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164 ANDREA GRAZIOSIThe Soviet system's entrance into an acute despotic phase thus alsoinvolved a change of phase for its "modern" industrial sub-system, as isshown, for example, by the "biography" of Piatakov's substitute as firstdeputy commissar of the NKTP. In March 1937, before the commissariat'sdefinitive liquidation, this post was entrusted to Avraamii PavlovichZaveniagin. A young man from a working class family, he, too, came fromthe Donbass, had served on Piatakov's staff in 1921 (siding against himduring the "intrigues" of those days), and in the 1930s had been the head ofthe metallurgy sector of the NKTP and the nachal'nik of Magnitogorsk.From our standpoint, however, his later career is far more significant in thatit is connected to the NKVD, to Beriia, to forced labor. Zaveniagin was firstsent to "build" Noril'sk. Then, promoted to deputy commissar for the interior,in 1941 he was entrusted with the economic administration of theGulag. 46Beneath the undoubted fracture marked by the shifting of power, includingeconomic power, toward the "organs" (according to recently publisheddata, the NKVD percentage of capital investments reached 14 percent in1941, more than doubling the 1937 figure) and by the fragmentation of theNKTP, there were, however, important elements of continuity. From theorganizational point of view the new commissariats were often none otherthan the old glavnoe upravlenie of the NKTP, so that, despite the reexplosionof glavkizm and the difficulties connected with the liquidation ofthe coordinating center (difficulties aggravated by the purges), the systemset up between 1933 and 1935 was essentially still intact. Also still intactwas the technological and productive structure of heavy industry.On the basis of these elements, Piatakov's work in industry can be measuredfrom the standpoint of the Soviet regime, leaving aside its human,social, and environmental costs, which, incidentally, were greatly enlargedby decisions that were not directly functional or necessary to the type ofindustrialization chosen.In the short run, the "victory" of 1931-1934, and the industrialapparatus built during that period by competent and devoted leaders, contributedto the victory in the Second World War. The Soviet system thendemonstrated the fitness of an administered economy, not burdened by anirremediable technical and productive imbalance, to wage war (after all, thewar economy had been one of the models that had inspired the Sovietleadership).46Under Khrushchev, Zaveniagin became once again a "regular" minister, in charge ofmachine building. This change is yet another indication of the sudden shift in the nature of theSoviet system that followed Stalin's death. Zaveniagin died in 19S6.