Industrialization summary. Industrialization - industrial revolution in the ussr

Industrialization is a process of radical restructuring of the country's economy, aimed at creating and increasing industrial potential. Industrialization - inevitable condition transformation of an agrarian country into a powerful, industrially developed state.
In the Soviet Union, this process took place as quickly as possible - from 1929 to 1940.

Reasons for industrialization in the USSR.
A crisis "New economic policy"(NEP). The NEP, proclaimed by the Bolsheviks immediately after the end of the Civil War, helped revive the economy in the post-war years. But by the end of the 1920s, the NEP, having fulfilled its tasks, was unable to bring the country's economy to a new level. In 1928, the majority economic indicators The Soviet Union reached indicators Russian Empire the sample of the pre-war 1913, and surpassed in some industries. For example, production volumes in mechanical engineering in 1928 were 80% higher than in 1913, electricity production amounted to 5 billion kW versus 1.9 billion kW, 1.8 thousand tractors were produced that were not produced in the Russian Empire at all. However, even this growth rate did not meet the country's needs.
Economic security of the USSR. In the late 1920s, the Soviet Union continued to be under political and economic blockade. There was a sharp question about economic security a country based on self-sufficiency in manufactured goods. But the USSR continued to be a country with a predominant agricultural sector of the economy, and was forced to turn to the foreign market to purchase industrial goods.
Military security of the USSR ... The first World War did not resolve the contradictions between the powers, but only postponed them for a short period. A new world war was inevitable. And the USSR, included in the sphere of world politics, would be a participant in it. But the new war required a developed industry, which was simply not the case in the USSR during the NEP period. The historically important issue that was still facing the Russian Empire was not resolved - the industrial development of the country, the creation modern economy corresponding to the status of a world power. The rate of industrial growth in pre-revolutionary Russia was not enough to wage a modern war. For example, over the three years of the war, 28 thousand machine guns were produced in Russia, 280 thousand in Germany, and 326 thousand in France. Aircraft engines were not produced in Russia at all and 3.5 thousand aircraft were built on foreign-made engines, while 48 thousand aircraft were produced in France during the same period. The situation with weapons was not the best in Soviet Russia in the 1920s, which was a direct consequence of the undeveloped industry.

Industrialization progress.
Industrialization in the USSR was carried out based on five-year plans(five-year plans). The plan of the first five-year plan, 1929-1932, was fulfilled - in 4 years and 3 months. The plan for the second five-year plan, 1932-1937, was not fulfilled. The third five-year plan remained unfinished due to the outbreak of the war. Therefore, summing up the results of industrialization in the USSR, it is customary to operate with indicators for 1940.
Industrialization in the USSR was not aimed at making a profit, but creating conditions, a basis for stable industrial growth in the coming years. For this, first of all, the enterprises of the "A" group were created - the production of means of production: energy, metallurgy, mining, transport and machine-tool building. This laid the foundation for the development of industry in the USSR for decades to come.
Another feature of the transformation of the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower was the absence of foreign loans and investments. In conditions of foreign policy isolation, they simply had nowhere to come from. The USSR carried out industrialization at the expense of internal reserves. But this does not mean that there was no cooperation with industrialized countries. On the contrary, the USSR actively attracted foreign specialists, bought means of production, and, most importantly, technologies. This helped him economic crisis that happened in Western countries in the early 1930s. During the crisis, Western companies willingly went to cooperate with the USSR. With the involvement of foreign specialists and technologies, such major industrial enterprises as DneproGES, MMK, tractor plants in Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant and others were built.

