text: With the end of the war and the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March 1921, the restoration of the Ural industry began. Uralplan was created, under whose auspices the development of a program for the integrated development of the region was carried out. Most of the enterprises switched to a self-supporting scheme, which led to the emergence of industrial trusts, which united factories according to industry characteristics. 5 metallurgical trusts were formed in geographical areas, as well as separate trusts "Uralzoloto," "Uralmed," and trusts for the extraction of coal. In 1925, Uralplan developed a "Three-Year Program for the Development of the Metallurgical Industry in the Urals," then a plan for the development of the Urals for 1925-1930 was drawn up, which included, among other things, the construction of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Complex. Concession contracts for the smelting of metals and the extraction of minerals operated with varying degrees of success. In 1927, the number of concession contracts in the Urals included 12 companies. Subsequently, the trusts were downsized with the allocation of iron ore trusts. In total, on October 1, 1925, there were 31 trusts in the Urals. After the adoption of the first five-year plan, in 1929 the trust system was abolished.
  In the 1920s-1930s, the concentration of production and specialization of factories, which began at the beginning of the 20th century, continued in the metallurgy of the Urals. The Nadezhdinsky Plant focused on rolling of all Ural rails, the Nizhny Salda Plant switched to the production of shaped rolled products, the production of pipes was concentrated at the Pervouralsk Plant, the Verkh-Isetsky Plant switched to the production of transformer steel. Machine-building and mechanical enterprises were separated from metallurgical enterprises. Small mines were actively closed, ore mining was concentrated at the large deposits of Bakalsky, Tagilo-Kushvinsky, Nadezhdinsky, and Alapaevsky districts. Geological exploration work began in 1920 in the Urals, and by 1933 the explored reserves of iron ore amounted to about 2 billion tons, including 478 million tons along Magnitnaya Mountain. There was an acute shortage of fuel resources, which forced metallurgists to switch to mineral fuel. The first successful blast-furnace smelting in the Urals of Kuznetsk coke took place on June 13, 1924 at the Nizhnesaldinsky Plant. Later, Kushvinsky, Nizhnetagilsky, and other plants switched to using coke. By 1926, 37% of the Ural pig iron was smelted using coke, the number of operating blast furnaces was 32, open-hearth furnaces was 47 (in 1913 - 61 and 75, respectively), and their productivity increased 1.5 and 1.7 times, respectively, to the level of production in 1913. 
  The recovery of the copper and gold-platinum industries was much slower due to the greater damage inflicted during the Civil War. In 1921-1922, the extraction of copper ore in the Urals amounted to only 2.2% of the level of 1913, gold - 1.9%, and platinum - 4.3%. By 1928, production amounted to 585.4 thousand tons (88.7% of the level of 1913), and 15 copper mines were able to resume operation.
  At the end of the 1920s, Soviet design institutes, with the involvement of foreign companies, began designing the giants of the Ural metallurgy and mechanical engineering — Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk and Novotagilsky metallurgical plants, Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, Uralvagonzavod and Pyshminsky Copper-Electrolyte Plant. On May 15, 1930, the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) issued a resolution "On the work of Uralmet," which emphasized the need to create a coal and metallurgical center in the East of the USSR on the basis of coal and ore deposits of the Urals and Siberia. Investments in the construction of new and reconstruction of old plants have increased dramatically. In 1925-1926, 52.6 million rubles were disbursed, and in 1932 — already 1447.7 million rubles. The management of the metallurgical industry was also centralized. In 1931, the Main Directorate of the Metallurgical Industry of the VSNH was liquidated, the main committees were created: Glavchermet, Glavspetsstal, Glavmetiz, and Glavtrubostal. Later, in 1939, the People's Commissariats of Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR were established.
  During the 1st and 2nd five-year plans, mining, ore dressing and ore preparation for smelting developed intensively. Flotation and melting of concentrates in water packs and reverberatory furnaces have been successfully applied in non-ferrous metallurgy. By 1934, 62% of all mined ore was being enriched in the Urals. By the beginning of the 2nd five-year plan, drilling at the mines was fully mechanized. Iron ore production by 1937 reached 8.7 million tons (31% of production in the USSR), and copper ore by 1935 had reached 2.96 million tons. The conversion of blast furnaces to mineral fuel continued: in 1940 86.8% of Ural pig iron was smelted on coke. Only 8 furnaces worked on charcoal, producing special and high-quality cast iron. During the same period, non-ferrous metallurgy plants were built: Krasnouralsky and Sredneuralsky copper smelters, Pyshminsky Copper Electrolytic, Ural Aluminum, Chelyabinsk Zinc, Ufaleysky, Rezhsky and Yuzhno-Uralsky Nickel, Solikamsk and Berezniki Magnesium. Most of the equipment of the new plants was purchased abroad. In 1931, 600 million rubles were spent on the purchase of imported equipment, in 1932 — 270 million rubles, in 1933 — 60 million rubles.
  In 1933 and 1937, the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR, G.K. Ordzhonikidze issued orders for the development of the gold-platinum industry. The measures taken made it possible in 1936 to extract in the Urals a record 12.8 tons of gold (156.3% compared to the level of 1913) and 4.8 tons of platinum (97.8% compared to the level of 1913).