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The History of Industrialization USSR 1926-1928

The History of the Industrialisation of the Soviet Union: 

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FOREWORD

This volume is an integral part of the all-Union series of collections of documents and materials on the history of industrialization of the USSR (1926-1941). It contains consolidated materials revealing the general patterns of the initial stage of building industry on a national scale in the period from the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) to the adoption of the first five-year plan.

During this period, the Communist Party not only developed the Leninist principles of socialist industrialization in the difficult conditions of the capitalist encirclement, but also defended them in the struggle against the "left" and right-wing opportunists.

The main practical issue, on the successful solution of which the whole industrialization of the country depended on, was in those years the problem of accumulating funds for the development of industry. The Soviet state had the necessary sources to receive funds. These were revenues from state industry, domestic and foreign trade, banks, agriculture. Some of the funds could have been withdrawn from the capitalist elements in town and country. The contribution of the working people of the city and countryside to the cause of industrialization was significant. It was necessary to collect these funds and use them expediently, pursuing austerity.

The struggle for the economy regime went through two stages. In 1926, the main direction was the elimination or reduction of unproductive costs in enterprises and institutions: staff reduction, excessive reporting, the implementation of unnecessary tools, materials, etc. However, these measures, with all their positive significance, could not significantly affect the profitability of the industry. Therefore, in December 1926, the 15th All-Union Party Conference raised the question of the need to move to a new, more important stage - to rationalize production by introducing a number of organizational and technical measures, which sometimes required significant capital work.

The rationalization of production and the further introduction of cost accounting required the deepening of the economic methods of industrial management. In June 1927, a new regulation on trusts was developed and approved, which was of great fundamental importance, giving enterprises a certain degree of independence.

The undoubted successes in accumulating funds made it possible, already in 1927, to begin the construction of such large enterprises designed to radically reconstruct the entire industry of the Soviet country, such as the Dneproges, the Ural Machine-Building, Kuznetsk Metallurgical, and Stalingrad Tractor Plants.

The successes of socialist industrialization contributed to the growth and strengthening of the ranks of the Soviet working class. The number of workers, the training of skilled workers and the network of schools for factory training were systematically increased. Despite this, unemployment continued to rise in the country, mainly due to the surplus of workers in the countryside.

The disclosure of sabotage in the coal industry of Donbass, which sharply raised the issue of training new Soviet engineers from workers and peasants, accelerated the adoption of a number of measures to improve the work of higher education.

Together with the successes of industrial construction, the labor activity of the working class grew. Production conferences and their bodies, production conferences, social production reviews, competitions and shock brigades - this is not a complete list of forms of labor activity put forward by the trade unions, the press, the Komsomol and approved by the Communist Party. These forms were of no small importance in the successful construction of the socialist economy.

In 1927-1928. the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy was basically developed - a plan for building the foundation of a socialist economy, which had enormous political significance not only within the country, but also abroad.

Based on the main features of industrialization in 1926-1928, the published collection is divided into three sections:

1) the course of the Communist Party towards socialist industrialization;

2) the first steps of socialist industrialization;

3) the working class of the USSR in the struggle for socialist industrialization.

The first section includes the fundamental documents of the Communist Party, revealing the main features of socialist industrialization: the resolutions of the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) "On the report of the Central Committee", the XV All-Union Conference of the CPSU (b) "On the economic situation of the country and the tasks of the party", "Results of work and the next tasks of the trade unions "and" On the opposition bloc in the CPSU (b) ". Also published is the resolution of the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) "On directives for drawing up a five-year plan of the national economy." In these documents, the party, on the basis of Lenin's teaching about the victory of socialism, gave a detailed program of socialist industrialization. The second section is divided into three chapters.

The first chapter is devoted to the question of the sources and amounts of financing for industry and construction. It publishes explanatory notes to the reports of the USSR People's Commissariat of Finance on the execution of the state budget for 1925/26-1928/29. (doc. No. 6, 7, 8, 9). These notes contain information on the structure of budget revenues and expenditures, on the financial results of the industry and the amount of intra-industrial savings, on the ratio and size of budgetary funds and interindustry savings in the financing of industry and their distribution by industry and destination. The notes cover in detail the issue of increasing the profitability of industrial enterprises as a result of the implementation of the decisions of the party and the government on the implementation of a regime of economy and rationalization of production.

Since the notes cover the results of the industry for the previous year, when its profits and losses were created, the collection includes the corresponding part of the explanatory note to the report for 1928/29. However, the notes are not published in full. The omitted parts contain information on all revenues and expenditures of the state budget, financing of all sectors of the national economy, transport and communications, on the execution of the budgets of the union republics, as well as a general overview of the economic and political situation in which the budget was executed.

The published materials also reflect the participation of the Soviet people in financing industrial construction - subscription to the first loans, contributions to cooperation, etc.

