When visiting Minsk Automobile Plant in April 2016 Belarusian Preisdent Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “MAZ, BelAZ, and Motovelo are the calling cards of Belarus. We have no right to let these companies go out of business. I'd like to tell sceptics and those who don't believe it today: MAZ will keep going, including in my time and the time after me. Keeping these and other enterprises running is a matter of honor for me, as the president. Where will your children work? We belong here, to this land. We must think about how to keep jobs for our children. Therefore, let's roll up our sleeves and work harder to keep MAZ in business.”

The story of Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ trademark) could inspire an Oscar-winning film. It has everything you need for an exciting plot: an intriguing start, great success, a tense climax and the intricacies of fate, unexpected twists and an inspiring ending. For almost 80 years of history, the company has seen everything. But let's not reveal all the cards at once. In this episode of BelTA's Youtube project “After the Fact: Lukashenko's Decisions” we will tell you why the Soviet truck manufacturer started with American Fords and Studebakers. How did the Minsk truck tractor win over Paris and Brussels? What, according to Aleksandr Lukashenko, saved Belarusians from unemployment and poverty.

Why were Fords and Studebakers assembled in Minsk

Well, let's rewind eight decades back. Minsk Automobile Plant was officially founded on 9 August 1944. It was on this day that the USSR State Defense Committee decided to organize an auto assembly plant in Minsk. This decision was approved by Stalin himself.

You are well aware of what time it was. The Belarusian capital had just been liberated from the Nazi invaders. Exhausted, but not broken, Minsk residents began to restore their city. Former partisans and front-line soldiers, who had never built large factories or done mechanical engineering, were eager to learn these skills quickly. "We want to work and live in such a way as to feel that we did not shed blood for the freedom of our homeland in vain," they said.

People assembled trucks during the day and unloaded trains delivering components at night. Over the weekend, if you can call them that, the factory workers worked on restoration and landscaping of the city. Just a couple of months later, in November 1944, the first batch of vehicles assembled in Minsk was sent to the front. Those were... U.S. trucks Mack, Ford, Chevrolet and Studebaker. The kits were supplied to the Minsk plant from the United States under the Lend-Lease agreement. The first batch was followed by hundreds of others. Over two years, the plant assembled more than 18,000 American trucks for the needs of the front and the national economy. The plant stopped producing them in 1946.

When did Belarus begin to produce its own trucks

Before the war, only three enterprises in the USSR produced trucks: the Stalin Plant in Moscow, the Gorky and Yaroslavl Automobile Plants. Moreover, heavy-duty vehicles were the prerogative of the Yaroslavl plant. However, the output was not big. All plans for a large-scale reconstruction of the plant were scuppered by the war. In the summer of 1945, after the Victory Parade, the vehicles that were to be produced in the post-war years were displayed in the Kremlin. Then the decision was taken regarding the auto plant in Minsk. The Belarusians were to produce their own trucks. Five-tonne Yaroslavl trucks were taken as a basis. The name came easily - MAZ. The emblem depicted a Belarusian bison to emphasize the strength, power and dynamics of the truck.

By the way, Aleksandr Lukashenko talked about this period when he met with students of the National Children's Technopark: “Think about it! Back in 1944 the war was still ablaze, a third of the population had died, virtually all our cities and towns and villages lied in ruins. Roads and bridges were destroyed but restoration work was already in progress in Minsk. Our brotherly republics, which were part of the Soviet Union then, provided immense aid to us. An automobile plant was built. About three years later, in 1947 it made the first MAZ trucks.”

By the middle of the century, Minsk Automobile Plant began to produce 40-tonne dump trucks. Neither the domestic automotive industry nor foreign ones had any analogues. In 1958, the 40-tonne MAZ-530 dump truck won the Grand Prix of the Brussels World's Fair as a vehicle with a particularly high carrying capacity. In the same year, it produced the prototypes of the MAZ-500 and MAZ-503, which were to replace the first truck family. This event largely predetermined the MAZ future.

