STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Industrialisation: The First Five Year Plans ● ● ● ● ● First FYP: October 1928 - December 1932 Second FYP: January 1933 - December 1937 Third FYP: January 1938 - June 1941 Fourth FYP: January 1946 - December 1950 Fifth FYP: January 1951 - December 1955 ● Stalin described his industrialisation plans for the USSR as an attempt to establish a war economy - Declared that he was making war on the failings of Russia’s past and on the class enemies within the nation - Believed that Russia was ‘50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries in the West’ Thought that the USSR would adopt a similar industrialisation plan to Western Europe and Northern America to enforce its drive towards modernisation - Following a plan of socialism rather than capitalism Chose to advance his economic programme for industry through a series of Five Year Plans which set attainment targets for industrial enterprises Stalin also believed that the successful production of heavy industry, such as Iron, Steel and Coal would guarantee the strength and readiness of the nation in the face of the impending war in Europe Soviet industrialisation drive in the 1930’s coincided with the Great Depression in the Western World - Socialist planning would supposedly enable the USSR to avoid the errors that had begun to undermine the Western economies - Marxists regarded the Great Depression as the collapse of Capitalism ● ● ● ● - Gosplan, the State Planning Agency, was given responsibility for drawing up plans and establishing output targets for every economic enterprise in accordance with Party directives The job of Gosplan was to ensure that overall economic objectives of the FYP’s were met - By matching input against output - First Five-Year Plan: 1928-1932 ● ● ● First plan laid down what was to be achieved, but did not say how it was to be done Simply assumed that the quotas set by Gosplan would be met Could be suggested that the first FYP represented a set of targets rather than a plan Approved by the Sixteenth Party Congress in April 1929 Targets were said to be extremely over-ambitious and was not based off of secure data: Output Targets 1927-1928 actual production 1932-1933 target production Coal (million tonnes) 35.4 75 Oil (million tonnes) 11.7 22 Steel (million tonnes) 4 10.4 Pig Iron (million tonnes) 3.3 10 STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION ● Demanded that certain areas of heavy industry were to increase by 300% - Hugely unrealistic targets Did achieve in this period - Huge growth in certain areas of the economy e.g. electricity production Industrial workforce doubled - rose from 11 million to 23 million - Drive to encourage peasants to come to work - Wasn’t controlled meant that there was an impact on collectivisation as it left too few people in some areas One major problem was however, that people were too afraid to question Stalin’s regime as criticism could easily be labelled as disloyalty, sabotage or treason First FYP focused on the development of heavy industries - Such as coal, iron and steel - Raw materials that were the bases for making other products ● ● ● ● Aims: ● ● ● Increase production by over 300% Focus on the development of coal, iron, steel, oil and machinery Boost electrical production by 600% Double the output from light industry - e.g. chemicals Publicity surrounding the First FYP’s launch provoked an enthusiastic response throughout the population - Such was its success that Stalin had claimed that the targets had been met within four years Most likely that this was due to the ‘over-enthusiastic’ reporting of local officials Common for local officials and managers to falsify their production figures to give the impression that they had met their targets where they had fallen short - Precise statistics for the First FYP are difficult to determine: Product (in millions of tonnes) 1927-28: First Plan 1932-3: ‘Optimal’ 1932: Amended 1932: Actual Coal 35.0 75.0 95-105 64.0 Oil 11.7 21.7 40-55 21.4 Iron Ore 6.7 20.2 24-32 12.1 Pig Iron 3.2 10.0 15-16 6.2 ● ● ● In reality, none of the major targets were really met, although investment brought about an impressive increase in production - Electricity output trebled, coal and iron output doubles and steel production increased by a third New railways, engineering plants, Hydroelectric Power Schemes and industrial complexes sprung up - e.g. Magnitogorsk Despite Stalin’s claims, the targets for chemical industry were not met and housebuilding, food-processing and other consumer industries were neglected - Too few skilled workers and too little effective central-coordination for efficient development STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Propaganda and Collective Effort: ● ● ● ● At the time it was the ‘grand design’ that was the key focus rather than the detail The plan