The Soviet Chemical Industry and Foreign Trade in Chemical Products

The chemical industry is now assuming ever greater importance in the development of many branches of the national economy. Pre-revolutionary Russia lacked a developed chemical industry and met most of its requirements in chemical products through imports, although the country possessed huge reserves of raw chemical materials and its chemical science, which was associated with the names of M. Lomonosov, D. Mendeleev, A. Butlerov and other outstanding scientists, reached a very high level of development. A powerful modern chemical industry was created in our country only after the Great October Revolution, in the course of socialist industrialization. During the first five-year plans about 70 chemical plants were built in the Soviet Union, the largest of which are the Bereznikov, Gorlovka, Stalinogorsk, Konstantinovka, Voskresensk and Neva nitrogen and superphosphate plants, the Solikamsk potassium plant, and the Iaroslav rubber and asbestos plants.