Industry, countryside and people in wartime

By December 1941, 63 industrial enterprises in Tashkent and 230 in the republic had switched to defence production; from 14 December workers of military enterprises were treated as mobilised and leaving without permission was punishable by 5–8 years in prison. In 1942 output of new industrial products doubled and in 1943 industry’s share of the economy reached 75 percent; during the war 7 large hydropower stations (Akkavak, Kibray, Salar, Farhod and others) were built, and in March 1944 the first stage of Central Asia’s first metallurgical plant started at Bekabad. According to the textbook Uzbekistan supplied the front with over 2,000 aircraft, 22 million mortar shells and 500,000 shells and millions of items of clothing. In the countryside cotton, grain, sugar beet and other produce was delivered (the textbook says over 4 million tonnes of cotton and 82 million poods of grain over the war years), new canals and reservoirs were built; the heavy burden fell on women, old people and teenagers, and in kolkhozes the compulsory work norm was raised 1.5 times for adults and children over 12. In cities bread was rationed (400–500 g a day for workers and employees, 300–400 g for dependants), and the textbook says tens of thousands died of disease and hunger in villages. Even so, over a million people including 200,000 children were evacuated to Uzbekistan; the family of Tashkent blacksmith Shoahmad Shomahmudov took in 15 children. In 1941–1944 the Soviet authorities forcibly moved several peoples (Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Volga Germans and others) to eastern regions including Uzbekistan; the local population helped them.