In the 1930s the Volga Steamship Lines accounted for over 30 % of the total river cargo and passenger transportation in the country. It was of much importance for the national economy. At the same time the Volga river transport suffered considerable drawbacks. Apart from financial and technical impediments due to the inadequate material resources, the river transport suffered managerial and organizational difficulties as well. All the difficulties affected the Volga transport infrastructure on the whole. The goal of the paper is to reveal the principles of organization of the Volga river transport in the second half of the 1930s. The task of the paper is to describe operations of the three Volga Steamship Lines under conditions of the reorganization of the entire system of the water transport management. Also the task is to describe the ways to improve the inland water transport operations and to increase the amount of transportation. The paper concludes that the reorganization of the Volga river transportation in the mid-1930s caused troubles in river transportation operations. Modernization went on very slowly. The measures that were taken in the late 1930s to improve the system of the river transport administration and to raise the amount of transportation failed. It was impossible to reach the goal by administrative measures only. Capital investments in the infrastructure were needed but they lacked. Thus, before the Great Patriotic War the material and technical base of the Volga river transport infrastructure was inadequate.
