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Transport in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was an important part of the nation's economy. The economic centralisation of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure at a massive scale and rapid pace. Before the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, there were a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air. However, because of government policies before, during and after the Era of Stagnation, investments in transport were low. The railway network was the largest and the most intensively used in the world. At the same time, it was better developed than most of its counterparts in the First World. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the strain from the railways and to improve the state budget. The Civil aviation industry, represented by Aeroflot, was the largest in the world, but inefficiencies plagued it until the USSR's collapse. The road network remained underdeveloped, and dirt roads were common outside major cities. At the same time, the attendance of the few roads they had were ill equipped to handle this growing problem. By the late-1980s, after the death of Leonid Brezhnev, his successors tried, without success, to solve these problems. At the same time, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than the construction of new roads. By the mid-1970s, only eight percent of the Soviet population owned a car. Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making by the central authorities. The demand for transport infrastructure and services was rising, but the Soviet authorities proved to be unable to meet the growing demand of the people. The underdeveloped Soviet road network, in a chain reaction, led to a growing demand for public transport. The nation's merchant fleet was one of the largest in the world. ==Civil aviation== The Ministry of Civil Aviation was, according to the Air Code of the USSR, responsible for all air transport enterprises and airlines established by it. Soviet civil air transport was the largest by total destinations and vehicles during most of its post-war existence. In the USSR, Aeroflot had a monopoly on all air transport. This ranged from civil transport and cargo to transporting political prisoners to the gulags, and more. The Soviet Union covered over one sixth of the entire earth's landmass, and in the early 1920s its government decided to invest in the aviation industry. They concluded that expanding it in the Soviet Union would not only make travel more efficient and faster, it would also help build and develop the mostly farmland, enormously spread out nation that it was. At this time, most travel required taking trains (or, as was often the case, by off road travel in cars, buses or trucks).〔Matthew Sagers and Thomas Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," Geographical Review 80 (1990): 266-267〕 Many of the northern and eastern territories in the Soviet Union were completely inaccessible during much of the year; most of these vast expanses of land lacked roads and railroads because of the huge distances between them and the nearest population centers. The practically uninhabitable weather also made travel and construction nearly impossible.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 267〕 The absence of "surface transportation facilities" also meant that very little equipment was available to use for road construction—making the process even more daunting.〔 Consequently, the Soviet government, always eager to save money in the transportation sector, concluded that building a series of airports scattered throughout the more desolate and isolated parts of the country would be far more economically efficient to than to build thousands of miles of roads (and/or railroads) for automobile/train travel.〔 Air travel would be the best means of transportation for people and cargo. First, a fleet was necessary; between 1928 and 1932, the number of aircraft manufacturing facilities grew from twelve to thirty-one, while the nation's annual output of airplanes increased from a mere 608 to 2,509.〔Scott Palmer, Dictatorship of the Air - Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 197.〕 After combing a number existing fleets, the Soviet government founded the national airline and air service of the Soviet Union, renaming the "USSR Civil Air Fleet" Aeroflot.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 266; "Chronicle of Events: 1930-1939" http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/about/history_30-39〕 Aeroflot, at its formation in March 1932, had three main purposes. They were: to operate and maintain an air transportation system, to provide different types of services (such as aerial surveying, forest-fire fighting, and agricultural spraying) and to promote educational, recreational, athletic and other such activities for the public.