Explanatory notes to the reports of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR are the most important and most complete sources that reveal the results of the implementation of the party's policy in the field of financing the national economy of the country, but they are far from the only ones.

Of interest are also the draft state budgets for 1925 / 26-1928 / 29, although the planned targets of the projects did not always correspond to the execution. The reported data were published in the materials for the government reports for 1925 / 26-1928 / 29.

Foreign trade was of great importance for the development of industry. A significant part of equipment, raw materials and semi-finished products was delivered from abroad, and export earnings were one of the most important sources of funds needed for industrial construction. The comments contain information about the structure of exports and imports and its changes in connection with the possibilities and tasks of the country's national economy.

The issues of foreign trade are covered more fully in a number of published sources, mainly in materials to government reports. Detailed data on the structure of industrial imports and exports and its changes in connection with industrialization are published in a separate edition [1]. Statistical information on foreign trade, in addition to general economic statistical collections and reference books, was published in a special collection [2] , however, the prices of goods, and hence their cost, were recalculated in accordance with the prices of 1955, which makes it somewhat difficult to compare them with all other materials cited in this edition.

The second chapter includes documents on the first successes of the Soviet state in the field of industrial development. The main source containing information on the development of industry are materials to the government reports for 1925 / 26-1927 / 28. (doc. No. 10, 13, 23). The reports contain information on the growth of industrial production in general and by industry, on organizational and technical measures to rationalize production: mechanization of labor-intensive processes, standardization of products, improvement of labor organization (especially in the textile industry), specialization and cooperation of enterprises, transition to mass or large-scale production. production, resulting in a systematic increase in labor productivity. These materials also contain information about the first successes of the industry in the development of products previously imported from abroad,

Contains information about measures for the development of small industry, about such an important form of participation of the peasantry in industrialization, as the supply of industry with agricultural raw materials.

Thus, the materials for the government reports represent an official source of a generalizing nature, most fully covering all the main issues of the country's economic development, and in comparison with the market reviews of the Council of Congresses of State Industry and Trade, published in the collection of documents "The First Steps of Industrialization of the USSR" exact data.

Organizational and technical measures have led to a significant improvement in the quality indicators of the industry. The chapter publishes the report of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR to the Council of People's Commissars “on the cost of industrial production for 1926-27, which contains detailed information about the reasons for the change in the cost of production and its constituent factors (doc. No. 14).

The chapter includes statistical materials prepared by the Central Statistical Administration for the XVI Party Conference, reflecting the growth of industrial production in the USSR in physical terms, technical and economic indicators of industrial performance and the growth of gross industrial output of the Union republics (doc. No. 24, 25). Document No. 24 contains information on changes in the share of products of certain industries in the economy of the republics already in the first years of industrialization.

To increase industrial production and improve quality indicators, large capital works were required. The materials for the government reports contain information about the capital construction of industry. The issues of construction of power plants are covered in particular detail. However, the most detailed results of capital construction and the main work on rationalization in the coal, metallurgical, oil industry, mechanical engineering, chemical, textile, sugar and forest industries are given in the reviews of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR in the STO for 1925 / 26-1927 / 28, years. But these reviews cover only construction in the all-union industry, subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR. Information for the whole 1927/28 is not complete. The surveys show the state of the industry by the end of the recovery period, shortcomings in the structure of enterprises, built before the October Revolution, the degree of wear and tear of equipment and especially heat and power facilities. They contain materials on the structure of expenses for major repairs, reconstruction and expansion, as well as for new construction by years and industries, the growth rate of allocations for the development of heavy and light industry (doc. No. 15-22).

For the study of the organization of construction work, the conclusions of the USSR People's Commissariat of Finance and the USSR State Planning Committee for published reports are of interest (TsGAOR USSR, f. 374, op. 1, d. 485, pp. 306-315, 320-330). A complete description of capital construction projects was published by the editors of the "Commercial and Industrial Newspaper" [3].

An indicator of the efficiency and volume of capital work carried out in the main industries is also a noticeable increase in its power supply. These materials may be found in a number issued at the time of statistical handbooks [4]. Detailed information about the rationalization measures carried out by the Supreme Economic Council in industry, including the use of foreign technical experience, measures in the field of scientific organization of labor, the development of the system of research and design organizations, is contained in a report specially prepared by the Supreme Council of National Economy for the Council of People's Commissars, which was published in 1928. . [5]

As a result of the successes of industrial construction, the role of the capitalist elements in the eligible industry has noticeably decreased. The materials published in the chapter by the CSO, prepared as material for compiling the control figures for 1928/29 (document no. 26), contain information on the social structure of industry for a number of key indicators: the number of enterprises and gross output.

