The article studies the formation and development of the fuel and energy resource base in the Far East of the USSR on the eve of and during the Great Patriotic War. Research objectives: to determine the features of the formation in the Far East of an industrial complex for the extraction, processing and distribution of energy resources; to analyze the production activities of coal mining, electric power and oil industries; to identify the main challenges of the development of the fuel and energy resource base and show the ways of their solution by the Soviet party and economic bodies in the period under review. The methodological basis of the study is traditional historical methods, as well as the method of system analysis. The study reveals that the development of the fuel and energy resource base of the region was due to its isolation from the industrially developed regions of the country, the specifics of economic development of the region, the location of fuel-producing regions and large industrial consumers of energy resources, the complexity of the geological structure of coal deposits, and the limited financial, material and labor resources, incomplete construction and reconstruction of energy facilities. The author concludes that the central and local party and economic bodies made a lot of organizational efforts to develop the fuel and energy resource base of the Far East and to solve complex issues of material and technical support for enterprises, especially during the Great Patriotic War.