The modernization of private and state-owned factories and the construction of railways, which began in the 1910s, were not completed by the beginning of the war. Thinking the war would be brief, the government did not involve the private factories of the Urals in the production of guns and shells until the summer of 1915. As a result, the Ural industry was late in getting involved in providing the army with weapons and equipment. In 1914-1916, state-owned factories maintained the pre-war production of iron, but completely stopped the production of roofing iron in favor of military products. The production of high-grade iron and projectile steel was almost doubled. The sharp increase in production volumes was hindered by the lack of fuel resources, labor, and means for transporting goods. In 1915-1916, due to the lack of fuel in the Urals, 22 blast furnaces were stopped, and 11 furnaces worked at a reduced capacity. The situation was aggravated by the disorganization of railway transportation due to the priority of military needs and the mobilization of qualified personnel. In the summer of 1915, a commission headed by General A. A. Manikovsky was sent to the Urals to negotiate with private factory owners and explore the possibility of private factories participating in the production of military products, and to coordinate the actions of private factories. On November 7, 1915, the Ural Factory Meeting was established under the leadership of the Chief Head of the Ural Mining Department, P. I. Yegorov. In the future, it became obvious that the created administrative apparatus could not fulfill the tasks assigned to it. The difficult situation at the front in 1915 and the acute shortage of weapons forced the government to accept the inflated demands of entrepreneurs. As a result of negotiations, military orders were accepted by private factory owners at increased prices. The total cost of the orders was estimated at 200 million rubles.
The position of the working people worsened during the war years. The working day increased to 12 hours, women and children worked on an equal basis with men, but they were paid half as much. The organization of production was unsatisfactory: the factories received orders that they could not fulfill due to the lack of necessary equipment. After the defeat of the Russian troops in 1915-1916, 87% of the Ural factories switched to the production of military products. With the support of the authorities, commercial companies with the participation of foreign capital developed. In 1915-1918, large machine-building plants were evacuated from the front-line territories of the Baltics and Petrograd, to the Urals. The staff of the arms factories was replenished with evacuated specialists.
After the February Revolution, power passed into the hands of provincial commissars appointed by the Provisional Government. Ural miners supported the Provisional Government and its bodies. On March 4, 1917, the Council of Miners Congresses asked the government to appoint a commissar to control the work of the Ural factories. Such a commissar was appointed, businessman V. I. Europeus, who headed the created Provisional Committee of the Ural Mining District. At some factories (Nyazepetrovsky, Sosvensky, Bilimbaevsky, Zlatoustovsky, Nizhne-Ufaleysky), before the October Revolution, power was partially or completely seized by the Soviets of Workers Deputies. The state of production continued to deteriorate, there was a critical shortage of fuel, railroad transportation became practically unmanageable, enterprises worked with interruptions, equipment was not repaired or updated in a timely manner. Smelting of pig iron and steel declined rapidly, and the number of industrial accidents increased. The commission sent by the Provisional Government in 1917 to restore the working capacity of the Ural enterprises failed to manage the task.
After the October Revolution, in November 1917, the Ural Factory Meeting was reorganized under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. Its powers were extended by the decree of the Supreme Economic Council of the Republic to the Vyatka, Orenburg, Perm and Ufa provinces, and a number of adjacent districts. The Ural Mining Board and the Yekaterinburg Bureau of the Council of the Congress of Mining Industrialists of the Urals were liquidated. In November - December 1917, the boards of Ural joint-stock companies suspended the transfer of money to factories where Soviet control was introduced, which led to delays in the payment of wages and the accumulation of debts for the supply of raw materials and food. There were pockets of famine and epidemics of diseases, the situation of workers-prisoners of war was especially difficult. In December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars began the nationalization of the mountain districts of the Urals, earlier than other enterprises of the country. By July 1918, more than 4,340 enterprises (25 out of 34 mountain districts of the Urals) had been nationalized. In 1918, in addition to the factory committees established earlier, business councils were established to manage the factories, whose activities were coordinated by the regional board of the nationalized enterprises of the Urals. Such actions led to a certain dual power in the management of enterprises in the industry, and since March 1918, factory committees have been merged with trade unions. Since 1918, systematic training of engineers and workers for the metallurgical industry began in educational institutions of the Urals.
Due to supply disruptions and salary delays in the summer and autumn of 1918, anti-Soviet demonstrations took place at the Ural factories. By July 1918, out of 89 Ural blast furnaces, 51 were in operation, and 59 of 88 open-hearth furnaces were in operation. In August, Soviet power was overthrown in Izhevsk and Votkinsk. At the same time, the Regional Government of the Urals was formed in Yekaterinburg, the Ural Industrial Committee was created to manage the industry, the Main Directorate of Mining Affairs of the Urals was established to manage the mining industry, which was transformed in December into the Ural Mining Administration. On August 19, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals, in its declaration, announced its intention to return the factories to their previous owners. By December 10, 1918, only 36 mining and 9 small and medium-sized coal enterprises in the Urals and Siberia were denationalized. All these changes had practically no effect on the real state of the Ural industry. The plans of the Kolchak government to subsidize the Ural factories also did not come true. The situation was aggravated by the complete dependence of the inhabitants of the factory settlements on the work of enterprises and the political struggle of the provisional governments. In late 1918 - early 1919, the enterprises of Verkh-Isetsky, Revdinsky, Shaitansky, Zlatoustovsky, and a number of other districts were stopped.
After the restoration of Soviet power in the Urals in mid-1919, the management of the factories was centralized under the auspices of the Supreme Council of the National Economy. Later, the Ural Industrial Bureau of the Supreme Economic Council was created. The debts of the enterprises were canceled, a free supply of raw materials and materials was established, finished products were also handed over without payment according to centralized orders. By the end of 1919, 14 blast furnaces, 16 open-hearth furnaces, and 49 rolling mills were operating at the Ural factories. To manage the factories, five regional departments were created: Vysokogorskoe (18 enterprises), Bogoslovskoe (5 enterprises), Yekaterinburg (31 enterprises), Permskoe (17 enterprises), and Yuzhno-Uralskoe (20 enterprises). In 1920, the re-evacuation of workers and specialists from Siberia began, as well as the return of the factory equipment taken out by the White Guards. On the whole, in 1919-1920, only 20% of the metallurgical plants of the Urals operated, and the volume of production was about 10% of the pre-war level. Of the 7 blast furnaces of the Nadezhdinsky Plant, the largest at that time, only one operated; the plants of the Goroblagodatsky Mining District were completely stopped. In total, in the Urals in December 1920, only 9 blast furnaces, 10 open-hearth furnaces, and about a dozen rail, pipe-rolling, and sheet mills were operating, which were completely shut down by August 1921. During the years of the Civil War, the equipment of enterprises was significantly damaged. The smelting of iron in 1921 amounted to 69 thousand tons, which was 7.5% of the pre-war level.