This chapter contains information about the distribution of the concession industry by industry, product, capital and number of workers. Despite the insignificant volume of production of concession enterprises in the total volume of industrial production, the concessions were used by the Soviet state to obtain currency and alleviate unemployment. A number of information about the struggle for the economy regime is contained in the published report of the NK RFL for 1926-1927. [6]

The increased spread of self-supporting principles in the national economy required further improvement of industrial management based on economic methods, which found expression both in expanding the rights of enterprises and in changing the structure and tasks of the administrative apparatus of the Supreme Council of the National Economy. The same chapter publishes the "Regulations on State Industrial Trusts" adopted on June 29, 1927 (doc., No. 12). The "Regulations", which was the fruit of the long-term work of the Supreme Council of the National Economy ("Commercial and Industrial Newspaper" for 1925-1927), provided enterprises with a certain independence in the field of production, financing, and staffing.

More detailed issues of production management during this period are covered in special collections [7].

The third chapter is devoted to the development of the first five-year plan. The chapter mainly publishes the minutes of the Central Commission for Long-Term Planning and Presidiums. State Planning Commission and the Supreme Economic Council, reflecting the main stages of the development of the five-year plan, as well as a number of tables containing planned targets for the optimal and minimum options.

The development of the first five-year plan was carried out over a number of years, starting in 1926, both in the State Planning Committee and in the Supreme Economic Council. Variants of plans prepared by these institutions, as well as directives for drawing up an industrial plan for 1928 / 29-1932 / 33. were published in due time [8]. The first five-year plan was also published in 1929, and the revised version in 1930 [9]

The third section of the collection consists of two chapters.

The first of them examines changes in the size and composition of the working class, training; the report of the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR for 1926/27 is published (doc, No. 54). It contains information about the number of workers, the first steps of the bodies of the People's Commissariat of Labor on the planned supply of enterprises and economic bodies with labor, to regulate the departure of the rural population to work. The latter was especially urgent, an event for the first years, since in a number of sectors of the national economy, especially in construction, the labor of otkhodniks (Migrant workers. S.M) was used almost exclusively. The report examines the nature and causes of unemployment in the USSR, measures to eliminate it and help the unemployed. This chapter contains statistical information from the CSO on the number of workers and employees by branches of the eligible industry for the Union republics and the country as a whole, on the number of women workers (doc. No. 57.58). It also publishes a number of documents on the training of qualified workers and specialists, in particular, the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 11, 1926 "On the training and education of the labor force", as well as extracts from the materials for the government report for 1925/26, 1927 / 28 years. (doc. No. 51, 52, 56). In addition, the chapter includes information on the number of members of the CPSU (b) according to the party census of 1927 and members of trade unions among workers and specialists (doc. No. 53, 55).

Several sources published at one time significantly supplements the published documents. Among them, first of all, one should point to the materials of the professional census of 1929-1930, carried out among the workers of the main industries. They contain information on social background, age composition, due to agriculture, literacy workers as a whole, industries and parts [10]. Subsequently, the trade unions did not undertake detailed surveys. Unfortunately, the census materials were not fully processed. Detailed data on the number of workers were systematically published in the Bulletin Labor Statistics. In 1929, the materials of the CSO were published on the number of migrant workers, their geographical distribution and qualifications [ 11] ... The materials of the survey of specialists at enterprises and in the management apparatus, carried out in 1929, as well as several information on the training of qualified personnel in the USSR [12] were published.

The second chapter of the third section contains documents on the labor rise of the working class and its participation in the management of production. It also publishes the guiding documents of the Communist Party that guided the creative activities of the working people: the appeal of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "On the Struggle for Economy", the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "On the organization of oral and print agitation for the rationalization of production and the involvement of broad workers the masses in the campaign to rationalize production ”(doc. No. 59, 61). A circular letter from the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Supreme Economic Council on the work of industrial meetings is also published (doc. No. 60).

In the materials of the organizational and distribution department of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), it is said about the participation of party organizations of various enterprises in the management of mass work to implement a regime of economy and rationalization of production. These documents focus on deficiencies with a view to eradicating them. This is the specificity of these reviews (doc. No. 62, 63).

In the reports and reviews of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, the issues of organizing the work of production meetings and their bodies are covered in detail: the transfer of work to the shop, the organization of temporary control commissions for in-depth study of complex issues, cooperation between production meetings of enterprises connected with each other in the production process. All these materials do not contain accurate statistics on the work of the meetings (the reporting was only approximate), but they show the main trends in the development of the main form of mass production work of trade unions (doc. No. 67, 72, 73).

The information review of the Central Committee of the Komsomol (doc. No. 68) clearly reveals the main forms of mass work put forward by the Komsomol organizations: contests for the best worker, production roll call and, finally, the highest form of socialist competition of those years - the first shock brigades.

