Bakery Industry of Blockaded Leningrad in 1941–1942

Introduction. The Great Patriotic War found the party, Soviet, and economic leadership of Leningrad unprepared for a long siege of the city. Under these conditions, it was necessary to take measures to create reserves of raw materials to ensure the operation of bakeries. Methods and materials. The publication uses problem-chronological and comparative-historical methods. The article was written using documents of Leningrad bakeries, as well as annual reports of the Leningrad Trust of the Main Directorate of the Bakery Industry and explanatory notes to them, deposited in the funds of the Russian State Archive of Economics (RSAE) and the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg. Analysis. By the end of 1941, the situation with bread products became catastrophic, which led to the concentration of meager reserves at the mills of Leningrad and their distribution among bakeries, which were forced to work in extreme conditions of constant artillery shelling and bombing. The heads of the bakeries tried their best to retain the workers and engineering and technical personnel of the industry, since the productivity and quality of the products directly depended on this. At the end of 1942, only 9 enterprises were operating as part of the Leningrad bakery industry trust. Results. At the turn of 1941–1942, Leningrad’s bakery industry found itself in a critical situation. However, despite the lack of grain and fuel supplies, some of them continued to operate, using numerous additives to flour, trying to provide the population with the products they produced. The working conditions of the bakery industry changed radically only after the blockade was broken in January 1943. Funding. The study has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation research grant no. 24-18-00305 “Food supply in besieged Leningrad: organization of production, distribution practices, memory” (https://rscf.ru/project/24-18-00305/).