〔"Early Soviet Civil Aviation," Century of Flight: Airlines and Airliners, http://www.century-of-flight.net/new%20site/commercial/Soviet%20civil%20aviation.htm〕 Aeroflot, which literally translates to or air fleet, originally consisted of an amalgam of existing air transportation fleets in the Soviet Union in the 1920s.〔 By creating Aeroflot, the Soviet government was, much like many industries in the young Soviet Union at the time, expanding and centralizing fleets like the "Red Air Fleet."〔 To the general public, the aviation industry did not represent modernization; rather, it represented the means to achieve modernization and future glory.〔Scott Palmer, Dictatorship of the Air, 101.〕 During Joseph Stalin's Second Five-Year Plan (1933-1938), the Communist Party Congress (and Stalin himself) devised the development and further expansion of the aviation industry, soon making air transport one of the primary means of transportation in the Soviet Union.〔Scott Palmer, Dictatorship of the Air, 224-8〕 Their strategy involved creating a network of cities and towns to deliver people, whether they were politicians, military officials, prisoners or travelers, and, most importantly, mail and freight. Stalin also recognized that with a strong civil aviation sector he could supply necessary equipment and materials to prisoners in the Gulag, increasing their efficiency and production output.〔Boyne, Walter J. (2002). Air warfare: an international encyclopedia 1.ABC-CLIO. p. 8.〕 By 1933, Soviet aviation delegations and engineers, some for as long as six months at a time, were regular visitors at the United States' most prominent aircraft developers, such as Boeing, Douglas, Pratt & Whitney and Curtiss-Wright (to name only a few).〔Palmer Dictatorship of the Air, 199.〕 These engineers would play a key role in the origins of Soviet aircraft manufacturer, Ilyushin.〔Palmer, Dictatorship of the Air, 199-200〕 For much of the Soviet Union's existence, air travel served to deliver freight. In the 1930s, freight made up 85 percent of Aeroflot's services.〔"Early Soviet Civil Aviation," http://www.century-of-flight.net/new%20site/commercial/Soviet%20civil%20aviation.htm〕 In fact, at this time, air travel in the Soviet Union existed as less of a means to travel, but rather a way for the government to develop remote areas of the nation for industrialization needs and resource acquisition.〔 The public rarely flew as flights were often very expensive (350 rubles—maybe half of a workers' monthly salary) and service was poor. Aeroflot, as the single state owned and governed airline, operated without any competitors and expanded according to the Soviet central government and central planning.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 271〕 By the beginning of World War II, Aeroflot, and the entirety of the Soviet civil aviation industry, was primarily a domestic freight carrier. In fact, in 1939, they surpassed the U.S. in volume of airfreight.〔 Despite Stalin's strong xenophobia, Aeroflot commenced its first international route in 1936, operating between Moscow and Prague.〔 After World War II, the Soviet government wanted to continue expansion by starting and increasing services from Moscow to the capitals of other Soviet republics. The ever-growing Soviet air transportation network began to shrink the railroad's importance in Soviet nations.〔 As years passed, the Soviet regime recognized the aviation industry's increasing value, and officials in transportation planning attempted to establish regular air service to nearly every city in the union.〔 By 1968, after Soviet engineers helped pioneer the introduction of jets and the jet age,〔 Aeroflot and its subsidiaries served roughly 3,500 cities.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 267-8〕 At that time, "the thirty largest Soviet cities were connected with all cities with a population of 500,000 or more" (including nearly 80 percent of those with populations from 100,000 to 499,999, and 60 percent of the cities with 50,000 to 99,999 people).〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 268〕 By joining these cities, infrastructure and industry benefitted heavily. The jet age and the introduction of new, faster and more reliable ways of air travel greatly changed Soviet aviation. Jets not only further shortened travel times; they allowed nonstop service between cities that had been otherwise out of reach for nonstop flights. Before the jet age, the longest nonstop service from Moscow was Sverdlovsk (roughly 1,100 miles);〔 sometime after the introduction of jets, mail could be delivered from Moscow to Vladivostok (nearly 4,000 miles east), the same day. The Soviet Union put the first jet in the world into service in 1956 on a Moscow to Irkutsk route (of about 2,600 miles) using a Soviet built Tupolev Tu-104.