Formation of the Regional Transport System in the Urals during the Third (Pre-war) Soviet Five-year Plan

The aim of this paper is to analyze the Ural regional transport system formation process during the third (pre-war) Soviet five-year plan, immediately prior to the Great Patriotic War and partially carried out in the outbreak of World War II, which is insufficiently covered in the academic literature. The sources investigated in the present study include regulatory documents of the party and state bodies, archival holdings, statistical data, and the materials of the pe-riodical press. Unlike the studies of other researchers, whose focus has always been on one type of transport, as a rule, railway transport, the author focuses on the formation of a unified transport system of different modes of transport using the example of the Ural – one of the most developed industrial regions of the country. The reconstruction of railway and water transport which started in the first and second five-year plans continued during the third five-year plan. New modes of transport (road, air, and pipeline) were being deployed and the interaction between them was growing. Railway transport was predominant in passenger and goods transportation, whereas road transport was recorded as having the highest growth rates. Serving industrial enterprises and construction sites, road transport was also gradually accumulating the experience of the industry. In the author’s view, the role of animal-powered transport is unjustly underestimated in the published literature. The conducted research gives grounds to conclude that the Soviet state’s direction towards the progressive formation of a single national transport system was valid and in accordance with the agenda of the world transport policy.