p The drive to transform the socio-economic structure of Russia began immediately after the uprising on November 7, 1917. The Soviet Government was officially installed on 36 November 8 and issued its decrees on peace and land, following this up with a Law on Workers’ Control ( November 27, 1917), decrees establishing the All-Russia Economic Council (December 15, 1917), and nationalising banks (December 27, 1917) and large-scale industry and trade (June 30, 1918). All loans contracted by the tsarist government were cancelled (January 20, 1918), a special decree on socialisation of land was passed (February 19, 1918), foreign trade was nationalised (April 22, 1918), and a state grain monopoly was instituted (May 14, 1918). All these measures were designed to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of the proletarian state and cut short the economic crisis which the imperialist war and tsarist criminal folly had brought on the country.

p Resistance from the capitalists and landowners, the civil war imposed on the people and the foreign intervention disrupted the operations to put the economy back on its feet; in fact they precipitated a fresh demolition of the productive forces. Between 1914 and 1920, the country lost some 19 million able-bodied men (aged 16 to 49) from death or injury in battle, starvation and epidemics.

p The main sectors of the economy suffered a grave setback. Industrial production fell by 1920 to 13.8 per cent of the 1913 level (see Table 6). Of the 4,877 state-run industrial enterprises, only 2,984 factories were said to be operative, and these too were badly crippled. There were no raw materials, no skilled workers, no machinery. Between 1917 and 1920 arable land under grains dwindled by 21 per cent; the grain crop fell by 39 per cent and by 60 per cent in comparison with 1913. During the civil war, the number of farms able to produce for the market dropped to a critical level. The horse and the one-blade wooden plough (sokha) emerged from the world and civil wars as the basic instruments of farm production. The economic significance of these “ unsophisticated machines" even increased during the economic chaos that followed on the heels of the civil war. And to add to the privation, crop failure and famine hit the country in 1921.

p By the time the young Soviet Republic had expelled its internal and external enemies and finally set to putting the country in order, the United States of America appeared to stand on an unattainable pinnacle of technological and 37 Table 6 Gross Industrial Output (1913=100) 1917 1920 Mining . . . 09.8 19.1 Metal-working and machine-building . . Chemicals 110.6 94.0 7.5 11.1 Food 32.4 15.9 Leather and footwear 120.7 28.0 Textiles ........ ... 60.2 10.1 Woodworking . . 42.9 16.9 Paper and printing 95.6 15.0 Power and water-supply 1 Other industries \ 68.5 14.2 Total ................ 05.9 13.8 Estimated from The World Economy. Collection of Statistical Materials, 1913-1927, p. K. economic achievement. It had already become the most potent capitalist power in the world, with its advanced industry and highly developed farming. Seen against this industrial background, Soviet Russia’s industrial level was very low indeed (see Table 7).

p The Russia of 1921 lagged a whole century behind the U.S.A. in the production of virtually all material goods, but Soviet Russia had one important advantage in the coming drive for rapid and extensive technological and economic progress. This was her new, advanced social system and the Party that was at the head of all the Soviet peoples and was equipped with a clear-cut programme for building socialism.

The five subsequent years were to demonstrate that Soviet Russia possessed immense potential for economic progress. Roughly by 1926, the rehabilitation period was over, and the economy began to pick up. Between 1913 and 1928 fixed capital grew by 18 per cent, gross industrial output by 32 per cent, and large-scale industrial output by 52 per cent. The national income had increased by 19 per cent. Even at that early period priority was being given to the manufacture of producer goods, the result of a vigorous 38 Table LI. S. Industrial Superiority, 1920-21 Total industrial output...... Steel ............ Pig iron .......... Coal............. Oil............. Iron ore ........... Engineering and metal-working Chemicals.......... Food ............ Textiles........... Footwear........... Woodworking........ Paper and printing...... Building materials...... 59 times greater 203 322 77 82 419 132 321 29 35 29 78 167 63 Estimated from The World Economy. Collection of Statistical Materials, 1S13-1921, pp. 3, 7, 9. 11, 23, 31-33, 46-47. Figures ot physical output are for 1920, the rest, for 1921. drive to industrialise the country. While steel smelting still stood at the 1913 level, production of producer goods had gone up 55 per cent in 1928 over the 1913 level, machinebuilding and metal-working output was up by 75 per cent and generation of electricity by as much as 157 per cent. The country was forcing the pace in creating the essential levers of economic reconstruction and a technical base for unfettered, independent socialist economic progress.