71

USSR Takes the Path
of Industrialisation

p There have been milestones on the road of the Soviet people to socialism. One such milestone was the Fourteenth Congress of the Communist Party in December 1925. Following Lenin’s 72 behests, the Congress proclaimed industrialisation of the country to be the basic Party line and the principal task of the people.

p Historically viewed, the time was ripe for taking up this task. Industrial development was back at the pre-war level by then, though the question could well be asked: was it a level to be taken seriously? The country remained agrarian: agriculture accounted for nearly two-thirds of the output of the national economy, while industry was producing mainly consumer goods. Production of implements and means of production was but poorly developed. Such important industries as the chemical, motor-car, tractor and machine-tool construction, and mechanical engineering were non-existent. Equipment in most industrial plants was obsolete or outworn.

p Back in 1917 Lenin wrote: ”. . .either perish or overtake and outstrip the advanced countries economically as well."  [72•1  Subsequently he always emphasised that unless Russia created a highly developed large-scale industry, especially a heavy industry, and implemented the electrification plan, she would surely perish as an independent country, to say nothing of building socialism. As soon, therefore, as economic reconstruction became an accomplished fact, the Communist Party announced the commencement of an industrialisation campaign. The aim, as formulated by the Party, was to turn the Soviet Union, hitherto an agrarian country that imported machines and equipment, into an industrial state that produced machinery and equipment. That was a complicated and difficult task. One difficulty was to find the required vast funds at home: the USSR could not expect to obtain large loans abroad, for the capitalist countries practically refused to grant any.

p Another difficulty lay in the fact that the industrialisation programme had to be carried out in a relatively short time, for the breathing-spell of peace could be broken by the country’s enemies at any moment. Industrial construction had therefore to be pushed as rapidly as possible. To make matters worse, there was an extreme shortage of skilled workers, technicians and engineers. Moreover, among the old specialists quite a few fostered antiSoviet feelings and instead of contributing to the industrialisation programme did what they could to obstruct, sabotage and wreck the effort.

p The Communist Party candidly and openly described these and other difficulties to the people, pointing out at the same time, however, how they could be dealt with. Relatively small groups were discovered within the Party, which either tried to foist upon 73 it the pernicious policy of developing large-scale industry at the expense of the peasantry (Trotsky, Zinoviev, for instance) or opposed rapid industrialisation and the priority development of the heavy industry on which rested the country’s defence capacity and independence (as Bukharin and Rykov). These fallacious antiLeninist policies were rejected by the Party; and the people, putting its trust in the Party, elected to follow the Leninist path it pointed out.

p Industrial construction proceeded in accordance with carefully worked out annual and long-term plans. In 1929 the Fifth AilUnion Congress of Soviets adopted the First Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR. The plan was truly gigantic: it provided for total capital investments 2.5 times greater than over the preceding five years and investments in industry four times greater. Yet the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37) was even greater, providing for capital investments in the amount of 133,400 million rubles as against 50,500 million of the First Five-Year Plan. As for the Third Five-Year Plan covering the period 1938-42, it surpassed the first and the second taken together. The process of industrialisation, in all its aspects, was directed by the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, which detected and identified the difficulties, shortcomings and mistakes unavoidable in so vast an undertaking, rallied the workers, technicians and engineers to deal with them, introduced continuous improvements into industrial management, found additional sources of funds to finance industrial construction, promoted increasingly rapid training of skilled labour and technical cadres, and so on.

Picked Party members and government personnel were assigned to managerial posts in industry. The Supreme Council of the National Economy—the country’s highest economic body—was headed, until 1931, by V. V. Kuibyshev, prominent Party member and economic executive. In 1931 he was made head of the State Planning Commission, which now played a much greater role than before, while the post of chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy was given to S. Orjonikidze, a remarkable organiser dedicated to the idea of industrialisation. He was well-versed in matters pertaining to the national economy, kept in close contact with various industrial plants and construction projects, and was personally acquainted with many leading workers and technicians. Prominent in the field of business management was A. I. Mikoyan, whose contribution to the development of the food industry and light industry in general was particularly important. In short, the Communist Party produced a great many able industrial organisers, most of whom had started in life as workers.

