n 50,000 people worked at Yuzhmash. At the end of the 1950s, Yuzhmash became the main Soviet design and manufacturing centre for different types of missile complexes. The Soviet Ministry of Defense included Yuzhmash in its strategic plans. The military rocket systems manufactured in Dnipropetrovsk became the major component of the newly born Soviet Missile Forces of Strategic Purpose. According to contemporaries, Yuzhmash was separate entity inside the Soviet state. After a long period of competition with the Moscow centre of rocket construction of V. Chelomei (a successor of Koroliov) Yuzhmash rocket designs won in 1969. Since that time leaders of the Soviet military industrial complex preferred Yuzhmash rocket models. By the end of the 1970s, this plant became the major centre for designing, constructing, manufacturing, testing and deploying strategic and space missile complexes in the Soviet Union. The general designer and director of Yuzhmash supervised the work of numerous research institutes, design centres and factories all over the Soviet Union from Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, to Voronezh and Yerevan. The Soviet state provided billions of Soviet rubles to finance Yuzhmash projects.
Officially, Yuzhmash manufactured agricultural tractors and special kitchen equipment for everyday needs, such as mincing-machines or juicers for peaceful Soviet households. In official reports for the general audience there was no information about the production of rockets or spaceships. However, hundreds of thousands of workers and engineers in the city of Dnipropetrovsk worked in this plant and members of their families (up to 60% of the city population!) knew about the �real production� of Yuzhmash. This missile plant became a significant factor in the arms race of the Cold War. This is why the Soviet government approved of the KGB�s secrecy about Yuzhmash and its products. According to the Soviet government�s decision, the city of Dnipropetrovsk was officially closed