The results of industrialization in the USSR.
General results. For ten years, the Soviet Union has made an unparalleled breakthrough in the development of industry. From 1929 to 1940, more than 8.5K large enterprises ... Among them are such giants as: DneproGES, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, Stalingrad, Chelyabinsk and Kharkov Tractor Plants, Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant, Zaporizhstal, Azovstal, Uralmash, Krivoy Rog and Novolipetsk metallurgical plants and many others. The Moscow and Leningrad metros were put into operation.
The growth rate of industrial production was three times higher than in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the century.
This allowed the USSR to become not only an industrial power, but also to become a leader among industrial developed countries... So, in 1937, in terms of absolute volumes of industrial production, the Soviet Union ranked second in the world, second only to the United States. True, it lagged behind Germany, Great Britain and France in terms of production per capita. In the same year, 1937, the share of imports of manufactured goods was only 1% of the volume of consumption. Thus, the problem of economic independence was solved. The country itself provided itself with the necessary goods. Moreover, the USSR itself supplied the products of its factories for export. For example, having abandoned the import of tractors in 1932, in 1934 the Soviet Union itself began to export tractors. own production.
One of the results of industrialization in the USSR was the creation of new industries - machine tool building, aircraft building, automobile manufacturing, the production of tractors, bearings, and instrument making.
GDP growth during the first five-year plans was 6% annually. And industrial production grew every year by 11-16%.

The results of industrialization in the USSR for the defense industry. One of the tasks of industrialization was to ensure the country's defense capability. In fact, the defense industry was re-created. This made it possible from 1939 to begin a large-scale rearmament of the army. Unfortunately, it was not finished by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - there was not enough time. But in the course of the war itself, it was the industrial potential of the USSR that made it possible to organize the mass production of weapons and ammunition, and in the shortest possible time to reorganize the industry into military production.

The results of industrialization in the USSR for Agriculture. The main results of industrialization for agriculture were:
- mechanization of agricultural production. With the beginning of the mass production of tractors and other agricultural machinery in the early 1930s, agriculture received a powerful impetus for development due to mechanization. From 1929 to 1940, more than 700 thousand tractors were produced in the USSR (40% of their world production). The infrastructure for the use and maintenance of this equipment was created in the village - Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS). Accordingly, mass training of specialists was organized - tractor drivers, mechanics, drivers, etc.
- mass resettlement rural population to the cities. It was both a consequence of collectivization and industrialization. Actually, the massive influx of free labor from the countryside, and only during the first five-year plan, this migration of the population amounted to about 12 million people, created favorable conditions for successful industrial construction. The mechanization of rural production freed up a lot of workers, which were used in the course of industrialization. In total, from 1928 to 1940, about 35 million people moved from the countryside to the city. However, until the early 1960s, the share of rural residents was more than 50% of the total population.

The results of industrialization in the USSR in the social sphere. Industrialization in the USSR directly influenced public life:
- science and education. In the course of industrialization, education was faced with completely different tasks than in the 1920s - not just the elimination of illiteracy (the ability to read and write), but the training of qualified specialists. To this end, in 1930, universal primary education was introduced for the villagers, and the compulsory seven-year education for the urban population (in rural schools the compulsory seven-year education was introduced in 1934). In 1932, a ten-year secondary education system was introduced. In 10 years, from 1929 to 1939, the number of secondary school students increased threefold - from 13.5 million to 31.5 million.
At the same time, a higher education system was being created, its goal was to train domestic engineering personnel. Thus, by 1937 the number of higher educational institutions had increased by 7.7 times compared with 1914.
It was in the 1930s that the foundations of Soviet science were laid, which very soon became one of the most advanced in the world.
- standards of living. At the end of 1920, in connection with the curtailment of the NEP and the restructuring of the economy, the standard of living of the population decreased, and there was a shortage of consumer goods. In 1929, a rationing system for the distribution of goods was introduced, which extended not only to products. But by the mid-1930s, there were already enough goods and products, and the rise in wages, especially in industry, made these goods available to the population. In 1936, the rationing system was abolished. By the end of the 1930s, the level of consumption of goods and services by the population was more than 20% higher than 10 years ago.

