INDUSTRIALISATION OF THE USSR

• Russia - had small industrial base in 1914- couldn't compete with West
• Aim: to strengthen country & ensure national security
• Method:
  - Encourage industrial investments
  - Help privately owned industry
    (impose foreign import duties= reduces foreign competition)
• Situation:
  - Industry and Agriculture= privately owned
  - Production dependent on supply and demand

(Above= The most significant differences from Stalinist economy)

• Industry:
  - grew at a quicker rate than agriculture
    (Russia= agricultural country- accounted for: 3/4 of employment
                                                                            1/2 of national income
• Economy: dependent of Gov. support and foreign investment
• State: encouraged heavy industry
• Special agencies: regulated production & prices (economic planning)
                                 = inefficient!
• Conditions: poor = discontent working class

• Post-civil War: devasted economy
                            Instigated NEP= some recovery- still weaknesses
• Industrial Production= not sufficient to reach socialism
• Russia:
  - No middle class = unlike west
                               = State had to lead industrialisation

  - Weak infrastructure = lacking in experience and resources
                                    = weight of state needed for industrialisation

• To strengthen the economy: against hostile foreign powers
•  Industrial transformation needed: for a socialist society
• Communist Ideals: all wealth would belong to the people (not capitalists)

'The First Five Year Plans can be seen more as a propaganda device to drive socialist citizens forward and create a sense of urgency'

Sheila Fitzpatrick on the First Five year Plan:

A period in which the "spirit of the Cultural Revolution swept people along"

Bukharin's strategy:

• Invest in Agriculture
  =more grain = more grain exports= money for industrial machinery imports

Gov. Advisers:

• Use existing state industry
  = Use money to: -Pay for more industry
                             - Make industry more efficient
  =Higher productivity = money for industrial investment
  (BUT... NEP heavy industry = inefficient- no surplus profits for investment)

1927-28: Shortage of grain deliveries= forced collectivisation & industrial planning

• 1926-27: 
  - Kerch Metallurgical factory:factory construction costs 1928 = more than tripled
    = bad decisions were made = money was lost

Gov. needed scapegoats for such problems - manipulated by Stalin!

• Shakty Trial, 1928
  - group of engineers (from coal mines) = accused of sabotage and treason
  - Central committee; "New forms & new methods of bourgeois counter-
     revolution against proletariat dictatorship and...social industrialisation"
• 'Bourgeois' specialists were replaced  by 'reliable communists' in the drive for industrialisation...

Stalin:

• Criticised the NEP: "Some communists do not yet properly understand the
                                   technique of production and have yet to learn the art of
                                   management"
• Called for the speeding up of industrialisation:
                                  - To provide technology for agriculture= increase efficiency

Sacrificing heavy industry for light industry would make the USSR an "offshoot of the world capitalist economic system"

Gosplan:

• State planning commision
• Directed the drive for industrialisation

What?

• Gov. determined: what to be produced & when
• During a five year period
• Plans replaced existing mechanism

When?

• October 1928 (backdated!)

Plan?

• Had insecure data and was overly ambitious
  (But was decided later that it should be completed in 4 years!)

Communist state claimed to be:

• "Representing ordinary people's interests rather than the interests of a privileged minority"

Class Warfare:

• Became more and more forceful as industrialisation got under way

Stalin:

• Suspicious of loyalty of party members
• Highlighted class conflict as an important part of industrialisation= purging
• Ignored any political advice- he was now leader

The First: 1928-32:

• Focused on the development of heavy industries (coal, steel etc.)

The Second: 1933-37:

• Focused on consumer goods (but heavy industry remained the 1st priority)
• Built on top of the first plan

The Third: 1938-41:

• Focused on the needs of the defence sector (growing Nazi threat)
• Disrupted by WWII in 1941

These plans formed the basic economic structure of the USSR & lasted until 1991

Emphasis:

• Heavy industries ( accounted for 80% of total investment)

Successes:

• Electricity- production trebled
• Coal & Iron - output doubled
• Steel production - increase by 1/3
• Engineering- developed
• New industrial complexes -built (inc. new tractor works)

Weaknesses:

• Decline in consumer industries/goods
• Small workshops- gone
• Chemical targets- not met
• Lack of skilled workers

Emphasis:

• Communications -especially railways (Heavy industries still feautured strongly)

Successes:

• Heavy industries benefited from plants
• Electricity production- expanded rapidly
• By 1937- USSR= virtually self-sufficient in machine-making & metal-working
• Transport/communications - grew rapidly
• Chemical industries- growing
• Metallurgy- developed

Weaknesses:

• Consumer industries still lagged (showed small signs of recovery)
• Oil production didn't meet expectations

Emphasis:

• Heavy Industries- in particular ARMAMENTS

Successes:

• Heavy industries continued to grow
• Defence and Armaments - grew rapidly (300% increase in production?)