〔"Aeroflot History" http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/about/history; Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 267〕 The Soviet government established a "hubbing" system unlike the West; in the Soviet Union, most cities had a direct link with Moscow. In the United States, most small cities were (and still are today) connected to larger cities and their airports; airlines then use these larger airports—or "hubs"—to connect passengers to their flight and onto their destination.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 273〕 Because the Soviet Union essentially revolved around Moscow, this networking technique proved effective. By the early 1980s, Aeroflot had experienced massive growth in the aviation market. They carried 116.1 million passengers and millions of pounds of cargo.〔"Soviet Union: Aeroflot Operations," Library of Congress Country Studies, May 1989. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+su0388%29〕 Still, because of travel restrictions, only 3.4 million passengers were international travelers. The airline remained an almost entirely domestic carrier, getting freight and people to far off remote cities, many of which had been built by Stalin-era Gulag prisoners.〔 Aeroflot also remained in charge of other non-delivery or transportation services such as: "ice patrol in the Arctic Ocean and escorting of ships through frozen seas, oil exploration, power line surveillance, and transportation and heavy lifting support on construction projects."〔 Further, because nearly every single non-military airplane permitted to fly in the Soviet Union was registered as an Aeroflot airframe, Aeroflot suffered from the worst safety reputation in the worldwide industry, recording between four hundred and five hundred incidents since its creation in 1932. Many blamed Ilyushin and their engineers for the airplanes' poorer reliability when compared to its Western counterparts—namely Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Airbus. By the mid-late 1980s, Aeroflot's domestic flights were noted consistently as "harrowing" experiences for both Western and Soviet passengers. At the airport, passengers complained of long waits, poor and indifferent service at ticket offices, poorly designed and set up waiting areas at airport terminals coupled with inadequate food and toilet facilities. On board, passengers complained of being forced to sit in "hot airplane cabins without air conditioning", and "indifferent" cabin crews.〔 By the time Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and its reforms, permitting free speech and pluralism, Aeroflot had shown considerable growth. In 1950, air transportation only accounted for 1.2 percent of the total passenger transportation turnover in the Soviet Union, yet, by 1987, air travel accounted for 18.7 of that. It continues growing today.〔Sagers and Maraffa, "Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network," 266〕 After the Soviet Union broke up, Boris Yeltsin ushered in a new, free market economy. Foreign airlines were permitted to land in Russia and Aeroflot split into several sectors, including today's airline that bears the same name. It became a privatized company, and soon other airlines found their way into the Russian spotlight.〔"Aeroflot History" http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/about/history〕 Transaero Airlines and S7 (Sibir) Airlines commenced operations in mid-1992.〔"Transaero Airlines" http://www.transaero.com/ ; "S7 Airlines" http://www.s7.ru/en/〕 In 1993, Transaero became the first Russian aircraft operator to receive Boeing airplanes.〔"Transaero History" http://transaero.ru/en/company/history〕 Transaero only operated three Russian built Tu-124 airplanes, the rest of their fleet consists of only Boeing types (747, 777, 767)—modernizing and Westernizing Russian aviation.〔"Our Fleet" http://transaero.ru/en/company/aircraft〕 S7, though originally operating more Soviet-built airplanes, currently fly only Airbus and Boeing types.〔"Our Fleet" http://www.s7.ru/home/about/ourfleet.dot#.UYbkjyvwLC4〕 Aeroflot, too, followed suit. Beginning in 1994, Aeroflot began taking deliveries of Western Airplanes. Aeroflot uses its Airbus and Boeing fleet primarily on Western routes to encourage Western passenger travel. In 2006, Aeroflot joined the global airline alliance SkyTeam,〔"Chronicle of Events: 2006" http://www.aeroflot.ru/cms/en/about/history_2006〕 and in 2010, S7 joined a different global alliance, OneWorld.〔"S7 Airlines" http://www.oneworld.com/member-airlines/s7-airlines/〕 The Soviet aviation industry has unequivocally shifted to adapt more modern and Western philosophies of air travel, although it was the inventive Soviet style of air transportation that helped build Russia, its industries and its widespread global influence into what it is today. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Transport in the Soviet Union」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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