lines, and thirdly, the least efficient areas of the rail network were left to themselves. Another problem facing rail transport was the massive industrialisation
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
efforts pushed on by the authorities. The industrialisation proved to be a heavy burden on the railways, and Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
and Kaganovich even admitted this to the 18th party congress. Even so, the Soviet Government continued their industrialisation efforts to better prepare themselves for a future war with Germany, which became reality in 1941.
Soviet rail transport became, after the Great Patriotic War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, one of the most developed in the world, surpassing most of its First World
First World
The concept of the First World first originated during the Cold War, where it was used to describe countries that were aligned with the United States. These countries were democratic and capitalistic. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term "First World" took on a...
counterparts. The Soviet railway system was growing in size, at a rate of 639 km a year from 1965 to 1980, while the growth of rail transport in First World countries was either decreasing or stagnating. This steady growth in rail transport can be explained by the country's need to extract its natural resources
Natural Resources
Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...
, most of which were located close to, or in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. While some problems with the railways had been reported by the Soviet press, the Soviet Union could boast of controlling one of the most electrified railway systems at the time. During much of the country's later lifespan, trains usually carried coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
, construction material (mostly stone, cement and sand) and timber
Timber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
. Oil and oil products were one of the key reasons for building railway infrastructure in Siberia in the first place.
The efficiency of the railways improved over time, and by the 1980s it had many performance indicators superior to that of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. By the 1980s Soviet railways had become the most intensively used in the world. Most Soviet citizens did not own private transport, and if they did, it was difficult to drive long distances due to the poor conditions of many roads. Another explanation has to do with Soviet policy, the first being the autarkic model created by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's regime. Stalin's regime had little interest in rail transport, or any other form for transport, and instead focused most of the country's investments in rapid industrialisation. Stalin's regime was not interested in establishing new railway lines, but decided to conserve, and later expand, much of the existing railways left behind by the Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
s. However, as Lev Voronin
Lev Voronin
Lev Gennadiyevich Voronin is a Russian team handball player and Olympic champion from 2000 in Sydney.-References:...
, a First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, noted in a speech to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1989; the railway sector was the "main negative sector of the economy in 1989". As industrial output declined in the late-1980s so did the demand for transportation, which led to a decline in freight transport in return.
Rail transit
The Soviet rapid transitRapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...
system was seen as the quickest, cleanest and cheapest way of urban transport
Public transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
, and eventually another point acquired greater significance; the authorities could allocate their resources from the automobile industry to the rapid transit sector and save a substantial volume of the country's diesel and petrol. Because rapid transit system usually were cheaper to operate and less energy consuming, the Soviet authorities managed to construct 20 rapid transits nationwide, with a further nine in construction when the Soviet Union collapsed. Twenty other stations were under construction in 1985. The country's rapid transit system was the most intensively used in the world.
Road network
The Soviet Union had a road network of 1757000 kilometres (1,091,751.9 mi), of which 1310600 kilometres (814,371.1 mi) were paved and 446400 kilometres (277,380.8 mi) were dirt roads. Road transportRoad transport
Road transport or road transportation is transport on roads of passengers or goods. A hybrid of road transport and ship transport is the historic horse-drawn boat.-History:...
played a minor role in the Soviet economy, compared to domestic rail transport or First World road transport. According to historian Martin Crouch, road traffic of goods and passengers combined was only 14 percent of the volume of rail transport. It was only late in its existence that the Soviet authorities put emphasis on road construction and maintenance because of the vital role road transport usually played in the regional economies of the USSR. Road transport was of vital importance to agriculture
Agriculture of the Soviet Union
Agriculture in the Soviet Union was organized into a system of state and collective farms, known as sovkhozes and kolkhozes, respectively. Organized on a large scale and relatively highly mechanized, the Soviet Union was one of the world's leading producers of cereals, although bad harvests ...
, mining and the construction industry, but it also played a significant role in the urban economy. The road network had problems meeting the people's demand, a problem which the Soviet leadership publicly acknowledged. A resolution by the Central Committee laid down a plan for the improvement in planning
Planned economy
A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
, organisation and the efficiency of local road transport enterprises.
Freight transport by motor vehicles, commonly called "motor transport" by the Soviet authorities, due to the underdeveloped nature of the nation's road network, was of considerable significance to certain areas of the economy. In the 1980s, there were 13 million laborers employed in the transport sector. Of those, about 8.5 million were employed in motor transport. Inter-city freight transport remained underdeveloped during the whole Soviet epoch, with it constituting less than 1 percent of the motor-borne freight average. These developments can again be blamed on cost and administrative inefficiencies. Road transport as a whole lagged far behind that of rail transport; the average distance moved by motor transport in 1982 was 16.4 kilometres (10.2 mi), while the average for railway transport was 930 km per ton and 435 km per ton for water freight. In 1982 there was a threefold increase in investment since 1960 in motor freight transport, and more than a thirtyfold increase since 1940. Inter-city transport and the volume of road freight transport had also increased significantly. Motor transport was much cheaper and flexible over short distances (defined as less than 200 km) than rail transport. There were many Soviet economists who argued that transferring some 100 million tons from the railways to road transport would save up to 120 million rubles
Soviet ruble
The Soviet ruble or rouble was the currency of the Soviet Union. One ruble is divided into 100 kopeks, ....
. But in 1975, road transport was
27-times more expensive than railway transport, due to long distances between starting points and destinations.
