Developed in the
Soviet Union by arms designer
Vasily Degtyaryov, the PPD was designed to chamber the new Soviet
7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge, which was based on the
7.63×25mm Mauser cartridge used in the
Mauser C96 pistol. The later PPD models utilized a large
drum magazine for ammunition feeding. The PPD officially went into military service with the
Red Army in 1935 as the PPD-34, although it was not produced in large quantities. Production issues were not solved until 1937; in 1934 only 44 were produced, in 1935 only 23; production picked up in 1937 with 1,291 produced, followed by 1,115 produced in 1938 and 1,700 produced in 1939. It saw use with the
NKVD internal forces as well as border guards. The PPD was decommissioned entirely in 1939 and factory orders cancelled following a directive of the
People's Commissariat of Defence Industry; the decision was quickly reversed, though, after the personal intervention of Degtyaryov with
Stalin, with whom he had a good personal relationship. During the
Winter War in 1939 with Finland, an acute lack of individual automatic weapons even led to the reintroduction of the stockpiled
Fedorov Avtomats into service. In 1938 and 1940, modified versions were designated PPD-34/38 and PPD-40 respectively, and introduced minor changes, mostly aimed at making it easier to manufacture. Mass production began in 1940, a year in which 81,118 PPDs were produced. Nevertheless, the PPD-40 was too labor- and resource-expensive to mass-produce economically, most of its metal components being produced by
milling. PPD-34/38 and PPD-40 submachine guns captured by the
Wehrmacht were given the designations MP.715(r) and MP.716(r) respectively. A number of PPD-like submachine guns were also manufactured in a semi-artisanal way by gunsmiths among the hundreds of thousands of
Soviet partisans. These guns, even when made as late as 1944, used milling because metal stamping requires large industrial facilities that were not available to the partisans. There are no firm numbers about how many were made, but there were at least six partisan gunsmiths each making his own model series. One of them is known to have produced 28 such sub-machine guns in approximately two years. ==Users==