was a huge propaganda effort aimed at convincing the Soviet people that they were personally engaged in a vast industrial enterprise Not completely a matter of enforcement - Especially among the young, there was a great enthusiasm and a commitment that suggested that many Soviet citizens believed they were genuinely building a new and better world John Scott - American Communist and pro-Soviet Western industrial advisor came to the USSR during this time and was impressed with the mixture of idealism and coercion (force) that characterised the early stages of Stalinist industrialisation Worked in building Magnitogorsk Stalin wished to prove how successful the USSR was - Show piece constructions for propaganda value e.g. Dams to provide hydroelectric power - Dnieprostroi Dam in the Ukraine (hydroelectric power) - Publicised as a magnificent piece of Communist technology Successes and Failures of First Five-Year Plan Success - - - - No matter how much the figures may have been rigged at the time, the first FYP was an extraordinary achievement overall - Coal, iron and the generation of electricity increased considerably Industrial workforce doubles - rose from 11 million to 23 million Around 1500 new large enterprises Factories given particular products to build Impressive tractor factories built at Stalingrad and Kharkov - Once these complexes are up and running, it is easier to change what you are producing - Tractor factory could be changed into using military vehicles when it became a higher priority Failure/Problems - The production of steel and chemicals was less impressive and the output of finished textiles actually declined - No effort was made to reward the workers by providing them with affordable consumer goods - Living conditions had deteriorated Accommodation in towns and cities remained substandard - -30 considered normal Conditions in factory towns and cities were most of the time, much worse than in the countryside Plan had never actually been intended to raise living standards - Collective purpose rather than individual - - - Drive to encourage peasants to come to work wasn’t controlled meant that there was an impact on collectivisation as it left too few people in some areas - Lack of training e.g. Donbass miners dug less coal as they could not use the pneumatic drills because they had not been trained to/could not repair broken drills Bottlenecks due to the lack of supplies Making something that has many - STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION components from different places - Not going to complete targets - Infrastructure needed to meet targets did not exist e.g. factories, railways, tools had to be built - Some factory managers produced inflated figures - Due to them being so fearful if they were not to meet their targets Competitions between factories and corruption - Managers made illegal deals to get supplies and hijacked the supplies of rival factories - - Industrial ‘show trials’ e.g. Shakhty trial 1928 - All mistakes blamed on class enemies so mistakes covered up and problems not resolved ‘Bourgeois Specialists’ (Industrial equivalent of the kulaks) were blamed and attacked - loss of valuable expertise caused more problems - ● ● ● - The Belomor Canal - Connecting the Baltic and the White Sea, completed in 1933 - Intended to provide the USSR’s navy with an escape route from the Baltic Sea was too shallow to take any of the warships it was designed for Built by the prisoners from concentration camps - Huge human cost in the building process - Built by Zeks - Quality of materials produced was not of the best standard - Quantity over quality Stalin justified the severity of his regime by stating that it was necessary for national survival - A series of public trials took place in the prosecution of industrial ‘wreckers’ which included a number of foreign workers Shakhty Trial 1928 - Stalin claimed to have discovered an anti-soviet conspiracy among the mining community in Shakhty in the Donbass region of the Ukraine - The public trial was intended to frighten the workers into line Showed that the privileges of the ‘skilled workers’ (bourgeois experts) was not to be tolerated STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION ● ● ● ● Stalin blamed the poor quality of goods produced on the industrial ‘saboteurs’ Actively used OGPU agents and party Cadres (party members sent into factories) to terrorise the work force Workers could be labelled as saboteurs for the simplest of errors - being late for work, mislaying tools etc. Additionally, factory managers who did not meet their production goals could find themselves held on a public trial as enemies of the state - Therefore it was common for output prices to be inflated Interpretation: ● ● Historian, Norman Stone, interprets Stalin’s policies not as far-sighted strategy but as, ‘simply putting one foot in front of the other as he went along.’ In reality, there was very little planning within Soviet industrial policies made from above The Second Five-Year Plan: 1933-1937 ● Built off of the infrastructure that was provided by the first plan - Gave more attention to consumer goods than the first plan, but heavy industry was still the overall priority Aims: - To continue to develop heavy industry - To promote the growth of light industries, such as chemicals, electricals and consumer goods - Chemical industry grew e.g. fertilizer for agriculture - Develop communications to provide links between cities and other industrial areas - Foster engineering and tool-making ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Target schemes were made more realistic - New training schemes - To make industry as efficient as possible - More realistic targets e.g. 14% increase - wasn’t as much needed Moscow Metro opened in 1935, Volga Canal in 1937 and the Dnieprostroi Dam in 1932 - Improvement in communication and propaganda as large-scale Soviet architecture - The Dam was also extended through four further generations to make it the largest dam in Europe Electrical production and chemical industries grew rapidly - New metals such as copper, zinc and tin we mined for the first time Steel output trebled and coal production doubled By 1937, the USSR was virtually self-sufficient with regards to metal goods - USSR became less dependent on foreign imports Emergence of Stakhanovism 1936 - Focus changed to hold a greater emphasis on rearmament - Rose from 4% in ‘33 to 17% in ‘37 - More resources diverted into arms due to deteriorating international situation e.g. 1933-38 production of armament trebled STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Failures of the Second FYP: ● ● ● Oil production failed to meet its quota Despite the slight increase in the expansion of the production of footwear and foodprocessing, there was no considerable increase in consumer goods - 1935 bread rationing ended but there was still a problem over food production Continued to hold the emphasis of quantity over quality The Third Five-Year Plan: 1938-1942 ● ● Focus on the needs of the defence sector in light of the growing threat that Nazi Germany posed to the USSR Disrupted by the approach of war in 1941 Aims: - To place a renewed emphasis on the development of heavy industry - Promote rapid rearmament - Complete the transition to Communism ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Heavy industries - Main priority was improving the USSR’s military potential Producing armaments - Workers pressured to produce more Hitler had practiced many of his tactics on Russian soil - Stalin was well aware of his intentions Did have a heavy industrial base in time for WW2 Spending on resources for rearmament doubled between 1938 and 1940 By 1940 the USSR had overtaken Britain (the first industrial nation) in iron and steel production - SHOULD BE. Russia is considerably larger than the UK - Has a greater reserve of raw materials so should be able to outproduce Abandoned plans to produce more consumer goods - Try to link in other things that it going on Steel production stagnated Oil failed to meet targets which led to a fuel crisis Biggest problem in the third FYP was the lack of good managers, specialists and technicians following Stalin’s purges - Caused economic slowdown - lost valuable personnel - If you remove key individuals because you think they are getting too powerful then it will affect your economical output 1938 - Exceptionally harsh winter STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Showpiece Projects: Project What it was Additional Details Dnieprostroi Dam construction began in 1927 and opened in Oct 1932 Biggest hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River, placed in Zaporizhia, Ukraine Generating some 560 MW, it became the largest Soviet power plant at the time and one of the largest in the world Built on deserted land in the countryside. Planned to provide electricity for several aluminium production plants and a high quality steel production plant that were also to be constructed in the area. Began generating electricity during the First FYP. By the second plan, it had increased Soviet electric power fivefold (1932) Industrial power centres of Zaporizhia, Kryvyi Rih and Dnipropetrovsk grew from the power provided by this station The Turksib (Turkestan to Siberia) Railway Built between 1926 and 1931 - Passenger service began in 1929 Also known as the Central Asiatic Railway, connected Central Asia with Siberia Ran from Tashkent to Novosibirsk where it met the West Siberian portion of the Trans-Siberian Railway A huge construction project built for political as well as economic reasons. Designed to create a working class in the semi-deserts of Central Asia - Built by nearly 50,000 workers. Facilitated the