The deteriorating quality of roads was due to bad attendance, and the then ongoing growth in road transport made it even harder for the Soviet authorities to focus their resources on attendance and maintenance projects. The transport of freight by road had increased by 4,400 percent in the past thirty years, while the growth of hardcore surfaced roads had grown only by 300 percent. Growth of motor vehicles had increased by 224 percent in the 1980s, while hardcore surfaced roads only increased by 64 percent. As Soviet economists in the early-to-mid 1980s said, the Soviet Union had 21 percent of the world's industrial output, but only a meager 7 percent of the world's top quality roads. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan
Eleventh Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)
The Eleventh Five-Year Plan, or the 11th Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a set of goals designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1981 and 1985...
(1981–85; spanned through the rules of Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
and Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985...
) called for the construction of an additional 80,000 km hardcore surfaced roads, but this was far from adequate in solving the serious shortage, and the planners needed to build at least twice as many roads to meet consumer demand. Another obstacle was that Five-Year Plans in the USSR's later life were rarely fulfilled due to economic malfunctions. Many roads were not paved, and because of this shortage, several dirt roads were created. By 1975 only 8 percent of rural households owned a car. Productions of cars, however, had increased dramatically in the late 1970s. From 1924 to 1971 the USSR produced 1 million vehicles, and the government passed another milestones five years later when it had produced 2 million vehicles.
Bus transport
In the USSR, there was only a very small share of the population which owned a car. Because of the apparent lack of any mode of private transport most Soviet citizens travelled via public transportPublic transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
. Due to a shortage of cars and good quality roads, the Soviet people travelled twice as much by bus, train and rapid transit than the people in the First World. Soviet bus transport, as throughout most of its history, was controlled either by the regional or the republican branches of the Ministry of Transport. Since rail transit systems were more environmental
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
and consuming little fuel, the Soviet planners concentrated their efforts in constructing electricity-driven, rather than fuel-consuming transport. In the mid-1980s, the government initiated a programme for compressed gas energy for buses. By 1988, only 1.2 percent of buses used gas energy, while 30 percent used diesel. Soviet bus enterprises ran for the first time in their history a deficit by the mid-to-late 1980s.
Water transport
The Soviet Union had 42777 kilometres (26,580.5 mi) of coastline and 1,565 ships in the merchant marineMerchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
. Marine industry was under the control of the Ministry of Merchant Marine of the USSR.
Merchant marine
The Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
concentrated much of its investment on constructing new shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
facilities, and not enlarging their merchant marine; this policy continued in the prewar USSR. By 1913 85 percent of all merchant ships were foreign built. The merchant marine was overlooked during the regime of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, because the USSR traded mostly with its neighbouring countries in the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. Soviet trade
Foreign trade of the Soviet Union
Soviet foreign trade played only a minor role in the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and...
later expanded to its neighbouring countries in Asia. When Stalin died in 1953, his successor started to increase trade with non-communist countries, most of which were on other continents. Due to this policy, the merchant marine increased from 2 million deadweight tonnage
Deadweight tonnage
Deadweight tonnage is a measure of how much weight a ship is carrying or can safely carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, and crew...
in the early 1950s to 12 million in 1968. By 1974 it had reached 14.1 million deadweight tons, about 3 percent of the world's total. Of the 114 million tons moved by the Soviet merchant marine in 1974, 90 million of it was export
Export
The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...
and import
Import
The term import is derived from the conceptual meaning as to bring in the goods and services into the port of a country. The buyer of such goods and services is referred to an "importer" who is based in the country of import whereas the overseas based seller is referred to as an "exporter". Thus...
.
While the merchant marine was technologically outdated, and slower than that of the First World, it still attracted a consistent volume of cargo. The reason for the technological backwardness of the merchant marine were First World induced boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s of Soviet shipping. This led the Soviet Union to become isolated from the international shipping industry, and skip over such important innovations as shipping containers. Under Mikhail Gorbachev's rule the Soviet Union became the largest buyer of new ships in the world. Because of the size of its navy, the Soviet Government advocated for the traditional freedoms of the sea.
Ports
The Soviet Union had 26 major ports, eleven of them inland portInland port
The term inland port is used in two different but related ways to mean either a port on an inland waterway or an inland site carrying out some functions of a seaport.- As a port on an inland waterway :...
s. There were 70 ports in total. None of the ports could be considered major by world standards. By the 1980s the majority of Soviet ports were lagging behind the First World technologically. There were also a high number of obsolete workers, many of whom would become redundant if the USSR would introduce new, more advanced, technology. Also, in the northeast territories of the USSR most ports were closed down due to cold climate.
See also
- Transport in RussiaTransport in RussiaThe transport network of the Russian Federation is one of the world's most extensive. The national web of roads, railways and airways stretches almost from Kaliningrad in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east, and major cities such as Moscow and Saint Petersburg are served by extensive...
- Government of the Soviet UnionGovernment of the Soviet UnionThe Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was the de jure government comprising the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet Union from 1946 until 1991....
– MinistriesMinistries of the Soviet Union-Ministries:- Other agencies under the Cabinet of Ministers :-See also:* Council of People's Commissars, head of government from 1917-1946* Council of Ministers, head of government from 1946-1991* Cabinet of Ministers, head of government in 1991...
- Ministry of Civil Aviation of the USSR
- Ministry of Merchant Marine of the USSR
- Ministry of Railways of the USSRMinistry of Railways (Soviet Union)The Ministry of Railways oversaw the railways of the Soviet Union. It was subdivided into 32 different railway agencies, which between them had millions of employees...
- Ministry of Transport Construction of the USSR
- Index of Soviet Union-related articles