Designing a New Artillery Production in Samara at the Beginning of the XX Century (on the Example of the Samara Detonator Factory)
Authors: German Syskin 
Published: February 2024

At the end of the ХIX сentury, industrial machinery was replacing manual labor in manufacturing, and different motors and advanced technologies were being introduced. One of the main reasons for technical improvement was the desire to catch up with the leading foreign powers in terms of output. The military sphere was no exception. A key step towards creating a combat-ready army was the military reform of D.A. Milyutin. Its goal was the technical modernization of the army, which could not be achieved without the development of domestic industry. However, until now, the topic of creating defense plants has not been sufficiently represented in the domestic literature. The history of the formation and development of the military industry in the prerevolutionary period is the least covered. This publication reveals the issues of choosing a site for the construction of enterprises of the domestic defense industry on the example of the Samara Detonator factory. This Volga region enterprise was created at the beginning of the 20th century and produced elements of artillery ammunition as well as civilian products. The main types of manufactured product range were tubes and fuses (devices designed to detonate ammunition in flight on a given trajectory or in contact with a target), i.e. the most technologically sophisticated means of initiating artillery shells. The specialized funds of a number of federal, regional, and departmental archives of Russia, as well as published legislative acts, were used as a source base. In preparing the publication, historical-genetic and systematic methods of research were applied. The subject under consideration was consistently studied and the key features of choosing a site for the construction of the plant were identified. The statistical method and the schematization method were used as auxiliary research methods. The author comes to the conclusion that after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the need of the Russian army for ammunition, as well as fuses and remote tubes, increased significantly. The insufficient supply of this type of ordnance was the reason for the expansion of production in the military-industrial sphere. By that time, the only state-owned Petersburg Detonator Plant could not cope with the entire load of producing means of initiating artillery ammunition, so the city of Samara was chosen to help it. The land plots examined by the commission to select a site for the construction of new military plants both in the territory of the Samara province and in Russia as a whole were later used to accommodate new defense production during the First World War of 1914-1918. The question of choosing this particular city on the Volga was discussed in the previous article. This article examines the procedure for the work of a special commission of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Military Ministry of the Russian Empire (hereinafter referred to as GAU) to select a site for the construction of a second detonator plant in Samara. The main problems faced by the specified commission in the course of solving this issue are characterized. The proposals of the Samara city authorities and local business leaders who were ready to provide land for national needs, including on a gratuitous basis, are analyzed and evaluated.