By the end of 1928, the rollcall of enterprises took on such a wide scale that they turned into a kind of competition between regions, a striking example of which is the Ural-Siberian roll call.

The chapter publishes materials on the organization by the editors of the "Commercial and Industrial Newspaper" jointly with the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council of National Economy of the competition for the best enterprise to reduce the cost of production - the initial form of inter-factory competition (doc. No. 69).

The report of the press department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to the 15th Congress (doc. No. 66) contains detailed information about yet another form of mass production work, first put forward by the newspaper Tverskaya Pravda - about social production reviews of enterprises.

Much space in the chapter is devoted to the participation of workers in the management of production. In addition to the already mentioned production meetings and temporary control commissions, the workers participated in improving the organization of production through production conferences and bodies of the NK RKI. The report of the organizational distribution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the 15th Congress contains a lot of material on the promotion of workers from production to the economic apparatus and to the posts of engineering and technical workers (doc. No. 65)

Information about the participation of trade unions in production management - discussion of control figures and the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy, consideration of the balances of households. bodies, participation in the formation of economic bodies, etc. - are available in the report of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions to the VIII Congress of Trade Unions. Published at one time, it not only became a bibliographic rarity, but is also the only document that contains the specified information in a generalized form [13].

The published documents have been extracted from the funds of the Central State Archives of the National Economy of the USSR (TSGANKH USSR), the Central State Archives of the October Revolution, the highest bodies of state power and government bodies of the USSR (TSGAOR USSR), the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU (TsPA.IML ), the archive of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, as well as from previously published editions, which are currently a bibliographic rarity.

Archaeographic processing of documents was carried out in accordance with generally accepted publication rules.

All abbreviated words not included in the abbreviation list are expanded without square brackets, unless the correctness of the expansion is in doubt or may be twofold. The figures in the tables, in the event that the amount does not converge with the total number during the calculation, have not been corrected, but the footnotes indicate that the sum of the numbers does not converge with the total.

Some of the documents are published in extracts. Information that is not related to the topic of the collection or is of secondary importance is omitted. All extracts are specified in footnotes. Extracts include a list of omitted sections, chapters and paragraphs or a brief summary of them, except for the following documents: a) resolutions of congresses and conferences of the CPSU (b); b) statistical tables, if data outside the chronological scope of the collection is omitted.

In the materials for the reports of the government and the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, the omitted chapters and paragraphs are indicated only for the section from which the extract is published. Extracts from documents are indicated in the title and in dashes in the text, and the latter is not put in the case of missing whole sections, chapters and paragraphs.

In the materials for the reports of the government and the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, the numbering of tables was changed in accordance with the extracts, and the diagrams were omitted without reservations. Materials and statistical tables, previously published and without a date, are dated by content, since it is not possible to establish an exact date.

The appendices to the collection contain notes, a list of abbreviations, a list of sources used, an index of enterprises, as well as a chronicle of the decisions of the Communist Party and the Soviet government on industrialization for the period from December 23, 1925 to September 19, 1928. Central Committee of the CPSU and published materials.

[1] "Industrial exports and imports". M., 1930.

[2] “Foreign trade of the USSR. 1918-1940 ". M., 1960.

[3] "Capital construction of industry". M., 1928.

[4] "The USSR in 15 years." M., 1932; “Union industry in figures. Growth rates and development factors. (Materials for the party conference in 1929) ". M., 1929.

[5] "Rationalization of the industry of the USSR". M., 1928

[6] “Two years of work of the Central Control Commission - RCI of the USSR. Report to the XV Party Congress”. M., 1927

[7] "Management of the national economy of the USSR (1917-1940)", M., 1968; "Soviets of National Economy and Planning Bodies in the Center and in the Local". M., 1957

[8] "Materials OSVOK", series III. Prospects for the development of industry in connection with the prospects for the development of the national economy. M., 1927; "Materials for the five-year industrial development plan (1927/28 - 1931/32)" M., 1927; "Control figures of the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR (1927 / 28-1931 / 32)." M., 1928; "Commercial and Industrial Newspaper", April 24, 1928; "Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926 / 27-1930 / 31." M., 1927; "Prospective orientation for 1927 / 28-1931 / 32". M., 1927

[9] "Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR", v. I-IV. M., 1930.

[10] "Labor in the USSR". Handbook 1926-1930 M., 1930; "Metalworkers of the USSR", vol. I. M., 1930.

[11] “Departure of the rural population to work in the USSR in 1926/27”. Moscow 1929

[12] "Engineering and technical personnel of the industry of the USSR". M., 1930; “Personnel training in the USSR. 1927-1931 ". M., 1933.

[13] “Trade unions of the USSR. 1926-1928. Report of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions to the VIII Congress of Trade Unions ", M., 1928

 

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