At the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan, the OGPU held the so-called “Shakhty Trial,” a show trial that affected many engineers not only in the coal industry, but also in other industries of the USSR. On March 2, 1928, Genrikh Yagoda (1891–1938), deputy chairman of the OGPU, reported to Joseph Stalin that “this counterrevolutionary organization directs sabotage not only in our coal industry, but also in other branches of our economy.”
The Shakhty Trial gave rise to subsequent trials in other industrial sectors. Speaking at the November Plenum of the AUCP(b) Central Committee, Party functionary Lazar Kaganovich said that after the Shakhty Trial, cases of “wrecking” were undertaken at a series of industrial enterprises, including Azneft, Grozneft, and Neftesindikat, which were set aside into separate legal proceedings. Soon, the OGPU made arrests, and after a short investigation, cases concerning a “counterrevolutionary, wrecking, and spying organization in the oil industry of the USSR” were sent to the “most humane proletarian court.” As a result of the first trials, many prominent engineering and technical specialists were convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, including: Professor Ivan Strizhov, oil industry director of the VSNKh; Nikolay Tikhonovich, deputy director of the Geologic Committee; Nikolay Lednëv, senior geologist of the Geologic Committee; Pëtr Polevoy, an authoritative petroleum geologist; Doctor of Mineral Geology Ilya Ginzburg; Aleksey Anosov, regional geologist of Grozneft; Grigory Surabekov, deputy director of the Azneft refineries; Vladimir Delov, an experienced drilling engineer of Azneft, and many others. The choice of where their “proletarian punishment” sentence was to be served was quickly determined, and was strongly influenced by the aforementioned resolution of the VSNKh Presidium, “On the Development of a Fuel Base in the Northern Territory” of April 20, 1931. Exploration and development of the northern hydrocarbon fields required, first and foremost, qualified specialists, such as geologists and mining engineers, mechanical engineers, and production engineers; in fact, the very people forming the basic contingent convicted in the “oil” trials. Several years later, the oil industry was hit again by a new and even more severe wave of repression. Many leading industry workers were arrested, convicted, and shot, including: Aleksandr Serebrovsky, who had led Azneft at its most difficult restorative period; Mikhail Barinov, head of Glavneft; Sergey Ganshin, director of the Soyuzneft Association; Noy London, deputy head of Glavneft; Semën Slutsky, head of Azneftekombinat, and many others.
Mass repression among engineering and technical workers inflicted serious damage on the USSR oil industry as a whole, and was the tragic result of deep contradictions in social, economic, and political processes that were occurring under the very difficult conditions of the authoritarian and despotic regime of Joseph Stalin and his closest associates.
Despite the losses suffered by the oil industry during this period, it was still expected to fulfill the Five-Year Plan. One of the basic goals of domestic refining in the Third Five-Year Plan (1938–1942) was to accelerate the production of gasoline. “The country demands more and better gasoline” was the basic slogan of Soviet refinery workers in 1938. Moreover, the Third Five-Year Plan assigned the oil industry the following goals: 1) accelerated mechanization of all processes of exploratory drilling; 2) sharp expansion of the role of motor vehicle transportation in geologic exploration; 3) increased volume of shallow mechanical drilling and craelius core drilling; and 4) use of the American practice of reusing oil wells. To address this goal, Amtorg signed a contract in 1938 with the American company Universal Oil Products to construct a new aviation fuel refinery in the Bashkir ASSR.
On October 12, 1939, the USSR CPC issued a resolution dividing the People’s Commissariat for the Fuel Industry into two parts: oil and coal. AUCP(b) Politburo member Lazar Kaganovich was appointed People’s Commissar for the USSR Oil Industry, and he spent nine months in the post. On July 3, 1940, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued an edict appointing engineer Ivan Sedin (1906–1972) in place of Kaganovich.
In the period from the beginning of 1938 through the end of 1940, the number of tank farms in the USSR increased from 1,520 to 1,686. The largest among them were located in Makhachkala, Astrakhan, Saratov, Gorky, and Yaroslavl. The basic type of tank was the standard riveted airtight tank operating at a positive pressure of 0.79 inches of water column. Experimental vertical welded metal tanks of small capacity (under 175,000 cubic feet) were constructed at the same time.
Table 10. USSR Oil Production by Year, in millions of tons
Source: Economy of the USSR [Narodnoye khozyaystvo SSSR]. Moscow, 1959, p. 205.
The end of the 1930s saw the finalization and approval of the tank farm as a clearly defined idea: a sales enterprise that would receive, store, and dispense various grades of petroleum products, and do so on a profitable basis. Thus, new organizational branches of the industry—oil transportation, storage, and supply—were formed.
In 1938, a new subdivision was created within the Soyuzneft All-Union Association: Glavneftesbyt [“Main Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Sales and Transportation Administration”]. It was assumed that organizing three independent main administrations—Glavneftedobycha [“Main Oil Production Administration”], Glavneftepererabotka [“Main Refining Administration”], and Glavneftesbyt—for oil production, refining, and sales, respectively, would provide their administrations with the necessary conditions for real operational management.
Glavneftedobycha faced a gradual transition from flowing well operation to mechanized production, taking into account that given 88.3% fulfillment of the oil production plan, flowing wells supplied only 27.4%. As of January 1, 1938, 35% of wells in the USSR were idle. One reason for idle wells was that well operation was assessed on the basis of figures calculated for a group or field, without regard for the peculiarities of each individual well.
Along with stimulating oil fields in old regions, the leadership of the industry did not abandon its intention to organize geologic prospecting and exploratory work in Siberia. On September 10, 1939, Vasily Senyukov, head of Glavgeologiya [“Main Geologic Exploration Administration”], sent the people’s commissar for the fuel industry a special memorandum “On Organizing a Large Geophysical Expedition to Western Siberia in 1939–1940,” that emphasized: “In compliance with your instructions to accelerate oil prospecting in Siberia, it is proposed that preparations be made in 1940 to locate a series of deep wells within the Western Siberian Plain. To single out regions and points for deep exploratory drilling, it is proposed that a large geophysical expedition be organized in the winter of 1939–1940 within the system of the Main Geologic Exploration Administration of the People’s Commissariat for Fuel.... It is proposed that the expedition be composed of nine pendulum crews (770 points), three gravimeter crews (1,300 points), one seismic crew, two electrical prospecting crews, 10 magnetic crews, two variometric crews, and four geodetic crews.... The expedition should have 32 crews with a staff of 300.” The Glavgeologiya leadership’s proposal was accepted, and on November 22, 1939 the USSR people’s commissar for the oil industry signed an order “On Expanding Oil Prospecting in Siberia.” The expedition was given the basic goal of carrying out geologic studies over an area of 190,000 square miles and preparing regions for deep rotary drilling for oil by the fall of 1940. The experienced geologist A. Shayderov was named leader of the expedition. However, this very complex mission was not adequately supplied with financial, human, or equipment resources, and the preparatory period dragged on for months, pushing out the deadlines for beginning work by almost a year.