On the whole, industrialization in the USSR has achieved its goals.
Without industrialization precisely in such a tight time frame, the political and economic independence of the USSR would not have been achieved. The Soviet Union managed to close the gap with the world powers in just 11 years, which, without exaggeration, is an economic miracle.

It went down in the history of the country as a process of creating a modern industry in it and the formation of a technically equipped society. With the exception of the war years and the period of post-war economic recovery, it covers the period from the late twenties to the early sixties, but its main burden fell on the first five-year plans.

The need to modernize the industry

The goal of industrialization was to overcome the lag caused by the inability of the NEP to provide the necessary level of technical equipment for the national economy. If there was some progress in such areas as light industry, trade and the service sector, then it was not possible to develop in those years on the basis of private capital. The reasons for industrialization included the need to create a military-industrial complex.

First five-year plan

To solve the set tasks, under the leadership of Stalin, a five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1928-1932) was developed, adopted in April 1929 at a meeting of the next party conference. The tasks set for workers in all industries, for the most part, exceeded the real capabilities of the performers. However, this document had the force of an order issued in wartime and was not subject to discussion.

According to the first five-year plan, it was planned to increase industrial output by 185%, and in heavy engineering to achieve an increase in production by 225%. To ensure these indicators, it was planned to achieve an increase in labor productivity by 115%. The successful implementation of the plan, according to the developers, should have led to an increase in the average wages in the manufacturing sector by 70%, and the income of agricultural workers to increase by 68%. In order to supply the state with food in sufficient volume, the plan provided for the involvement of almost 20% of the peasants in collective farms.

Industrial chaos spawned by stormtroopers

Already in the course of the implementation of the planned plans, the construction time of most large industrial enterprises, and the volume of supplies of agricultural products increased. This was done without any technical justification. The calculation was mainly based on general enthusiasm, fueled by a large-scale propaganda campaign. One of the slogans of those years was the call to fulfill the five-year plan in four years.

The features of the industrialization of those years were the forced industrial construction... It is known that with the shortening of the five-year period, the planned targets almost doubled, and the annual production growth reached 30%. Accordingly, the plans for collectivization were also increased. Such an assault inevitably gave rise to chaos, in which some industries did not keep pace in their development after others, sometimes adjacent to them. This excluded any possibility of planned development of the economy.

The result of a five-year journey

During the period of the first five-year plan, the goal of industrialization in full was not achieved. In many industries, the real indicators largely fell short of the planned volumes. This especially affected the extraction of energy resources, as well as the production of steel and pig iron. But, nevertheless, significant successes were achieved in the creation of the military-industrial complex and all the accompanying infrastructure.

Second stage of industrialization

In 1934, a plan for the second five-year plan was adopted. The goal of the country's industrialization during this period was to improve the operation of enterprises built during the previous five years, as well as to eliminate everywhere the results of the chaos that arose in industry due to the establishment of technically unjustified high rates of development.

In drawing up the plan, the shortcomings of the past years were largely taken into account. In a larger volume, financing of production was provided, and considerable attention was paid to the problems associated with secondary technical and higher education... Their solution was necessary to provide the national economy with a sufficient number of qualified specialists.

Propaganda campaigns during the five-year plans

Already in these years, the results of the country's industrialization did not take long to show itself. In cities, and partly in rural areas, supply has improved markedly. To a greater extent, the need of the population for the scale of these successes was greatly inflated by the large-scale agitation campaign conducted in the country, attributing all the merits exclusively to the Communist Party and its leader, Stalin.

Despite the fact that during the years of industrialization, the widespread introduction of advanced technology was carried out, manual labor still prevailed in many areas of production, and propaganda methods were used where it was not possible to achieve an increase in labor productivity by technological means. An example of this is the famous Race for Record Production deployed in those years, which led to the fact that individual shock workers, for whose exploits the whole enterprise was preparing, received awards and prizes, and the rest only increased their norms, urging them to be equal to the foremost workers.

