The famous Russian weapons designer Vasily Degtyaryov created the first mass-produced automatic weapons of the Red Army.
The PPD was first put into production in 1934. When developing the new machine gun, latest and current trends and developments from all over the world were taken into account, including the likes of the German MP28 and the Finnish Suomi KP/-31. The resulting sample met the requirements of that time: a wooden stock and a massive receiver. The weight of the machine gun was about five kilograms.
During tests, the PPD showed good tactical and technical characteristics. Its effective firing range did not exceed 300 meters. The PPD-34 used a 25-round box magazine. At the same time, shortcomings were revealed already at the very beginning of operation and production. The reliability of the PPD was not the best, especially due to its complicated manufacturing process which required a large number of milled parts, for which the developing industry was not ready at the moment. Because of this, production costs for the PPD were very high until the early 1940s, and mass production began only in 1936.
In 1938, based on the experience of using the PPD by the military, it was decided to improve the design. This marked the appearance of the PPD-34/38. However, in 1939, it was discontinued due to reliability and expense issues not being solved quick enough. That same year, the Winter War began during which the Command of the Red Army finally identified where submachine guns belong in the army structure. Prior to that, submachine guns were considered not very important, so they were mainly used by the police, border guards and other detachments. In 1940, it was decided to restore the production of the PPD with some changes, and to include submachine guns in the supply of army personnel. In March 1940, production of the PPD-40 began. It was significantly different from previous versions. However, at the end of that same year, a much simpler and more reliable PPSh-41 was taken into service, replacing all the PPDs. Nevertheless, all variants of the PPD were used throughout the Great Patriotic War and were even produced for a certain time in besieged Leningrad.
The PPD-34/38 on display has a drum magazine. The submachine gun was transferred to the Museum of the Republic of Karelia from the warehouses of the Belomorsk Military District in 1946.