"In the early 1960s, our plant had its own design base. Designers created a fundamentally new progressive generation of automotive vehicles, the MAZ-500 family (with the tilting cab above the engine). This design was novel for heavy-duty vehicles in the Soviet Union. This entailed technical re-equipment of the plant. From 1 January 1966, the plant completely switched to MAZ-500 trucks. The last vehicle of the first MAZ-200 generation rolled off the main assembly line on 31 December 1965. You can see it in front of the factory entrance," said Marina Sevastyanovich, the head of the museum of Minsk Automobile Plant.

Marina Sevastyanovich

How did a Belarusian truck win over Europe

The engineering thought at MAZ was several decades ahead of the production capabilities not only of the plant itself, but also of the entire Soviet automotive industry. Just look at the prototype of the famous concept vehicle MAZ-2000 Perestroika. At the exhibition in Paris, the truck was a real sensation. The Belgian magazine Transporama wrote that engineers from many companies studied Perestroika closely and were taken aback by the new technology. The European press gushed praise: "The sensation of the Paris World Motor Show", "The road train of the 21st century".

In 1991, the perestroika itself ended, and work on the truck of the same name stopped. The plant, as all other companies in post-Soviet republics, had to shelve its dreams and promising ideas. The main task was to survive.

MAZ in the 1990s

"It was a difficult time. I had small children. I remember running around factories, looking for milk and failing to find it. There were difficulties both with food and work. Many people worked two jobs. I repaired cars for my friends, did auto body repairs. Thank goodness that time is over,” recalled Grigory Titarev, a auto body repair technician at the cab welding and painting shop.

Now, according to him, the situation at the plant is stable. There is a lot of work. “We often work on Saturdays and earn money. I bought a car , and a a dacha two years ago. I'm doing well. Now I'm thinking of buying a brand new car (I have a used one). I like it. I'm retired already. But sitting at home is boring. I still go to work. I'm going to do so for some more time. Why sit at home when you can work,” the worker said.

Aleksandr Gimpel, an adjuster of cold-stamping equipment of the press shop, has been working at MAZ for almost half a century. He joined the company in 1977 and has been working in his workshop ever since.

"1990s... There was less work. We were surviving the collapse of the Soviet Union that we did not want to happen… The salary was small, around $35-40. We had food stamps in stores then. When he became the head of the country, he did well by keeping the enterprises afloat. Little by little, the plant began to pick up steam. People need jobs. Movement is life. I'm retired, but I still have my job. They asked me to stay for a year," Aleksandr Gimpel said.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a collapse at the plant, mechanical assembly fitter Aleksandr Linnik recalled: “Chaos and widespread theft. Salaries were very low at $30 in the equivalent. There were strikes. Then the incumbent president came to power and he proved his worth. He started to fight against banditry, which was flourishing then, against theft. I believe it is his great merit that we live well today. Now we have completely different machines, advanced equipment. Machines are complex. A lot of electronics. There is a lot of work today, but we lack workforce. For some reason, blue-collar jobs do not appeal to young people today. Young people, I think, want to have everything at once, but that's not how things work. You can get rich quickly only when you steal, but here you have to work.”

Why do the Belarusian authorities support big companies?

In the 1990s-early 2000s the Belarusian government paid paramount attention to the industrial giants. Sometimes they were criticized for the priority to microeconomics. There was a belief that the market should regulate the work of enterprises, and that people should take care of their lives themselves. Aleksandr Lukashenko had a different view, however. The president emphasized that support of people and labor collectives was the sacred duty of the government.

In 2000 alone, Belarusian plants received almost Br100 billion worth of assistance from the state. This helped retain the personnel. Over time, the enterprises began to earn dozens of times more. Perhaps, it could have been much simpler to sell, close down, or break enterprises up. And end up as a backwater of some empire.

Aleksandr Lukashenko visits MAZ, February 2003

Take a look, for example, at the Baltic states. They joined the West at the cost of destroying their economies. You may well remember the famous VEF radio factory in Lithuania or Riga's RAF minibuses. In the 1990s these enterprises went bankrupt. For a long time they stood abandoned, with production buildings falling into decay. Now the premises are rented out by trade and commercial firms.