Results of the first five-year plans

In 1937, Stalin announced that the goal of industrialization had been largely achieved and socialism had been built. Numerous production failures were explained solely by the intrigues of the enemies of the people, against whom the most severe terror was established. When the second five-year plan ended a year later, its most important results were evidence of an increase of two and a half times, steel - three times, and cars - eight.

If in the twenties the country was purely agrarian, then at the end of the second five-year plan it became industrial-agrarian. Between these two stages lie years of truly titanic labor of the entire people. In the post-war period, the USSR became powerful. It is generally believed that socialist industrialization was completed by the beginning of the sixties. At this time, most of the country's population lived in cities and was employed in industrial production.

Over the years of industrialization, new industries have emerged, such as the automotive, aircraft, chemical and electrical industries. But the most important thing was that the state had learned to independently produce everything necessary for its needs. If before the equipment for the production of a particular product was imported from abroad, now the need for it was provided by our own industry.

Industrialization of the USSR

Socialist industrialization of the USSR (Stalin's industrialization) - the transformation of the USSR in the 1930s from a predominantly agrarian country into a leading industrial power.

The beginning of socialist industrialization as an integral part of the "triune task of radically reorganizing society" (industrialization, collectivization of agriculture and the cultural revolution) was laid by the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy (-). At the same time, private commodity and capitalist forms of economy were eliminated.

According to the widespread point of view, the rapid growth of production capacities and production volumes of heavy industry allowed the USSR to win the Great Patriotic War. The buildup of industrial power in the 1930s was considered one of the most important achievements of the USSR within the framework of Soviet ideology. Since the late 1980s, discussions have been going on in Russia about the cost of industrialization, which have also questioned its results and long-term consequences for the Soviet economy and society.

GOELRO

The plan provided for the advanced development of the electric power industry, tied to the development plans of the territories. The GOELRO plan, designed for 10-15 years, provided for the construction of 30 regional power plants (20 thermal power plants and 10 hydroelectric power plants) with a total capacity of 1.75 million kW. The project covered eight main economic regions (North, Central Industrial, South, Volga, Ural, West Siberian, Caucasian and Turkestan). In parallel, the development of the country's transport system was carried out (reconstruction of old and construction of new railway lines, construction of the Volga-Don Canal).

The GOELRO project laid the foundation for industrialization in Russia. Electricity generation in 1932 compared to 1913 increased almost 7 times, from 2 to 13.5 billion kWh.

Discussions during the NEP

One of the fundamental contradictions of Bolshevism was the fact that a party that called itself "workers", and its rule - "the dictatorship of the proletariat", came to power in an agrarian country where factory workers accounted for only a few percent of the population, and most of them were recent immigrants from the village, who have not yet completely severed ties with her. Forced industrialization was designed to eliminate this contradiction.

From a foreign policy point of view, the country was in hostile conditions. According to the leadership of the CPSU (b), there was a high probability of a new war with the capitalist states. It is significant that already at the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921, the author of the report "On the Soviet Republic surrounded by" LB Kamenev stated the preparations for the Second World War that had begun in Europe:

What we see every day in Europe ... testifies that the war is not over, armies are moving, combat orders are given, garrisons are sent to one or another area, no boundaries can be considered firmly established. ... one can expect from hour to hour that the old, completed imperialist massacre will give rise, as its natural continuation, to some new, even more monstrous, even more disastrous imperialist war.

Preparations for war required a thorough rearmament. However, it was impossible to start such rearmament immediately due to the backwardness of heavy industry. At the same time, the existing rates of industrialization seemed insufficient, since the lag behind capitalist countries, in which there was an economic recovery in the 1920s, increased.

