Indirect economic loss of copper industry in the Ural during the Great Patriotic War

The article starts a subject of indirect loss caused to the industrial Ural during the Great Patriotic War. Historiography touches upon this subject mostly in the context of demographicloss. The m ultiple increase in industrial production in the eastern regions in the USSR in 1941–1845 is ritually assumed as a positive economic effect for the back land areas. At the same time, the war was one of the major challenges faced by the country during its existence. Destructive and disruptive aftermath of the war propagated far beyond the battle line and embraced very many aspects. One of such aspects is the destructive processes in the development of the copper industry in the Soviet Union. The war brought disorganization in the natural course of the economic development of the industry concentrated in the Ural that time. The article introduces statistical material on the industry and transport, which illustrates unbeneficial changes in the territorial organization of productive power of the copper industry during the war years. For the first turn, these changes showed up in separation of the copper smelting industry of the Middle Ural from its own ore resources and in the forced retargeting at supply of the resources from Northern Kazakhstan, which was unprofitable both for producibility and transport logistic. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 22-78-10159.