(1) Stalin's Russia (Chris Ward)

The Birth of the First Piatiletka (Plan)
1. "Hero of Labour" was introduced in July 1927 to reward higher productivity and better labour discipline."
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2. "After warning delegates of an impending imperialist attack he insisted that more attention should be paid to economic independence and heavy industry"
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3. "1926/27... three giant giant schemes [was started]: the Volga-Don canal, the Dneprostroi hydroelectric complex in Ukraine and the Turksib railway line which was to link Turkestan's cotton fields to Siberia's grain and timber regions."
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4. "Tomskii feared that all-out industrialisation would lower worker's living standards and extinguish the last vestiges of trade union autonomy"
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    1. R.W. Davies, The Development of Soviet Budgetary System, Cambridge University Press 1958, ch. 5.
5. "[In the] 1928 central committee plenum [Stalin] described Peter the Great's industrialisation drive as "an attempt to leap out of the framework of backwardness," and insisted on the need to catch up with and surpass the advanced capitalist countries encircling the USSR."
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6. "Central committee ordered the mobilization of 1000 communists to study engineering, thereby signalling the start of a major drive fro workers' technical education."
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    1. The localities under attack, Chapter 4.
7. "pig iron... 3.3 to 10 million tons... coal from 35.4 to 75 million tons... iron ore from 5.7 to 19 million tons. Light industry... expand by 70[%]... national income by 103[%], agricultural production by 55[%]... labour productivity by 110[%]
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The first Piatiletka in action
1. "Declared complete in December 1932, no major target had been reached."
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2. "More than half the machine tools on stream in the USSR by 1932 were fabricated or installed after 1928."
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3. Gigantic schemes like the Magnitogorsk combine were built from scratch, the Turksib railway line opened in 1930 and the first of the Dneprostoi's new turbines began to turn in 1932
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The crisis of 1932-1933
1. "Extravagant claims of overfulfiment in sector after sector belied the realities of chaos and confusion."
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2. "1932-33 the entire experiment teetered on the verge of collapse."
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3. "The railways were quite unable to deal with the loads."
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4. "50,000 inhabitants a week between 1928/29 and 1932 [went to the cities and towns]."
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5. "Workers scampered from job to job in search of better conditions and managers tried to hang on to skilled labour by offering higherwages and all manner of official and unofficial perks"
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    1. Nove, Economic History, pp. 198-9
      1. According to Nove, Coal miners changed their jobs three times on average in 1930.
Drafting the second piatiletka
1. "Improve living standards, revitalize transport, consolidate the gains of the first plan and teach the newly recruited labour force to "master technique" - to handle recently installed machinery more efficiently. Bourgeois specialists, hounded by disgruntled workers and party activists alike, were to be treated with respect and consideration."
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    1. The party engineers and workers, Revolution and retreat , Chapter 7.
"Three good years"
1. "By January 1937 the planners and their political masters could look back on the previus 36 months with some satisfaction"
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Plan fulfilment
1. "1928 to 1940 oil production increased from 11.6 to 31.3 million tons, coal from 35.5 to 165.9 million tons, steel from 4.3 to 18.3 million tons and electricity generation from 5 billion to 48.3 billion kilowatt-hours."
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    1. R. W. Davies, "Economic and social policy in the USSR 1917-1941, in P. Mathias and S. Pollard, edits The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 8, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
2. "Cotton cloth rose from 2700 million to only 4000 million square metres"
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Living standards
1. "Leningrad meat, milk and fruit consumption declined by two-thirds between 1928 and 1933. Moscow... set up 'vegetarian days'."
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    1. J. Scott, Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel, Indiana University Press 1973, p. 78
2. "1935, workers still consumed less meat and dairy products than 10 years previously."
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3. "Each Soviet citizen had on average 5.88 square metres of living space in 1928, a figure well below the 8.25 official 'sanitary norm'."
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4. No one disputes that the plans ended the misery of long-term unemployment, which dogged the lives of thousands in the 1920's
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5. "Kuznetsov lived with about 550 other, in a wooden structure about 800 feet long and fifteen feet wide"
6. "There were no closets or wardrobes, because each one owned only the clothing on his back."
  1. A. Smith, I Was a Soviet Worker, Robert Hale, London 1937, pg. 43.
7. "Working-class families [were helped] by drawing women into industry, thus increasing disposable income within families"
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8. "[The reason for living standards dropping], was the absolute priority given by the party-state to capital investment over consumption."
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Forced Labour
1. "'Highly conservative' calculations... about eight million were in Gulag by the end of 1938"
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    1. Conquest, Great Terror, p. 709
2. "Seven million on the even of the German invasion or 8[%] of the entire labour force."
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    1. S. Swianiewicz, Forced Labour and Economic Development: An Enquiry into the Experience of Soviet Industrialization (Oxford University Press, 1965, p.39.
3. "Gulag inmates were frequently put to big projects - typically canal construction - requiring the utilization of vast hordes of unskilled labourers."
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4. "Wheatcroft suggested a maximum of four to five million Gulag inmates by 1939."
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    1. Wheatcroft, Soviet Studies (2, 1981), p. 286. and Wheatcroft, Soviet Studies (2, 1983)
5. "Wheatcroft and Davies list just over 2.6 million detainees in 1937 (in camps, colonies prisons and labour settlements) and just under three million two years later."
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    1. R. W. Davies, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union 1913-1945, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 70
6. "1.8[%] of the total population"
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Society in turmoil
1. "Overall the urban population rose by some 30 million between 1926 and 1939; on average towns and cities accommodated 200,000 extra people every month."
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2. Russia seemed to have become one huge "nomadic Gypsy camp."
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The party, engineers and workers
1. "Only 2.1[%] of Soviet engineers were party members in 1927."
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    1. N. Lampert, The Technical Intelligentsia and the Soviet State. A study of Soviet Managers and Technicians 1928-193, Macmillian, London, 1979, pg 71
2. "Forced industrialisation was accompanied by the systematic destruction of trade union influence and the elaboration of a tranche of regulations which severely restricted worker's rights."
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    1. J. D. Barber, "Stakhanovism reassessed", unpublished paper, Soviet Industrialisation Project Seminar, Centre for Russia and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1986
3. "Violations of Labour discipline were criminalised"
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4. "Internal passports followed in December, and in 1938 a decree introduced "Work books."
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5. "My son will be an engineer". There was pride in his tone."
  1. N. Lampert, The Technical Intelligentsia and Soviet State. A study of Soviet Managers and Technicians 1928-1935, Mamillian, London 1979, table 12, pg. 71
6. "Thousands benefited from the regime's decision to throw open the doors of universities and technical colleges to proletarians."
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1937 and the third piatiletka
1. "After "three good years", 1937 ushered in a period of drift and stagnation"
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(1) Stalin's Russia (Chris Ward)

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