Ministry of Heavy Machine Building (Mintyazhmash / MTM)

The USSR Ministry of Heavy and Transport Machine Building played a special role and responsibility as the leading core branch of machine building, in increasing the technological level of the country's industry. The branch was a pioneer in the new management conditions and from this was initially expected an indication of the depth of restructuring to be expected. However, this ministry's restructuring was half-hearted and therefore did not lead to any notable final results. Moreover, there was a decrease in the branch's work. Mintyazhmash's former style contained techniques of management by directive which ran counter to the course of strengthening economic management tools. The branch's headquarters had not made the necessary practical conclusions from the serious criticism directed at it.

The strategy for restructuring was strictly defined by the 27th CPSU Congress which directly stated: "At last it is time to end the practice of excessively detailed supervision of the enterprises by ministries and departments. The ministries must concentrate their activities on questions of technology policy, branch-internal distribution, and satisfaction of the national economy's demand for high-quality product's from their respective branches." These were the criteria that should be used to evaluate the activities of all ministry workers, from the economist to the minister. The ministries had to act under conditions in which the leading management organizations, primarily Gosplan, and the USSR Ministry of Finance, had declared the need for restructuring.

The Ministry of Heavy and Transport Machine Building was one of two that were first converted to the conditions of the broad-scaleeconomic experiment. The essence of the new management methods, in brief, isthe broadest possible use of standardized principles along with an expansionof the independence and an increase in the responsibility of enterprises.

In practice, stereotypical methods at work countered the new management conditions and, in spite of the demands of the time, did not release entities from the need to solve current questions which limited the branch ministries from shifting to new management methods. In other words, the restructuring must fully involve the departments which define its strategy, tools and incentives, so that there would be centralized control only over those items which determine proportions in the national economy as a whole. Meanwhile, the day-to-day activities of the management elements would be conducted independently.

What is engineering is exactly understandable - it is engaged in the production of machinery and equipment, various mechanisms for material production, science, culture, and services. The structure of mechanical engineering is very complex, since the range of products is very large. Structuring is usually carried out in terms of the generality of the machines produced by their purpose, although often the most important feature of the classification at the highest level was the "size of the series" (mass production, serial, individual).

Most often in the structure of machine-building, heavy, energy and transport engineering industries were singled out as independent branches; electrotechnical industry; chemical and oil engineering; machine tools and tool industry; instrument making; tractor and agricultural machinery; machine building for the light and food industries, etc., existed in the Soviet years and many specialized sub-sectors - in some years there were more than 100 specialized sub-sectors and productions.

The sub-sector of the metallurgical equipment produced equipment for agglomeration factories, blast-furnace and electric smelting furnaces, as well as equipment for rolling and crushing and grinding production. The profile of mining machinery plants is machines for prospecting, and open and closed methods of mining, crushing and enrichment of solid minerals in enterprises ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, chemical, coal, industry and building materials industry, transport construction.

Enterprises of mining machinery manufacture mining and cleaning combines, rotary and walking excavators.

The sub-branch of hoisting and transport engineering produces bridge electric cranes, stationary and belt conveyors, equipment for complex mechanization of warehouses. Diesel locomotive building, railroad transport and railroad engineering provides the railway transport with the main cargo, passenger and shunting diesel locomotives, freight and passenger cars, etc. This sub-sector also produces track machines and mechanisms (laying, rail welding, snow blowing, etc.).

Turbinebuilding supplied steam, gas and hydraulic turbines for the power industry. Sub-industry plants produce equipment for thermal, nuclear, hydraulic and gas turbine power plants, gas pumping equipment for gas trunklines, compressor, injection and recycling equipment for the chemical and oil refining industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. etc.

For heavy engineering, full-cycle enterprises were characteristic (harvesting - machining - assembly). Each sub-sector united well in no way at least 10-15 enterprises (if I'm not mistaken, only in turbine enterprises there were less - 8 or 9). That is, as a whole, more than 150 enterprises (including various reorganizations in different years in different years) and practically throughout the territory of the Soviet Union were part of the Ministry's administration.