One of the first such rearmament plans was outlined already in 1921, in the project for the reorganization of the Red Army, prepared for the X Congress by S. I. Gusev and M. V. Frunze. The project stated both the inevitability of a new big war and the unpreparedness of the Red Army for it. Gusev and Frunze proposed to deploy a powerful network of military schools in the country, and to organize the mass production of tanks, artillery, "armored cars, armored trains, airplanes" in a "shock" order. A separate point was also proposed to carefully study the combat experience of the Civil War, including the units opposing the Red Army (officer units of the White Guards, Makhnovist carts, Wrangel's "bomb-throwing airplanes", etc. In addition, the authors also called for urgently organizing the publication in Russia of foreign " Marxist "works on military issues.

After the end of the Civil War, Russia again faced the pre-revolutionary problem of agrarian overpopulation ( "Malthusian-Marxian trap"). During the reign of Nicholas II, overpopulation caused a gradual decrease in the average allotment of land, the surplus of workers in the countryside was not absorbed either by the outflow to the cities (which amounted to about 300 thousand people per year with an average growth of up to 1 million people per year), neither by emigration, nor by initiated the Stolypin government by the program of resettlement of colonists beyond the Urals. In the 1920s, overpopulation took the form of urban unemployment. It became a serious social problem that grew throughout the NEP, and by its end it amounted to more than 2 million people, or about 10% of the urban population. The government believed that one of the factors holding back the development of industry in the cities was the lack of food and the reluctance of the countryside to provide the cities with bread at low prices.

The party leadership intended to solve these problems by means of a planned redistribution of resources between agriculture and industry, in accordance with the concept of socialism, as announced at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Third All-Union Congress of Soviets in Stalin's history. ”, However, he made only a general decision on the need to transform the USSR from an agrarian country into an industrial one, without defining the specific forms and rates of industrialization.

The choice of a specific implementation of central planning was hotly debated in 1926-1928. Supporters genetic approach (V. Bazarov, V. Groman, N. Kondratyev) believed that the plan should be drawn up on the basis of objective laws of economic development, identified as a result of the analysis of existing trends. Adherents teleological approach (G. Krzhizhanovsky, V. Kuibyshev, S. Strumilin) ​​believed that the plan should transform the economy and proceed from the future structural changes, product release capabilities and tough discipline. Among the party functionaries, the former were supported by N. Bukharin, a supporter of the evolutionary path to socialism, and the latter by L. Trotsky, who insisted on immediate industrialization.

One of the first ideologists of industrialization was the economist E. A. Preobrazhensky, close to Trotsky, who in 1924-1925 developed the concept of forced “super-industrialization” by pumping funds out of the countryside (“initial socialist accumulation,” according to Preobrazhensky). For his part, Bukharin accused Preobrazhensky and the "Left Opposition" that supported him of implanting "military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry" and "internal colonialism."

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) I. Stalin at first took the point of view of Bukharin, but after Trotsky was expelled from the Central Committee of the party at the end of the year he changed his position to a diametrically opposite one. This led to a decisive victory for the teleological school and a radical turn from the NEP. Researcher V. Rogovin believes that the reason for Stalin's "left turn" was the grain procurement crisis of 1927; the peasantry, especially the well-to-do, massively refused to sell grain, considering the purchase prices set by the state to be too low.

The internal economic crisis of 1927 was intertwined with a sharp exacerbation of the foreign policy situation. On February 23, 1927, the British Foreign Secretary sent a note to the USSR demanding that it stop supporting the Kuomintang communist government in China. After the refusal, Great Britain broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR on May 24-27. At the same time, however, the alliance between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists collapsed; On April 12, Chiang Kai-shek and his allies massacred the Shanghai Communists ( see Shanghai massacre of 1927). This incident was widely used by the "united opposition" ("Trotskyite-Zinoviev bloc") to criticize official Stalinist diplomacy as knowingly failed.