transport of cotton from Turkestan to Siberia and cheap siberian grain from Russia to the Fergana Valley. Viktor Alexandrovitch Turin directed a 1929 Soviet documentary film about the building of the railway. Moscow Metro Opened in 1935 Opened with one 11km line and 13 stations. It was the first underground railway system in the USSR. Extended in the second stage in 1938, third stage delayed by WW2 Part of the second FYP, which focused on urbanisation and needed to cope with the influx of peasants to the city in the 1930’s. Ambitious architectural project designed to prove that a socialist metro could surpass capitalist designs. The project drew resources and specialist workers from the entire USSR included massive recruitment campaigns were launched for unskilled labourers. Artists and architects were employed to produce a system that reflected a ‘radiant future’ Moscow-Volga Canal Constructed between 1932 and 1937 Connects the Muskva and Volga rivers. One of the world’s tallest statues of Lenin, 25m high, built in 1937 at the confluence of the Volga River and Canal Built by prisoners from the Dmitlag labour camp - largest of its kind in 1934 Almost 200,000 prisoners were employed, 22,000 of which died The White Sea Baltic Canal of 1933 was simply built by forced labour STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION The Use of Foreigners: ● ● ● ● ● ● USSR was forced to turn to foreign companies and individuals with managerial and technical skills to provide necessary expertise for the vast projects – Henry Ford, American expert in the car industry, trained Russian engineers in the USA and helped design the car-plant in Gorky The Dnieprostroi Dam project used experience given by the construction of the hydroelectric power stations in Canada – 1932, six American engineers were awarded the Russian ‘Order of the Red Banner of Labour’ for their work on the dam Walter Rukeyser helped to develop the asbestos industry at ‘Asbest’ in the Urals Construction of the Moscow Metro relied on the help of construction engineers from Britain – Built and decorated by native workers, the engineering designs, routes and construction plans were handled by specialists who had worked on the London Underground Ordinary workers also travelled to the USSR in search for work during the Great Depression – e.g. John Scott – Communism was said to attract those who genuinely believed that they were contributing to the new world order Foreigners were sometimes looked upon with suspicion and it was easy to blame them when things went wrong – Secret police arrested a number of British engineers in Moscow because they had gained an in-depth knowledge of the city’s geographical layout The Stakhanovite Movement: 1935 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Living conditions of the workers failed to improve – The party’s control of the radio, newspapers and cinema meant that only a favourable view was presented 1935 – Officially claimed that Alexei Stakhanov, a miner in the Donbass region cut 102 tons of coal in a 5 hour shift – 14x more than the average shift – ‘The Soviet Hercules Alexei’s achievement was seized by authorities as a glorious example of what was possible in a Soviet Union under Stalin – Helped the State’s propaganda effort in hiding the real conditions that the workers lived in Ideal propaganda for the Party in regards to trying to form a proletarian culture based on teamwork and selfless sacrifice Workers across the country were urged to match Stakhanov’s dedication by similar storming (An intensive period of work to meet a high set target) Storming proved higher loss than gain – Stakhanovite groups claimed higher output, it was only rewarded with better equipment and work plans were changed to accommodate them Led to an overall loss in production in the areas where the Stakhanovite movement was at its highest Movement not universally popular with everyone – a sense of jealousy attached to the Stakhanovites’ receipt of superior accommodation and material benefits – Records of Stakhanovites being victimised and attacked by colleagues STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Workers’ Rights: Managers – ● Industrial enterprises held under the control of directors or managers who had the task of ensuring output targets were met ● Did not have full control over their own resources, prices, wages and other costs ● Main focus of the manager was to make sure the output target was surpassed – Manager would receive up to a 40% bonus if their output was higher than expected ● Normal for managers to falsify statistics – could be put on trial, imprisoned and executed if they failed to meet targets ● From 1936, factories were put in charge of paying for their own fuel, raw materials and labour from their ‘profits’ so managers had to account carefully ● In such conditions, bribery and corruption were