Industrialization in the forestry industry of the Soviet Union in the 1930s was accompanied by the intensification of research on forest development, the placement of enterprises, and the sale of products. The spatial factor became the basis for a number of generalizing works. The purpose of the article is to analyze the works of economists and specialists of the forest industry, carried out during the first five-year plans, concerning the problems of placement of the forest industry and transport of forest products. Both published and unpublished studies of specialists of the USSR State Planning Committee and industry institutes are considered. Results and scientific novelty. The concept of placing the forest industry in the north of the Soviet Union by I. Kapitonov and S. Slavin, complex studies by G. Chizh and V. Vozdvizhensky, G. Benenson and G. Gugel were of great importance. Contradictions and problems that were not previously reflected in regulatory legal documents and the press are revealed. First of all, this concerned the irrational placement of enterprises, the incomplete use of their capacities, and the irrational rail transportation of forest goods.