74

Financing Industrialisation

p The advantages inherent in a planned economy helped the Soviet Government find the funds with which to finance the country’s industrialisation. The most important sources of revenue were industry, transportation and trade. Such factors as the continuous growth of productivity and cuts in production costs and overhead expenses served to accelerate the process of accumulation in the national economy. Peasant savings were tapped through taxation and by maintaining prices on manufactured goods at a level slightly above that on agricultural produce. Before the Revolution peasants had to buy or rent land. The Soviet Government saved them this expense by allotting them land free of charge. Taxes, also, were reduced by comparison with prerevolutionary times. In the light of these facts the Soviet Government found it possible to effect a temporary redistribution of income as between the industrial and agricultural sectors of the national economy, especially since the peasants were extremely interested in the country’s industrialisation.

p Another important source of funds for industrialisation were private savings, which the government drew upon through savings banks, state loans, state insurance, etc. The First Industrialisation Loan of 1927. issued in the amount of 200,000,000 rubles was subscribed by the population within a fortnight. The Second Industrialisation Loan, issued in 1928 in the amount of 500,000,000 rubles, fared even better. Altogether domestic loans subscribed during the First Five-Year period totalled 5,000 million rubles. These loans accounted for an important share of state revenue in succeeding years as well.

p The industrialisation of the country owed much of its success to the state monopoly of foreign trade. Both import and export were planned entirely with a view to contributing to that undertaking. Large quantities of machines, machine tools and equipment were shipped into the country from abroad. Over 7,000 million rubles worth of equipment was imported under the First Five-Year Plan. To pay for these purchases it was necessary to increase the export of such Soviet products as timber, manganese, petroleum and agricultural commodities. The government was obliged to export grain, butter, eggs, etc., even though there were serious food shortages at home at the time. Rationing of bread and other products was introduced. People realised that this was the only way out and were willing to face these shortages in order to hasten the process of national industrialisation which would make the country technologically and economically independent. They knew that the present situation was only temporary.

75

p The frame of mind of the workers was eloquently described by one of them as follows: "How are we getting on? Well, it’s tough... . You ask any woman if it’s easy to give birth to a child and you’ll hear that there is a lot of suffering to go through before the baby comes. And there is a lot of worries and cares until the baby is on its feet and until it is raised by its mother to be a decent man, or a decent woman. Years and years of hard work go into that. And here we, Russian proletarians, have undertaken to give birth to a new world! And not for ourselves alone, but for all such as you and me. So what would you expect? That it would get on its feet right away? Without any pain or suffering?

“Take a good look at it: it’s young as far as years go, but it stands firmly on its feet. Watch it run, watch it overtake the old world and rebuild it on new lines with its tractor works and iron and steel works.”

Vast Scope of Capital Construction

p Good progress was made on industrial construction even during the first year (1929) under the First Five-Year Plan. New plants were going up all over the country: tractor works in Stalingrad (now Volgograd) on the Volga, Kharkov and Chelyabinsk; harvesting-combine works at Saratov and Zaporozhye; a huge farm machinery works at Rostov-on-Don; motor-car plants in Moscow and Nizhni-Novgorod (now Gorky); giant metallurgical works at Mt. Magnitnaya in the Urals and Kuznetsk in Siberia; complexes of heavy engineering at Gorlovka, Kramatorsk and Sverdlovsk; chemical works at Berezniki, Solikamsk, and Bobriki near Moscow; the Dnieper hydropower station, biggest in Europe; the Turkestan-Siberian Railway (Turksib), nearly 1,500 kilometres long, etc. Never before had capital construction been undertaken anywhere on so vast a scale. The country had virtually become one huge construction site where work on giant industrial projects went on day and night, the year round. Very little machinery was available in those years; shovel and wheelbarrow were the main tools used by the builders. But the workers worked miracles even with those primitive tools.

p The builders of the Stalingrad Tractor Works undertook to complete the project a year ahead of the deadline fixed by the government. They kept their word: the works was commissioned in June 1930. The Turkestan-Siberian Railway, too, was completed a year ahead of schedule and began to handle through traffic in 1930. The builders of the Dnieper power station were 76 in socialist competition with the builders of the Turksib. They set a world record of pouring concrete and were the first ever to carry on this work in winter weather. Under the stimulating effect of socialist competition the Dnieper station began to generate power in 1932, or also a year earlier than scheduled.

