Boris Lvovich Vannikov was the People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR from 1939 to 1941, and the People's Commissar of Ammunition of the USSR from 1942 to 1946. Vladimir Nikolaevich Novikov was from 1941 to 1948 the Deputy People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR. In their memoirs they tell how the Soviet Union managed already in 1943 to reach the level of Germany in the production of basic types of weapons, despite the fact that the whole of Europe worked for it, and since 1944 years, the Soviet army surpassed the German in the quantity and quality of weapons. It should be added that after the war, Vannikov became one of the main organizers of the Soviet atomic program, which made it possible to create nuclear weapons in record time.