On July 30, 1941, the State Committee for Defense adopted a resolution, “On Measures to Develop Oil Production and Refining in the Eastern Regions of the USSR and Turkmenistan.” This decree called for increasing the capacity of the oil fields and refineries and accelerating the construction of refineries at Ufa, Syzran, Saratov, Ishimbayevo, and elsewhere.
Answering the government’s call, Soviet oil workers made colossal efforts in the first year of the war to increase oil production. At the fields of the Absheron Peninsula, 3 million feet of hole were drilled and 752 wells were put into production. In the first year of the war, the Baku region gave the country 25.9 million tons of oil and 91.8 million cubic feet of natural gas, which was the highest level of raw material production in the country’s entire history of industrial oil production. The Grozny region also made its contribution to the common cause, producing 3.3 million tons. On the whole, the USSR produced 36 million tons of oil in 1941, thereby exceeding the level of the last prewar year.
In August 1941, the AUCP(b) Politburo approved a military and economic plan for defense of the country. For the fourth quarter of 1941, the USSR people’s commissar for the oil industry set the amount of drilling in the regions of the “Second Baku,” Kazakhstan, and Central Asia at 1.1 million feet, including 442,913 feet of exploratory drilling. For 1942, the amount of drilling planned was 5.8 million feet, including 2.1 million feet of exploratory drilling. Plans called for starting 1,550 new development wells, and accelerating the construction of a number of new refineries.
Having met fierce resistance on the central front, the German command began redeploying its reserves. Forces were insufficient, however, to mount a general attack on all fronts, as called for by Operation Barbarossa, and thus nowhere did they completely succeed in achieving their aggressive plans.
Meanwhile, combat operations revealed shortcomings in the Nazi blitzkrieg strategy, including an acute fuel problem. When traveling on Soviet roads (which were poor if they existed at all), German military vehicles consumed two to three times more fuel than planned. There was an immediate fuel shortage. Supplying attacking German troops, which had become separated from their rear support units, became substantially more difficult.
In the fall of 1941, a gigantic battle took place near Moscow. At its start, German units had reached the city limits. Yet here again, it became apparent that the German command had miscalculated, and that logistical supply of attacking troops was in jeopardy. Counting on rapid success, the Nazi military leaders had not prepared their forces to fight in fall and winter conditions. German equipment got stuck in the mud, and it literally had to be pulled out by hand. And when early frosts came, another problem became apparent: German tank and aircraft engines that ran on synthetic fuel did not easily start in the cold, and lubricant congealed. The closer the Germans came to Moscow, the fiercer was the resistance from Red Army units, who were receiving fuel and lubricant supplies without interruption from the rear echelon. In the end, the Germans retreated from Moscow.
At the beginning of 1942, Hitler’s Reich had recovered somewhat from the defeat near Moscow, and the German command started to prepare a new Russian offensive. The operation, which was given the code name Fall Blau [Case Blue], had been developed with Hitler’s direct involvement, and assumed a clearly pronounced nature as an “oil crusade.” Hitler’s Directive 41 of April 5, 1942 planned to strike a blow in the southern direction and seize the Caucasus and the Absheron Peninsula from the USSR, thereby winning a dominant strategic position and cutting Soviet lines of communication with allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. To accomplish this, Army Group A was formed, which was supposed to reach Baku and then, in coordination with friendly Turkey, to continue to the Middle East, into oil-rich Iran, Iraq, etc. A supportive strike was made by Army Group B, which was supposed to overcome the Volga line in the region of Stalingrad and cut off routes connecting the oil regions of the Caucasus with the center of the country.
The diary of General Franz Haider, chief of staff of the Army High Command [OKH], who wrote down Hitler’s speech, contains the following words: “The time has come to look ahead. It has become possible to capture the Donets Basin and the Caucasus oil region. Operations in the Caucasus will require large forces, but any price should be paid for oil. All the more so, seizing the Caucasus will allow the occupation of Iran and the straddling of the passes on the Iran-Iraq border.”
The summer and fall of 1942 brought a succession of failures for the Red Army. Grozny became a front city. On August 10, 1942, the Nazis occupied Maykop; on August 22, Krasnodar; and on August 25, Mozdok as well.
In connection with the threat of attack by Nazi troops, on September 13, 1942 the State Committee for Defense adopted Resolution 2298, “On Dismantling the Grozny Refineries,” which soon had a very strong effect on fuel deliveries to the army. Fierce battles broke out when Nazi troops began to mount an active attack from the region of Mozdok, on the approach to Grozny. On October 10, 1942, the city literally burst into flames from the bombs that had been dropped on it. Buildings and structures were destroyed, oil tanks burned, and around 100 wells were knocked out of service. Nevertheless, the enemy failed to seize this most important oilfield region or to knock it completely out of service. In 1942, Grozny provided the country with 1.5 million tons of oil.
In response to the German advance, martial law was declared in the Transcaucasus in the fall of 1942, and the situation in Baku soon became critical. Only 1.8 million tons of oil were shipped before navigation was halted, instead of the planned 6.6 million tons. A number of oil-producing enterprises that did continue to operate had to release produced oil into mountain depressions for storage. Special wells were designated, into which hundreds of thousands of tons of oil that had undergone gas-gasoline processing were pumped. The shortage of containers led to work stoppages. In the fall of 1942, oil was actually being produced by only a single trust: Neftechala.
It should be emphasized that from the first days of the war, there were widespread efforts throughout the country to help the army and navy. For example, workers in the rear gave the Defense Fund 17 billion rubles in cash contributions, 289 pounds of gold, 29 pounds of platinum, 20,985 pounds of silver, jewelry worth 1.7 billion rubles, government debt bonds worth more than 4.5 billion rubles, and half a billion rubles were transferred through contributions in savings banks. These resources were used to build 2,500 warplanes, several thousand tanks, eight submarines, 16 military cutters, thousands of artillery pieces, mortars, and various infantry arms.
A significant contribution was also made by oil industry workers who, every month, contributed one or two days of pay to the Defense Fund.
Another widespread patriotic initiative in the industry was the collection of money from individuals to build “named” tanks, airplanes, and even ships. For example, the money of the Soviet oil industry was used to build airplanes for the units “Bashkir Oilman,” “Kuybyshev Oilman,” “Syzran Driller,” “Okhta Oilman,” the fighter “Bashkir Geophysicist,” the tank columns “Stavropol Oilman,” “Ukhta Oilman,” “Kazakhstan Oilman,” and so on.
The difficult situation of the Caucasus oil regions intensified the role of eastern regions in oil production and refining. On September 22, 1942, the State Committee for Defense adopted a decree “On Measures to Expedite in Every Way Increased Oil Production at Kazakhstanneftekombinat, Permneftekombinat, and at the Buguruslanneft, Syzranneft, Ishimbayneft, Tuymazaneft, Turkmenneft, Kalininneft, and Voroshilovneft trusts.” In essence, this was an elaborate program to create a mighty oil production and refining region in the Volga-Urals region. It planned, by the end of 1942, to increase average daily production in eastern regions by a factor of 1.5 over August of the same year. Before the end of 1942, the amount of development drilling was set at 684,711 feet; exploratory drilling, at 306,430 feet. By that deadline, plans called for putting 482 wells into production and an additional 580 wells in the first quarter of 1943.