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Soviet Union [USSR] Initial Developments
Between the early 1920s, when the Soviet regime consolidated
its power, and the end of the 1950s, when the merchant marine and
ports had recovered from the damage of World War II, the Soviet
merchant fleet ranked well below those of the major seafaring
nations of the world. In the 1960s, however, new economic and
political realities caused the Soviet Union to dramatically expand
its merchant fleet, ports, shipyards, and related facilities.
First, the regime decided to expand its foreign trade, and thus its
influence, with the growing number of newly independent African and
Asian nations. Second, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the widening
conflict in Vietnam with Soviet support for Hanoi, and the
relationship with China demonstrated the need for a merchant fleet
ready to respond to foreign policy and military requirements. For
example, in 1960 Soviet merchant ships carried 45 million tons of
freight, but by 1965 they carried more than double the tonnage,
almost 92 million tons, and two years later, in 1967, they
transported nearly 141.5 million tons of freight. In terms of units
and tonnage, the merchant fleet went from 590 ships of 3.3 million
deadweight tons in 1959 to 990 vessels of 8 million deadweight tons
in 1965, thereby rising from twelfth to sixth rank in merchant
fleets of the world. The new freighters ranged from 9,000 to 13,500
deadweight tons and were acquired from domestic as well as East
German, Polish, Yugoslav, and Finnish shipyards.
The 1970s saw a continued expansion of the merchant fleet, but
the vessels put into operation were generally specialized types
that had been introduced by Western shipowners in the second half
of the 1960s: container carriers, roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO),
lighter-aboard-ship (LASH), roll-on/float-off (RO/FLO), RO/RO-
container carriers, very large crude carriers (VLCC), and very
large bulk carriers (VLBC). They were put into service on expanding
lines to the Americas, including the Great Lakes, and to Asia,
Africa, and Australia. New Soviet ports and shore installations
capable of handling these ships were built or expanded
(see
fig. 21). Between 1970 and 1980, the number of freight and passenger
vessels grew from about 1,400 to 1,725, while their collective
tonnage went from almost 12 million to almost 19 million deadweight
tons.
In the 1980s, the Soviet merchant marine continued to expand,
although at a less frenetic pace than before. By the end of 1985,
the merchant marine had 1,741 freight-carrying vessels, of which
290 were tankers, reaching a total of about 20 million deadweight
tons. The main types of cargo ships were general and bulk cargo
freighters, multipurpose freighters, container ships, timber
carriers and wood waste carriers, bulk carriers, ore-bulk-ore (ORO)
carriers, various tankers, refrigerator ships, and RO/RO, RO-FLO,
and LASH vessels.
Data as of May 1989
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