Formation and development of the territorial production complex on the production of heavy tanks in Chelyabinsk in 1940-1945

The article is devoted to the evolution of the territorial production complex (TPС) for manufacturing heavy tanks in Chelyabinsk during the Great Patriotic War. The publication reflects the main stages of the formation of the TPC, provides a brief overview of the main trends and developments during these periods. Based on the theory of clusters, mechanisms for the implementation of production cooperation and other interaction with other factories of the tank industry of the Urals located on the territory of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions are examined. The theory of clusters makes it possible to explain the content of specific administrative decisions adopted by the highest military and political leadership of the USSR and influenced the future of the tank industry and the economy of the region as a whole. Much attention is paid to the correlation of the cluster approach and the principles of the planned mobilization economy during the Great Patriotic War. To denote a special complex of production relations, observed on the materials of the Kirov plant in the period under study, the term «protocluster» is justified. The article analyzes objective political and economic constraints affecting the geography of the location of tank production capacities evacuated to the Urals. The same restrictions determined the dynamics of the formation of tank production in Chelyabinsk, its dependence on cooperation and even the final configuration of the entire territorial production complex. The work justifies the need to consider the results of the development of tank production in the Chelyabinsk region as a protocluster in the context of the emergency, crisis management model and the general context of the modernization processes of the 20th century.