The article reveals the channels for advancement of the workers in social and professional hierarchy at the defense enterprises during World War II. Overall, this process mostly affected the young factory workers, mobilized for the production of weapons and ammunition. Being primarily attracted by the priority and best maintenance of the advanced workers, many of them held various leading positions from the ordinary Stakhanovites to the rear guards. These positions served like a springboard for the best young workers to be moved up to leadership positions mainly on the lower level. The authors emphasize that both Stakhanovite movement and advancement (vydvizhenchestvo) played the role of interconnected "lifts" of upward mobility of the workers. In reality, social upward mobility was one of the factors which affected the development of human resources of the "defense industry" in 1941–1945.