p Real heroism was displayed by the builders of the giant metallurgical works at Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, which were to be the largest in Europe. Work on the construction of this new coal and metallurgical base in the East went on even in winter, despite the rigid Siberian frosts. I. P. Bardin, chief engineer of the Kuznetsk metallurgical complex project, recalls those days as follows: "People came flocking from all over the country. Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs and many other nationalities worked side by side. The performance of these hitherto illiterate men who had never before laid their eyes on a real industrial plant often attained to epic levels. . .. Excavation labourers sometimes completed ten .daily quotas in one shift. Riveting was carried on by the Komsomol members at great heights with the thermometer at 50 degrees below zero. Up to 15 tons of fire-brick were often laid per man per shift. Nothing—neither rain nor blizzard—could 77 daunt the enthusiasm of the builders inspired by the common will to get the blast-furnace producing cast iron. Construction of the blast-furnace was headed by Party and Komsomol members, and that was enough to guarantee success.” The Magnitogorsk works began producing cast iron in February 1932, and the Kuznetsk works in April.

A total of 1,500 important first-class new industrial plants were commissioned under the First Five-Year Plan. Simultaneously, old plants were re-equipped and modernised. Under the Second Five-Year Plan capital construction increased in scope: 4,500 factories and power stations were built and commissioned between 1933 and 1937. During the three and a half years of the Third Five-Year Plan, i.e., between 1938 and 1941, 3,000 new industrial plants were built; so that a total of some 9,000 large plants equipped with the last word in machinery were commissioned during the thirteen pre-war years. A number of entirely new industries were created to produce motor-cars, tractors, chemicals, heavy machinery, machine tools, ball-bearings, harvesting-combines, and many other goods.

Learning to Run the New Plants

p Building so great a number of industrial plants in so short a time-span, although a brilliant achievement, was not enough: it was necessary to learn to run them properly, that is, to master the new equipment, to ensure a steady rhythm of work, to operate the machinery at full design capacity. It took some time to achieve this complicated and arduous task, for there was a great shortage of skilled workers, engineers and technicians. Yet the country could not afford to put off construction of new plants while the required technical cadres were being trained. The problem was solved by putting the builders themselves to work learning a new trade, mastering modern machinery.

p Meanwhile the Soviet Government did everything in its power to speed up the training of skilled workers. Apprentice training schools were opened at many factories and a wide network of study groups was organised to raise literacy and improve skills. Workers applied themselves with great interest and zeal to the study of machinery and equipment in the knowledge that it saved labour, increased productivity, raised living standards, and generally aided the country’s development.

p A solution was found to the problem of creating engineering cadres. Many new higher and secondary technical educational institutions were opened during the industrialisation campaign. Thousands of workers were enrolled every year, many of them 78 were Communists and Komsomol members. The network of workers’ day and evening high schools preparing for higher educational institutions was expanded to meet growing need.

p The critical shortage of engineering personnel and skilled workers characteristic of the early years of the industrialisation campaign compelled the Soviet Union to invite foreign specialists and highly skilled workers. In the early 1930s these numbered close to 6,000. The vast majority of these complied faithfully with the terms of their contracts and really helped design, build and teach to operate electric power stations, tractor, motor-car and chemical works, etc. Many were awarded Soviet medals and decorations for their useful contribution, as, for instance, Cooper, the American engineer who acted as adviser to the builders of the Dnieper Hydropower Station and was awarded the Order of Lenin. There were, however, some among these foreign specialists who attempted sabotage. Thus, some of the staff of MetropohtanVickers, the British concern, were discovered to have organised sabotage at the country’s most important power stations.

The country’s vast effort in the field of training its own skilled personnel soon made it unnecessary to engage specialists abroad.

