History - Industrial and Agricultural Change (Theme 2)

Key Features:

• Workers' councils (soviets) take direct control of the factories, both large and small
• They plan production targets and determine pay and conditions
• The previous management are driven out

Key Features:

• Large factories are taken over by the state and capitalist owners are forced out
• Instead of handing control to the workers, specialist, well-paid managers are employed
• Small factories are controlled by workers or handed back to capitalists

Key Features:

• Land confiscated from the Church and landowners and distributed among the peasantry for their use
• Use of the land was decided by peasant committees; peasants could cultivate it but did not own it
• Private ownership of land abolished forever

Key Features:

• Grain requisitioning and rationing to ensure supplies reach soldiers and workers
• Labour discipline to increase production and supply Red Army
• Complete state control of industry; including small factories and workshops

Russian industry had only really grown from 1890

80% were still peasants in an agricultural economy

Russia's economy was backwards compared to the West

Lenin wanted to build socialism but Russia had not yet gone through capitalism

World War Oner had devastated an already weak economy

Lenin's slogan during 1917 was 'Peace, Bread, Land'

The Decree on Land (October 1917) gained support from peasantry, who usually backed the SRs

Land was confiscated from the Church and aristocracy for peasant use

Lenin placed industrial efficiency before workers' control

Large industries were nationalised and run by the state

Despite slogan 'All power to the soviets', factories were actually ran by well-paid specialists

Small factories were given to worker control or back to the capitalists

Policy ended as Civil War intensifies 

To ensure Communist victory in the Civil War by:

Succeeded in supplying the Red Army and helping them to wirn the Civil War by 1921

Fall in agricultural output = 1921 harvest 46% of 1913 harvest

6 million died of famine

Industrial workforce down = 3 million (1917) to 1.2 million (1922)

Growth of black market = supplies around 60% of food

Political unrest: Tambov rebellion (1920-1) and Krondstadt rebellion (1921)

Working day increased to 11 hours

Work made compulsary for all able-bodied aged between 16 and 50

Desire for political stability = economic compromise

Need to stimulate grain production and end famine

To buiuld socialism in hostile conditions - by 1921 the revolution had failed to spread

Grain requisitions replaced by a tax in kind

Denationalisation of small workshops and factories (fewer than 20 workers)

Large industry still nationalised

Money reintroducted and new emphasis on profit

NEP was popular among the peasants (majority of the population)

Political and economic stability was restored

Tax income helped to facilitate electrification programme

By 1926, most aspects of production (including industry) return to 1913 levels

It failed to provide sufficient income to build new factories

Agriculture grows faster than industry, creating 'scissors crisis'

Corruption and inequality re-emerged; the Nepmen became notorious

The Moscow-Volga Canal was contructed between 1932 and 1937

The Moscow Metro opened in 1935

Industrial output increased by 80% during the fourth Five-Year Plan (1945-50) following the devastation of World War Two

Between 1927 and 1940, production of coal increased from 35.4 million tons per annum to 165.9 million tons per annum

Stalin lauched the Stakhanovite movement in 1936, partly because of this electiricity production increased by 51% during 1936-40

By 1940 1/3 of government spending was being devoted to rearmament due to threat of Nazi invasion

By 18952 1/4 of Soviet spending was on the military due to rivalry with the USA (Cold War)

Because of poor planninh and lack of co-ordination between factories, 40% of production was wasted

During the late 1930s economic experts who worked for Gosplan (which managed the 5-Year Plans) were purged

Two major causes of production problems during the Five-Year Plan was:

Due to shortage of comsumer goods, rationing was introduced between 1928 and 1941

In Leningrad 6,000 people queued for clothes and shoes in 1938

Only 12% of investment went into food production and consumer goods after the war in 1946-53

In Liubertsy, there was not a single bathhouse for 650,000 people

During the late 1930s in order to prevent workers from moving from town to town in search of better jobs internal passports were introduced

By 1945, 25 million Soviet people had been made hoemless due to Nzi attacks during World War Two

Ideological:

Economic:

Political:

Ideological

Economic

Political

Communists op[posed to private property = creates inquality

During NEP, peasants with large farms had grown wealthier than those with smaller farms

Communist believe collective farms will create a collective mentality

By 1927 Stalin & Bukharin have defeated the United Opposition (Trotsky, Kamenev & Zionoviev); they are expelled from the Party

Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev had advocated forced collectivisation, a popular policy with the left-wing of the Party

By supporting collectivisation Stalin, hoped to gain support from the now leaderless left and outmanoeuvre Bukharin

By 1929 Stalin was undisputed leader

Kulak are demonised as wealthier peasants

By 1928 falling grain prices lead peasants to withhold grain; Stalin attacked the 'kulak grain strike'

Grain requisitioning introduced in 1928, ending the NEP

Following peasant resistance, Stalin begins the 'liquidation of the kulaks as a class'

