Natalia А. Potapova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
“Had there been no Factory here, the City Would not have Become”: the Soviet Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932 in Iskitim and the First Workers of the Chernorechensky Cement Plant (Memoirs of P.R. Kolesnikov)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2020-5-5
The memoirs of Petr Kolesnikov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a labor veteran, a worker of the Iskitim cement plant, are published. Kolesnikov left behind two diaries, one of which is devoted to the construction and establishment of a cement plant, and the second to the Great Patriotic War. In this work, diary entries dedicated to the plant are introduced into scientific circulation. Kolesnikov began to write down his memories after retirement in 1973. The last pages, according to handwritten marks in the diary, date back to 1980. Kolesnikov’s handwritten memoirs occupy about 60 notebook pages. They are short stories, each with its own name. A large place in the memories is given to people who participated in the construction of the plant and in its further operation. The author begins the narration in 1929, from the moment of the survey work on the Berd. At this time Kolesnikov was 16 years old, he began his labor activity in the horse yard at the cement plant. In the 1930s. he was promoted to the position of electrician on duty, which he held until his retirement. Kolesnikov retired in the early 1970s, having devoted more than 40 years of his life to the plant. In the diary, memories of the plant are intertwined with memories of Kolesnikov’s personal life, so the diary is published with extracts. The memoirs cover a wide range of issues, including the plight of workers, difficulties in building, operating a cement plant, lack of specialists, etc. Another valuable side of these memories is a large number of portraits of directors and workers, about many of which there is no detailed information. Memories are of historical value, since they provide significant assistance to historians not only in studying a particular industrial facility and a city that owes its birth to a cement plant, but also in studying the problems of industrialization and the first five-year plan.
Publishing: 30/10/2020
The article has been received by the editor on 01.08.2020
How to cite: Potapova N.A. “Had there been no Factory here, the City Would not have Become”: the Soviet Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932 in Iskitim and the First Workers of the Chernorechensky Cement Plant (Memoirs of P.R. Kolesnikov) // Historical Courier, 2020, No. 5 (13), pp. 57–69. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2020/ISTKURIER-2020-5-05.pdf
Links: Issue 5 2020
Keywords: industrialization; first five-year plan; Iskitim; cement plant; memoirs; P.R. Kolesnikov