79

Great Feat of the Working Class

p The main merit for achieving the industrialisation of the USSR goes to the working class. From the very first day when the Communist Party proclaimed industrialisation a national aim the working class made that historic task their particular concern in the conviction that therein lay the key to overcoming the country’s backwardness, strengthening its defence capacity, banishing unemployment, then current, and a basic improvement of the level of living.

p Great ideas engender equally great energy. The idea of industrialisation gave rise to a wave of enthusiasm among the people, above all among the workers. It engendered the wide practice of socialist emulation in fulfilling and overfulfilling production plans, which got its start in 1929. January 20, 1929, saw the publication of Lenin’s article "How to Organise Competition?”, written back in December 1917, in which he emphasised the fact that socialism made it possible, for the first time in history, to actually draw "the majority of working people into a field of labour in which they can display their abilities, develop the capacities, and reveal those talents, so abundant among the people whom capitalism crushed, suppressed and strangled in thousands and 80 millions”. And he concluded by saying: "Now that a socialist government is in power our task is to organise competition."  [80•1 

p The appeal contained in Lenin’s article evoked an enthusiastic response from the country’s working people. Individual workers, brigades, shop and factory personnel concluded mutual socialist emulation agreements and pledged themselves to overfulfil production plans, increase productivity and reduce production costs over and above the reductions provided for in the plan. It should be noted that the parties to socialist emulation agreements regarded each other as allies, rather than competitors, and tried to help one another. Leading workers who distinguished themselves in socialist emulation were awarded the honorary title of Shock Worker.

p The All-Union Congress of Shock Brigades convened in December 1929, advanced the slogan "Five-Year Plan in Four!”, which became the universal slogan of the industrialisation campaign. Worker initiative engendered ever new forms of socialist emulation, such as the movement for drawing up production counterplans based on more efficient operation of equipment, economy of raw materials, etc. Using such methods a number of industries (petroleum production, electro-technical, engineering, confectioncry, fish tinning) fulfilled the First Five-Year Plan targets in 1931, or two years ahead of schedule. Industry as a whole fulfilled the plan in four years and three months.

p Socialist emulation made new gains under the Second FiveYear Plan. The introduction of modern machinery on an ever increasing scale coupled with the successful mastery of this machinery by the workers contributed to the origination, in 1935, of the remarkable movement of production innovators, that is, workers who strove to attain and did attain productivity levels many times higher than the levels provided for by the plan on the basis of technological quotas. This movement was started by the miners of the Donets Coal Basin and got its name, the Stakhanov movement, from that of Alexei Stakhanov, a miner. On August 31, 1935, Alexei Stakhanov, coalcutter of the Tsentralnoye Irmino Mine, using his air-hammer mined 102 tons of coal in his six-hour shift, or 14.5 times his quota.

p Word of the deeds of the Donets miners quickly got around and gave a fresh impetus to efforts to surpass established quotas and raise productivity to a far higher level. Stakhanov’s followers strove to achieve high productivity through skilful operation of new equipment and optimum organisation of production, rather than by physical exertion. Alexander Busygin, forgeman of the Gorky Motor-Car Works, forged 1,050 crankshafts in his shift 81 instead of his quota of 675. Evdokia and Maria Vinogradov, Vychuga weavers, began operating 70-100 looms simultaneously instead of 16-24, and later 144 each. In the footwear industry N. Smetanin doubled his output. Engine driver P. Krivonos, of the Donets Coal Basin, began to run his goods trains at double the normal speed.

p The Communist Party supported the Stakhanov movement and took steps to make it universal. Industrial productivity started increasing at a rapid rate. By the end of the Second Five-Year Plan period it had increased by 82 per cent instead of 63 per cent as provided for by the plan, which made it possible to fulfil the production plan nine months ahead of schedule. This was a new and important achievement of the Soviet working class.

p The proletariat of the capitalist countries watched with admiration the achievements of Soviet workers; for them, the Stakhanov movement testified to the great advantages of the socialist way of working. Any similar movement was out of the question in the capitalist countries, for it would only have boomeranged against them. The thought was aptly expressed in a letter written to Stakhanov by a group of Belgian miners. Asking him to share his experience with them they wrote: "We shall never think of applying your method here. Unemployment is high in the royal mines. By mining double his usual quota each of us would draw the fire on his comrade.”