Belarus will keep its industrial giants going, Aleksandr Lukashenko said. It was these enterprises that kept the entire Belarusian economy afloat in the difficult years. The state saved them and brought to a completely new level. This, the president emphasized, saved the country and its people from unemployment and poverty.

How was MAZ eyed by competitors from the West and the East?

Cooperation with the German automobile industry - MAN and Neoplan manufacturers - also helped Minsk Automobile Plant to stay afloat in the 1990s. The European companies failed to gain control over the Belarusian enterprise. So the partnership did not last long. As time has shown, Belarus benefited from the decision.

In the 2010s, the Russian competitor - Kama Automobile Plant [KAMAZ] – took a close interest in MAZ. There were long years of talks about merging the two enterprises. With time, however, it became clear that the only thing KAMAZ wanted was to take over its competitor. No one was going to invest in the Minsk plant. That meant that MAZ, with all its long history, was going to become just an auxiliary shop of KAMAZ. “What is the point of such privatization? How will MAZ and its employees benefit from this?” Aleksandr Lukashenko asked. Later it became known that KAMAZ's western shareholders were behind such plans on MAZ. Everything became clear at once. They were not interested in equal and fair partnership with Belarus. By the way, reliance on the West played a cruel joke on KAMAZ as well.

“We were very cautious about giving foreigners an access to our manufacturing sector. Therefore, the Western sanctions did not hit us as badly as, for example, KAMAZ. First of all, the Germans had access there. We did not favor this idea particularly in machine building. Indeed, the Germans worked here. We had MAN and Neoplan at MAZ. But when the contract ended, I thanked them and said that we would continue by ourselves. We would do it whatever it might take us, whatever difficulties we might face. By the way, we promoted such cooperation projects in Russia. But your leaders at that time heavily favored the Germans or the Americans as they believed that they would bring technology and that everything would be peachy keen...”Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he met with the governor of Russia's Penza Oblast.

The cooperation between the two industrial giants has recently improved. Sanctions was a blessing in disguise, as the proverb goes.

“There was always some red tape with respect to the cooperation between MAZ and KAMAZ. Now there is no competition. We produce component parts for KAMAZ, and KAMAZ makes goods for us. Certain [Western] companies left. The domestic companies have enough room on the market now,” the Belarusian head of state said at the meeting with Vladimir Putin.

MAZ and KAMAZ should have understood it long ago that they'd better compete in rally races than on the market. Belarusian and Russian crews have been taking part in the races for many years, conquering numerous steppes and deserts. This is where the real space for competition is. Passions run high there. We wish it were like this everywhere.

What prospects does Minsk Automobile Plant have?

Today MAZ line-up of passenger vehicles features 15 models and 30 modifications. The MAZ truck line-up comprises 600 samples, including about 3,000 modifications of tractors, flatbed trucks, dump trucks, lumber trucks, chassis for cranes, drilling rigs, tanks, fuel tankers, utilities and road equipment. The MAZ products are present in the markets of 50 countries, including the European Union, Africa and Latin America.

The enterprise operates at full capacity. MAZ develops new modifications of buses and trucks, special-purpose vehicles. Electric transport is a new line of business. The main hopes, however, are on a new production facility.

“We have ambitious plans for our passenger vehicles. With the support of the head of state, we have launched a new project to build a new bus plant. We aim to almost double the output. We have recently produced some 1,300-1,500 passenger vehicles a year. This year we are set to make up to 1,810. The new plant will enable us to produce at least 3,000 vehicles a year. Next year will see the most active part of the construction project. We will build the facility and fit the equipment. The plant will be almost ready by the end of the year. We are set to commission the plant in early 2025,” MAZ Deputy Director General - Director for Economy Aleksandr Ignatyuk.

The future story of MAZ depends on many factors. We are not going to make any guesses here. Today we know one main thing, i.e. the plant operates and develops thanks to its workers who have not abandoned it and thanks to the decisions made by the president.

*The project has been created using the target levy for the production of national content.

Written by belta.by