The rating of any state in the international arena is determined by the level of development of its economy. And the very concept of economics is very multifaceted, but its foundation is precisely industry, that is, the totality of various enterprises. These are factories and plants, power plants, mines and mines. They produce raw materials, produce tools, fuel, materials, harvest wood, produce energy and process products that were produced in industry or in agriculture. That is, this area of human activity has a decisive effect on his well-being.
As you can see, there are many branches of the national economy involved in productive activities. And a significant part of them are conditionally united under one general definition - heavy industry. This is the group of industries that produce mainly capital goods. This includes almost the entire mining industry and a certain part of the manufacturing industry. These are industries such as electric power, non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy, fuel industry, metalworking and mechanical engineering. This list also includes forestry, woodworking, petrochemical, chemical and pulp and paper industries, and other similar industries.
Another degree of importance of all these sectors of the economy can be seen from history. For example, the heavy industry of Russia began to develop only after the revolution. According to statistics, in 1913, Russian mechanical engineering accounted for only 9% of the total industrial output. The share of the chemical industry was even less - 3%, and the share of energy was less than one percent. And a number of industries related to heavy industry were completely absent. So, in pre-revolutionary Russia there was no instrument making, machine tool building, production of tractors, automobiles and metallurgical equipment. And therefore, many types of products were imported from abroad.
But after the revolution, the situation changed dramatically. Then the industrialization of the whole country was carried out and heavy industry was literally created. The Soviet leadership paid great attention to the development of the electric power industry, mechanical engineering, the chemical and other branches of heavy industry. In the pre-war years, the Soviet people built many large enterprises and created from scratch new branches of this industry. These are automotive, aircraft, machine tools, combine-building, tractor manufacturing, metallurgical engineering and other important industries. And during World War II, heavy industry became the basis for the country's defense industry.
The postwar years are also characterized by high rates of development of these industries. Then new industries, such as electronics, radio engineering, instrument making, rocket science, and the like, already began to appear and successfully develop. The Soviet Union managed to take first place in the world in the production of oil, cast iron, steel, coke, iron ore, fertilizers, electric and diesel locomotives, tractors, cement and lumber. The heavy industry of the USSR in those days reached the level of other developed countries.
And now the countries of the former Union use the base created in those days. For example, more than 20 metallurgical enterprises now operate in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. These are such as the Mariupol Azovstal, Amurmetall in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the Almetyevsky Pipe in Tatarstan, the Beloretsk Metallurgical Plant in Bashkortostan, the Belarusian Metallurgical Plant in the city of Zhlobin and others scattered throughout the CIS.
Still heavy industry includes such an important industry as the oil industry. These are exploration of oil and gas fields, drilling of wells, production of these natural resources, as well as all pipeline transport. And now in the territory of the Russian Federation there are three large oil bases: Timan-Pechersk, Volga-Ural and West Siberian. Moreover, the last base is the largest in Russia. It is located in nine regions and has an area equal to 3.5 million square kilometers. And now 70% of all Russian oil is produced from the wells of this base. And although the level of oil production decreases every year, this sector of heavy industry is still one of the most important and profitable for Russia.