Distinctive features of the industrialization of the Komi ASSR in 1927–1937

Based on the documentary sources and scientific papers of Soviet and modern researchers, the paper analyzed why the industrialization of the Komi ASSR proceeded independently of the main strategic plans of the USSR. The first five-year development plans of the Komi region did not take into account the industrialization vector of the USSR aimed at a shift to a new technological paradigm. The wrong impressions about the role of the region in the economic system did not allow to archive the actual potential of the Komi region. The country was in dire need of oil and coal but the central planning authorities and scientific institutions did not see prospects for development of deposits on the Komi territory. Only the non-economic system of GULAG (Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps) by attracting a great deal of resources managed to work through the general skepticism about mineral resources of the region, and the Pechora brigade of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR determined a new position for the Komi region on the economic map of the country.