Weaknesses:

• Steel output- grew insignificantly
• Oil production-failed
• Consumer industries - took a backseat again
• Factory shortages

Cut short by WWII

• High targets put enormous strain on the economy
• Materials in short supply - intense competition to get hold of them
• Factories competed with each other
• Bribery and Corruption rife- pulled strings to get resources
• Managers made illegal deals to fulfil their targets - hijacked lorries etc
• Planners had not invested enough in rolling stock
• Underproduction in some parts of the economy (due to shortages)
• Overproduction in other parts of economy
• Great deal of wastage: - created parts other industries didn't want
                                 - output was sub-standard (lorry tyres lasted few weeks!)
• Few managers admitted there was anything wrong - covered mistakes
• Not all mistakes covered up - Stalin used this as political tool
  (Industrial equivalent of kulak= 'bourgeois specialist'- identified as sabateurs who deliberately cased hold-ups etc- believed to be anti-socialist by Party)
• Consumer goods industries were sacrificed to the needs of heavy industries

Second plan improvements:

• Revised
• Targets = scaled back
• More consolidation
• In greater detail/ more organised
• Gave specific targets for enterprises
• Gave estimates of costs, labour, prices etc.
• Investment put into railway =  could carry more freight
• New training schemes- encouraged worker to learn skills/techniques

'Three good years': 1934-36- achievements by 1937 = Impressive

Continuation:

• Still shortages, wast and under/over-production issues (smaller scale though!)

Post- 1937 = economic slump:

• Iron & steel stopped growing
• Oil industry failed = fuel crisis
• Resources channelled into armaments= shortages elsewhere
• Purges in full swing- economy deprived of valuable personnel
  - planners also purged =  chaotic system

However:

• By 1941, USSR had industrial base for a powerful arms industry
• Plans allowed USSR to be victorious in WWII

New workers:

• Almost 1/2 labour force by the end of the 1st FYP = peasants
  - moved from countryside- bewildered and looking for work, lodgings, food
• Phenomenal turnover of labour - average worker moved jobs 3 times p/a
• Peasants often lacked disciplines of time-keeping and punctuality
• Found it difficult to adapt to the monotony of machine-based work
• High rate of absenteeism
• Skills were a premium- many lacked ability to work machines properly
• Managers: competed for skilled workers by offering higher wages/ perks
• Estimated less than 7% of workforce were skilled
     = lots of machinery damage
     = poor quality of products

Who? When? What?

• Alexei Stakhanov - pneumatic pick operator
• 10 o' clock - 30th August 1935
• Began his special shift
• After 5 hours, he had cut 102 tons of coal = 16 X average of around 6.5 tons

Why? How?

• Idea of part organiser- Konstantin Petrov- at Central Ormino
• Central Ormino lagged behind its quota- Petrov wanted to do something...
• He knew Stakhanov was one of the best
• Ideal Conditions were set up and haulier were on hand to take the coal away

Two hours later:

• Petrov assembled a party committee- Stakhanov was acclaimed for his world record for productivity
• Stakhanov received 200 roubles (normally 30), an apartment with a telephone and comfortable furniture, tickets for the cinema, performances and a holiday
• His name was put on the mine's honour board 

The Result:

• Sectional competition were set up- miners demanded the chance to beat the record (2 did by the 5th September) - the result the party wanted!
•  Ordzhinikidze (commissar for Heavy industry) had Stakhanov, the 'Soviet Hercules' put on the front cover of Pravda. He said:
  "In our country, under socialism, heroes of labour must become the most famous" ...The term "Stakhanovite Movement wass used.
• Stalin called for Stakhanovitism to spread "widely and deeply" across the entire Soviet Union.