Kyrgyzstan on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War
Alongside the expansion of the industrial base, measures were taken to further boost agricultural production. By the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated April 7, 1940, starting from the harvest of 1940, a per-hectare principle for the procurement of agricultural products in crop production and animal husbandry was introduced in collective farms. This important measure ensured further growth and strengthening of the collective farms' public economy.
On September 6, 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On Measures for the Further Development of Agriculture, Especially Technical Crops in the Kyrgyz SSR." The resolution provided for a significant increase in the production of sugar beets, cotton, medicinal poppy, essential oil crops, flax, and further expansion of the irrigation infrastructure, which was one of the most important conditions for achieving this goal.
On the initiative of rural workers, the construction of the Naryn irrigation canal in the Tien Shan region began on October 10, 1940, followed shortly after by the Kugart canal in the Jalal-Abad region. In the spring of 1941, through a method of popular construction, one of the largest structures in Central Asia was being created — the Big Chui Canal in the Frunze region and the Otuz-Adyr Canal in the Osh region.
In fulfilling Lenin's directives on the defense of the socialist homeland, the Communist Party and the Soviet government vigilantly monitored the intrigues of imperialist powers, tirelessly ensuring that the multinational Soviet people were always in a state of mobilization readiness to defend the world's first state of workers and peasants. The XVIII All-Union Party Conference, held in Moscow in February 1941, was of exceptional importance for strengthening the defensive power of the USSR. Noting significant successes achieved over three years of the third five-year plan in the development of industry and transport, the conference also revealed shortcomings and outlined ways to address them. The conference's resolutions indicated that party and economic organizations should pay maximum attention to the needs of the national economy, primarily the accelerated development of those sectors of industry on which the country's defense power depended, and ensure daily compliance with the production program by each factory, plant, mine, and railway according to a pre-developed schedule.
The conference demanded strict accounting, preservation, and proper use of equipment, raw materials, materials, fuel, and electricity, as well as an all-around increase in initiative and labor activity, consistently implementing the principle of material incentives for advanced workers and managerial staff of enterprises. To strengthen party leadership in the most important sectors of industry and transport, positions of sectoral secretaries were established in city committees, regional committees, territorial committees, and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union republics.
The conference adopted a national economic plan for 1941 aimed at further developing the economic and defensive power of the country.
Thanks to the efforts of party organizations and the hard work of workers, engineers, and technicians, a rise in the leading sectors of industry was observed throughout the Soviet Union, including Kyrgyzstan, in the first half of 1941. For example, at the Sulyukta mine, coal production increased by 15.3% by the end of the first quarter of 1941 compared to the fourth quarter of 1940. The miners of the Kyzyl-Kiya mine completed the production program for the first four months of 1941 significantly ahead of schedule. The Frunze Mechanical Plant achieved particularly high results, fulfilling its semi-annual gross production task by 105% and commodity production by 121% by June 20. Just before the war, a section of the railway from Kant to Tokmak, which had significant national economic importance, was put into operation. The construction of the Frunze Repair and Mechanical Plant and the Novo-Troitsk Sugar Plant was progressing at an accelerated pace.
The aggressive aspirations of fascist Germany and militarist Japan urgently dictated the need for further measures to strengthen the country's defense capabilities. By mid-1941, the number of the Soviet Armed Forces reached 5,373,000 personnel. The Red Army included representatives from all the fraternal Soviet peoples of our multinational homeland, including: Russians — 61%, Ukrainians — 19.6%, Belarusians — 4.1%, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians — 3%, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tajiks — 4.3%, and other nationalities — 8%. In June 1941, the army was equipped with over 67,000 field guns and mortars, 1,861 tanks, and over 2,700 combat aircraft.
The Soviet Navy had 276 combat ships in service, including 212 submarines.
The Soviet state's expenditures on military needs increased, rearmament of the army and navy was underway, military technology was being improved, and new models of tanks, combat aircraft, and artillery weapons were being created. Soviet infantry was provided with automatic weapons and mortars. After the war with Finland, training of troops was intensified under conditions closely resembling modern warfare. Extensive party-political work was conducted in the troops, which played an important role in instilling high moral-combat and patriotic qualities in personnel.
Thus, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union possessed a powerful military-economic potential and was capable of repelling the aggression of any aggressor. The solid material and technical base of the country, the fraternal camaraderie and moral-political unity of the peoples, their loyalty to Lenin's ideas of defending the socialist homeland, cohesion around the Communist Party, fervent patriotism, and internationalism were the sources of strength and power of the Soviet multinational state, the foundation of its defense capability, and the decisive prerequisites that ensured the Soviet people's world-historical victory in the Second World War.
The Beginning of the Second World War