p A vivid description of the Stakhanov movement was given by Remain Rolland, the celebrated French writer. "This signifies, evidently, a great awakening of the human consciousness in the field of endeavour. It is possible only in a genuinely socialist society, where the worker feels that he is the boss and not an object of exploitation; where he works not for the enrichment of a class that is hostile to him and is concerned solely with the problem of getting the greatest possible benefit out of him, but for the society as a whole; where the worker rightfully rates the highest. That feeling of dignity and pride is truly thrilling!”

p New forms of socialist emulation were discovered under the Third Five-Year Plan. One such form was the drive to secure the simultaneous operation of the greatest possible number of machines under the supervision of one worker, which served to rapidly increase productivity. Another movement which won wide support was for the acquisition by workers of additional trades or skills. A maintenance fitter or plumber, for instance, could substitute for an electrician, or a turner could himself attend to the maintenance, repair and adjustment of his lathe, etc.

In short, the working class of the Soviet Union worked with a to strengthen the industrial might of their country.

82

The Soviet Union
Becomes a Great Industrial Power

p In a brief space of time, unparalleled in history, the USSR made a leap from a state of backwardness to economic progress, it accomplished in fact an industrial revolution that radically changed the country’s look. Gone for ever was her age-old economic backwardness. The gross output of large-scale industry in 1940 was 12 times that of 1913. Industry now came to play a dominant role in the national economy, accounting for over three-fourths of the gross national product, while heavy industry accounted for over two-thirds of the total industrial output. The most striking results were achieved in the field of engineering, where the output of 1940 was 35 times that of 1913. The giant strides of the machine- building industry made it possible to effect plant modernisation in all branches of the national economy: agriculture, transport, means of communication, etc. An extensive power base was created, which produced in 1940 over 48,000 million kwh of electric energy, as against under 2,000 million in 1913.

p With rapid development and top priority in regard to heavy industry assured, the country turned its attention to the development of industries producing consumer goods. The output of these industries in 1940 surpassed that of 1913 by 4.6 times, though it fell considerably short of the targets set by the plan.

p The distribution pattern of industry underwent a radical change. Pre-revolutionary Russia possessed but a single metallurgical base, that of the Ukraine. Under the first five-year plans a second firstclass metallurgical base was created in the East. Before the Revolution Russia drew its coal supply solely from the Donets Basin, whereas in the late 1930s the country was being supplied with coal from eight basins (including the Donets, Kuznetsk, Karaganda and Moscow Region basins). A new petroleum producing area has been developed between the Volga and the Urals, now known as the "Second Baku”. A great power base has been created in the East, where important engineering and other industrial centres have come into being.

p Equipped with a first-class industry, the Soviet Union has achieved complete economic independence. The import of locomotives, motor-cars, tractors, farm machinery, blast-furnace equipment, turbines, electric furnaces, measuring instruments, etc., was discontinued already by the end of the First Five-Year Plan period. Under the Second Five-Year Plan the country was able to meet 90 per cent of its machine-tool requirements out of its own production. In 1936 the turbines of all power stations in the USSR were of domestic make. And the country had begun to export 83 tractors, farm machinery, motor-cars, sewing-machines and other items.

p The Soviet Union’s rating in the world economy has also changed. In 1913 Russia lagged behind the United States, Germany, Great Britain and France in respect of the volume of gross output. Her share in the world industrial output was slightly over 4 per cent. In 1937 the Soviet Union rated first and second, respectively, in European and world industrial output, occupying the second place after the United States; while its share in the world industrial output had risen to around 14 per cent. In respect of the output of steam locomotives, harvesting-combines, farm machinery and synthetic rubber the Soviet Union had outstripped all other countries.

Thanks to the advantages offered by the socialist system (such as public ownership of the instruments and means of production, planned economy, the high endeavour of the workers, etc.) the socialist industry grew at a far more rapid rate than the industry of the capitalist countries. Over the period 1930-40 the annual increase of large-scale industry averaged 18 per cent as compared with but 1.2 per cent in the United States and 2.1 in Great Britain. Productivity in the USSR increased three or four times as rapidly as in the capitalist countries.