embedded within the system ● ● ● ● There were national ‘work-norms’ that had to be applied within the workplace – Governed how much work a labourer was expected to do and absenteeism became illegal in 1940 Work norms were raised in 1936 by 10-50% - Became even harder for managers to deal with protesting workers however, any attempt to bypass or lower the norms could result in accusations of sabotage Stakhanovites posed a particular problem to managers – Too much effort by Stakhanovites would lead to factory targets being revised Managers also faced labour shortages during the 1930’s due to the Worldwide Great Depression – Also as a result of improving conditions on collective farms improving, decrease in immigration to the cities and due to increased numbers of men being conscripted into the military Workers – ● After 1917, Trade Unions became powerless ● 1920 – Trotsky had taken violent steps to destroy the independence of the unions and bring them directly under Bolshevik control – Meant that after 1920, the unions were simply the means by which Bolshevik government enforced its requirements on workers ● Under Stalin’s industrialisation programme, workers rights basically disappeared: - Strikes were prohibited - The traditional demands for higher pay and better conditions was regarded as selfish in the time of national crisis - A code of ‘Labour Discipline’ was drawn up – Demanding maximum effort and output – Failure to conform could result in a loss of pay or imprisonment in a Gulag STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Living and Working Conditions: ● ● ● - ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● On paper, workers wages improved during the Second FYP - HOWEVER due to rationing and high prices, living standards were lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928 Despite the State’s talk of a ‘proletarianisation’ and the creation of a ‘socialist man’, the living and working conditions experienced by most industrial workers was far from ‘socialist paradise’ Workers material interests were of little interest to the state: Forced to work a seven day week with longer working hours - Arriving late or missing work could result in dismissal, eviction from housing and loss of benefits Damaging machinery or leaving a job without permission was a criminal offence 1938 - ‘Labour Books’ recorded worker's’ employment, skills and any disciplinary issues Nearly all workers lived in cramped apartments, many in thin tents - Lived in these for months at a time, in the spring the mud was terrible and in the summer, the heat was almost unbearable - Not uncommon for people to freeze to death Weather conditions were extreme - Winter, it was normal for temperatures to be around -30 degrees As production increased, the public housing policy did produce a large number of tenement blocks in towns and cities - Usually 5 stories high with no lifts Such buildings were a hazard to workers health - Overcrowding was common Not unusual for five families to share a single bathroom and kitchen 1931 - Stalin criticised equal wages saying this was only possible when true communism had been achieved… wage differential introduced, bonuses paid, rewards for staying in the same job - Called ‘socialist competition’ - Wages lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928 Govt spent the money available for improving living conditions on armaments Between 1933 and 37, defence expenditure rose from 4 to 17% of the overall industrial budget By the end of the Third FYP, a third of the USSR’s expenditure was on arms Forced Labour was also common - The Belomor Canal was built almost entirely by manual labour between ‘31 and ‘33 - 300,000 workers at its peak and many died of being overworked, poor treatment, lack of food and disease - Death rate was 700 per day and the average survival time was 2 years 1929 - Female workers were largely concentrated in the lowest paid jobs requiring the least skill - Particularly textiles and other light industry 1935 - women constituted to 42% of all industrial workers - Also found jobs in education, healthcare and administration Desperate attempts of factory workers A sense of enthusiasm amongst workers still remained in the early years of industrialisation ‘Shock Brigades’ - Young workers who were never absent and competed to increase output - Received privileges, watched other workers and pressurised them to work harder STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION ● ● ● Extensive training programmes were set up and opportunites for advancement by learning new skills meant that some workers did well Stalin’s purges in the 1930’s targeted the intellectuals and white-collar workers Reducing the numbers competing for jobs and creating plenty of vacancies at ‘the top’ 1933 - Stalin stated that, “...life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyous.” - Reality, little