Rethinking the Soviet Legacy: A New Energy Paradigm for the Industrial Development Model of the Donetsk People’s Republic

Abstract

It is substantiated that the socio-economic development of the Donetsk People’s Republic cannot be reduced to the mechanical restoration of lost industrial capacities and requires a qualitative transformation of the region’s production and economic model. The current economic structure of the region is shown to be the result of a long-term evolutionary trajectory, including the Soviet period of forming an integrated territorial production complex, the subsequent degradation of production chains during the period when the region was part of Ukraine, and fragmented recovery attempts under conditions of institutional instability and economic constraints in 2014–2022. It is demonstrated that the methodological legacy of the Soviet school of territorial planning (I. G. Alexandrov, N. N. Kolosovsky, N. N. Baransky) retains significant heuristic potential for interpreting contemporary processes of industrial development and for designing a new model of regional growth. Aim. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the directions for transforming the socio-economic model of the Donetsk People’s Republic on the basis of methodological continuity with the Soviet school of regional development. Methods. The methods employed include retrospective analysis of the region’s socio-economic development, comparative analysis of industrial organization models across different historical periods, an evolutionary approach to studying transformations of the production structure, structural- functional analysis of territorial production systems, and elements of institutional analysis of factors and barriers to regional development. The theoretical framework is based on the concepts of territorial production complexes, energy-production cycles, and spatial organization of the economy developed by I. G. Alexandrov, N. N. Kolosovsky, and N. N. Baransky. Results. The results reveal a key regularity in the degradation of the region’s economic structure, manifested in the consistent weakening of internal production chains and the increasing dominance of raw-material specialization from the Soviet period to the present. A concept of a shift in the development energy paradigm is proposed, involving a transition from the dominance of fossil fuel energy to the “energy of knowledge”, “energy of data”, and “energy of cooperation” as system-forming factors of industrial transformation. A model of the macroregional territorial production complex “Donbass-Crimea” is proposed, based on functional division of labor between the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Rostov Region, and Crimea. Principles of evolutionary transformation of industrial specialization are formulated, including vertical integration of production chains, horizontal diversification of competencies, and functional rethinking of the role of coal in the regional economy. Conclusions. The conclusions substantiate that sustainable socio-economic development of the Donetsk People’s Republic requires methodological continuity with the Soviet school of territorial planning, a shift in the energy paradigm, prioritization of human capital reproduction, and macroregional integration, combined with an evolutionary character of transformation of the production and economic model.