Boris Lvovich Vannikov from 1939 to 1941 was the People's Commissar of Arms of the USSR, from 1942 to 1946 - the People's Commissar of Ammunition of the USSR. 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 to reach the level of Germany in 1943 in the production of basic weapons, despite the fact that all of Europe worked for it, and since 1944 the Soviet army surpassed the German in 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.