Around 1.5 million peasants are sent to labour camps as a result of the dekulakisation campaign

Peasants allowed to keep small amount of grain

Rationing reintroduced to cities

Peasant resistance = destruction of 17 million horses and 11 million pigs

Resistance in Ukraine leads to increased grain siezures and government created famine: 5 million die during 1932-3

By 1929 the NEP was not producing enough grain for export

Collectivisation: grain production falls but the state acquires a high proportion of produce 

Grain procurment increases from 10.8 million tons (1928) to 22.6 million tons (1933); grain exports increase from under 1 million tons (1928) to 5 million (1931)

Small number of remaining private farms produce 410 kilos per hectare; collective farms produce only 320 kilos per hectare

This explains why Red Army rely on US grain imports during WW2

By 1952, grain production reaches pre-war levels

The Vigin Land Scheme was launched in September 1953, the main regions affected were the Northern Caucasus and Kazakhstan

In order to finance the Vigin Land Scheme, between 1954 and 1959 agricultural investments greww from under 3% per year to 12.8% per year

The amount fo farmed land increased between 1953 and 1964 from 18.2 million hectares to 97.4 million hectares

The Corn Campaign was lauched in September 1958 but was only able to produce 50% of corn per hectare in compariosn with the USA

Frarmers' income increased by 250% during 1952-6

By 1955 there was an increase of 40% in the amount of fertiliser being produced

During 1953-8 the production of grain, meat and milk increased. Overall, agricultural production rose by 35.3% in these years

By the end of the 1950sw the income of farm workers had risen by 400% thus helping to consolidate Khrushchevs power

During the 1950s and 1960s approcimately 44-54% of the Soviet population worked on farms, compared to the 5% in the US

Khrushchev, in 1956, claimed that the USSR would produce more food that the USA by 1960, requiring a 300% increase. In fact, agricultural production increased by 15% during 1958-64

Causes of the slower agricultural growth rates during 1958-64 were the abolition of Machine Tractore Stations and the lack of knwoledge of local conditions

Due largely to Cold War pressures, investment in agriculture fell rapidly, from 12.8% (1954-9) to 2% (1960)

During 1955-8 military spening fell from 12.1% of GDP to 9.1%

Professor Gerard DeGroot decribed the period as the 'years of maximum danger'

In 1958-1962 there were three Cold War crises: Taiwan Straits, Cuban Missile and Berlin Wall

In 1962 military spending was increased, so by 1964 it stoop at around 11% of the GDP

Clothing and agriculture were two sectors of the economy which was expected to benfit from the heavy focus on light industry and chemical production

In 1962 Khrushchev predicted that the USSR would reach the stage of Communism by 1980

Although it fell 5% short of Khrushchev's taget, production of consumer goods increased by 60% during 1959-65

Although, as well, the production opf fertiliser fell 3.5 million tons short of the taget, production did increase by 19 million tons during 1959-65

Khrushchev's tendency to meddle made it difficult to fulfil that Seven-Year Plan. One of his reforms was the introduction in February 1957 of 105 regional planning agencies known as Sovnarkhoz

Another of Khrushchev's confusing reforms during the Plan was the division of the Party, in February 1962, into two, one half responsible for agriculture and the other half for industry.

Due to Khrushchev's meddling, a joke went around that Khrushchev had replaced the Five-Year Plans not with a Seven-Year Plan but with 'Three Plans a Year'

Becuase the targets were set in wieghts it was a problem that light industry required thin sheet steel rather than thick sheet steel

Brezhnev agreed with Khrushchev about the importance of consumer goods, but he was less ambitious and wanted stability

He united the Party, ending the division between the industrial and agricultural wing

He also abandoned the Seven-Year Plans. From 1966 the economy returned to the Five-Year Plans

The Premier Kosygin was more reform-minded than Brezhnev

He aimed to:

The reforms lasted only from 1965 untill August 1968, due to the Prauge Spring

By the second half of the 1960s the Cold War was in full swing

Brezhnev was determined to achieve nuclear parity with the USA so that embarrasing climb-downs could be avoided

Military spending increased from 11% of GDP in 1964 to 13% in 1970; by 1985 it stood at 17%. In the USA the figure was 6%

This high military spending was a drain on the economy

Khrushchev had predicted that the USSR would reach Communism by 1980

Brezhnev relaised this was too optimistic, but was committed to a rising standard of living for a majority of citizens

He developed the idea of 'developed socialism' = job security and low prices

Low prices were guaranteed by importing grain from the West, especially the USA

State control of the economy under Lenin and STalin meant that there was a long tradition of a black market

Under Stalin, heavy punishments had reduced the black market

However, Brezhnev accepted the black market as a necessary evil to increase access to consumer goods. It became known as the 'second economy'

Unlike Brezhnev, Andropov acknowledged there were fundamental problems with the Soviet economy

He foucessed on labour discipline:

These measures did not adress the fundamental problems