Resettlement of 1944-45

Categories / Army. Navy/Blokade
RESETTLEMENT OF 1944-45, the return back to Leningrad of population and material values that were evacuated in 1941-43. The resettlement was launched after the Lifting of the Siege (January 1944), when about 600,000 people were living in the city. On 18 March 1944, the Commission for Resettlement was formed, headed by Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad Soviet of Working People's Deputies, P.S. Popkov, and considered citizens' applications to return to Leningrad. The main goal of resettlement was to restore Leningrad's industrial capacity, particularly of metallurgy, engineering and machine-tool enterprises. By a decree from the State Defence Committee (29 March 1944), the resettlement of 30,000 workers was planned (including some who had not lived in Leningrad before 1941). Organisational problems with resettlement were examined in April 1944 at the plenary session of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks). By 1 July 1944, over 109,000 people had returned to Leningrad. Due to a housing shortage and the difficulties of otherwise normal everyday life, limiting and regulating measures for resettlement were fixed by the State Defence Committee (3 September 1944); the State Defence Committee then decided to return research institutes, students, and higher education lecturers and their family members (1 December 1944). By the beginning of 1945, the population of Leningrad exceeded 1,000,000 people. In 1945, all industrial enterprises, higher education institutes, and main theatres and cinemas in Leningrad were functioning. Resettlement was accompanied by large-scale restoration work. Free construction training was organised (according to official statistics, by the spring of 1945, 16,896 people were educated at these classes, with 2,259 people qualified to be foremen). Resettlement was completed by 1946.

References: Манаков Н. А. В кольце блокады: Хоз-во и быт осажден. Ленинграда. Л., 1961. С. 183-214; Шумилов Н. Д. В дни блокады. М., 1977. С. 283-300.

A. Y. Chistyakov. Манаков Н. А. В кольце блокады: Хоз-во и быт осажденного Ленинграда Л., 1961
Шумилов Н. Д. В дни блокады. М., 1977 Lifting of the Siege, 1944
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