improvement was seen within worker’s daily life Interpretation: ● Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2008 “The decline in living standards and quality of life affected almost all classes of the population, urban and rural. Peasants suffered the most as a result of collectivisation. But life in the towns was made miserable by food rationing, queues, constant shortages of consumer goods including shoes and clothing, acute overcrowding of housing, the endless inconveniences associated with the elimination of private trade, and deterioration of urban services of all kinds.” Strengths of the first three Five Year Plans: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● The Five-Year Plans undoubtedly helped to transform the USSR into a modern industrial economy - Relentless drive created by the overly ambitious targets stimulated economic growth and increased output Soviet economy grew at 5-6% per year between 1928 and 1940 - Allowing the USSR to become a major industrial power in little over ten years The first plan saw impressive gains in several areas of heavy industry - especially engineering - Coal production increased 5x, steel increased 6x and oil output had more than doubled Generation of electricity quintupled Second plan saw huge growth in construction and transport Between 1928 and 1939, the industrial workforce doubled - Between 1926 and 1939, the urban population increased from 26million to 56million Shift in population - People poured into industrial towns - 17% lived in towns by 1926, this rose to 33% by 1939 - Still ⅔ of population lived in the countryside Experienced three ‘good years’ between 1934 and 1936 - Increase in consumer goods (some goods, such as gramophones, made their first appearance in the USSR for the ordinary citizen) - Productivity and wages rose, while prices fell USSR able to withstand German invasion - lost WW1 but successful in WW2 - The USSR of the 1920’s could not have withstood German attack STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Weaknesses of the Five Year Plans: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Stalin’s economic reforms only succeeded in the traditional areas of heavy industry e.g. building factories, bridges, refineries and canals - Unskilled and forced labour could easily be used Soviet economy remained unbalanced - Gave little thought to developing an overall economic strategy - Also got rid of Lenin’s NEP Modern industrial methods were not adopted - Relied on work done by mass labour rather than efficient machinery No attention given to producing quality goods that could be sold profitably abroad to raise money for the USSR Vainglorious over the USSR’s ‘Showpiece projects’ e.g. Magnitogorsk or the White Sea Canal Stalin’s policies had deprived the Soviet Union of any chance of genuinely competing with the modernising economies of Europe and the USA Serious failing of the FYP’s was their lack of attention to agriculture - Needs were regarded as wholly secondary to that of industry so funds continued to deteriorate Lack of agricultural growth led to food shortages - Soviet Famine of 1932-33 - Killed around 8.5 million in the grain producing areas of the Soviet Union Meant that the only option was to buy produce from foreign countries - Drained the USSR’s financial resources - Despite signing the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in Aug 1939, there was no relaxation within the USSR of the war atmosphere Continued deterioration of ordinary people’s living conditions Official decree in 1940 allowed Stalin to encroach further on workers’ liberties by imposing measures such as: Direction of labour Enforced settlement of undeveloped areas Severe penalties for slacking and absenteeism ● ● ● 1941 - German invasion destroyed the Third FYP Conditions of industrial workers was less than in 1928 Propaganda focused on the strong economy rather than the workers’ conditions ● ● STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION Summary Diagram: Industrialisation: the First Three FYPs What was the purpose of the plan? Economic - ‘gigantomania’ Political propaganda Was Stalin the master-planner? First FYP: Key Questions How far did it achieve its objectives? What problems were there in measuring the plan? What resistance was there to the plan? Means: Five Year Plans Aim: Modernise Russia Industrialisation Method: Enforced and rapid industrialisation Successes: Massive expansion of industrial output This enabled the USSR to survive the 1941-45 war Purpose: To catch up with the advanced Western economies Limitations to the policy: Overemphasis on heavy industry Poor balance between sectors of industry No attention to workers’ needs Soviet Union not modernised enough to be fully competitive STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES: 5 YEAR PLANS & INDUSTRIALISATION