Energy Supply of Leningrad before the Blockade of the City: Planning Miscalculations and Their Consequences

Abstract

The article analyzes the main factors and reasons for the decrease in the working capacity of the Leningrad power system before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, at the same time, it assesses the readiness of city services for the hardest military tests that befell the residents of the city. According to the authors of the publication, the leadership of Leningrad in the late 1930s, due to a number of circumstances, both objective and subjective, could not take adequate organizational and technological measures to expand production and develop the energy infrastructure of the region. As a result, by the beginning of the war, the Leningrad power system was technologically and organizationally insufficiently prepared for a complete or partial blockade of the city.