In the same period, there was a raid on the Soviet embassy in Beijing (April 6), the British police conducted a search in the Soviet-English joint stock company Arcos in London (May 12). In June 1927, representatives of the ROVS carried out a series of terrorist attacks against the USSR. In particular, on June 7, White émigré Kaverda killed the Soviet plenipotentiary envoy in Warsaw Voikov, on the same day in Minsk the head of the Belarusian OGPU I. Opansky was killed, a day earlier a terrorist ROVS threw a bomb at the OGPU pass bureau in Moscow. All these incidents contributed to the creation of an atmosphere of "war psychosis", the emergence of expectations of a new foreign intervention ("crusade against Bolshevism").

By January 1928, only 2/3 of the grain had been procured in comparison with the level of the previous year, since the peasants massively held back the grain, considering the purchase prices too low. The interruptions in the supply of cities and the army that began were aggravated by the aggravation of the foreign policy situation, which even reached the point of conducting a test mobilization. In August 1927, panic began among the population, resulting in a wholesale purchase of food for future use. At the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (December 1927) Mikoyan admitted that the country had gone through the hardships "on the eve of war without having a war."

First five-year plan

To create your own engineering base, urgent order a domestic system of higher technical education was created. In 1930, universal primary education was introduced in the USSR, and seven-year compulsory education in cities.

With the aim of increasing incentives to work, pay has become more closely tied to productivity. Centers for the development and implementation of the principles of the scientific organization of labor were actively developing. One of the largest centers of this kind (CIT) has created about 1,700 training centers with 2,000 highly qualified CIT instructors in different parts of the country. They operated in all leading sectors of the national economy - in mechanical engineering, metallurgy, construction, light and timber industries, on railways and vehicles, in agriculture and even in the navy.

In parallel, the state moved to a centralized distribution of the means of production and consumer goods belonging to it, the introduction of command-administrative methods of management and nationalization were carried out. private property... Emerged political system based on the leading role of the CPSU (b), state property on the means of production and a minimum of private initiative. Also, the widespread use of forced labor of GULAG prisoners, special settlers and the rear militia began.

In 1933, at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Stalin said in his report that, according to the results of the first five-year plan, less consumer goods were produced than needed, but the policy of relegating the tasks of industrialization to the background would lead to the fact that it would be the tractor and automobile industries, ferrous metallurgy, metal for the production of machines. The country would be sitting without bread. Capitalist elements in the country would incredibly increase the chances for the restoration of capitalism. Our situation would become similar to that of China, which then did not have its own difficult and military industry, and became the object of aggression. We would not have non-aggression pacts with other countries, but military intervention and war. A dangerous and deadly war, a bloody and unequal war, for in this war we would be almost unarmed in front of the enemies who have at their disposal all modern means of attack.

The first five-year plan was associated with rapid urbanization. The urban workforce increased by 12.5 million, of which 8.5 million were rural migrants. However, the USSR reached a share of 50% of the urban population only in the early 1960s.

Use of foreign specialists

Engineers were invited from abroad, many famous companies, such as the Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and General Electric, were involved in the work and carried out the supply of modern equipment, a significant part of the models of equipment produced in those years at Soviet factories were copies or modifications of foreign analogues (for example, the Fordson tractor, assembled at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant).

A branch of Albert Kahn, Inc. was opened in Moscow. under the name "Gosproektstroy". Its leader was Moritz Kahn, brother of the head of the company. It employed 25 leading American engineers and about 2.5 thousand Soviet employees. At that time, it was the largest architectural bureau in the world. Over the three years of its existence, "Gosproektstroy" has passed through it more than 4 thousand Soviet architects, engineers and technicians who studied the American experience. The Central Bureau of Heavy Engineering (CBTM), a branch of the German company Demag, also operated in Moscow.

Albert Kahn's firm acted as a coordinator between the Soviet customer and hundreds of Western companies supplying equipment and advising on the construction of individual projects. Thus, the technological project of the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant was carried out by the Ford company, the construction project by the American company Austin. The construction of the 1st State Bearing Plant in Moscow (GPZ-1), which was designed by Kana, was carried out with the technical assistance of the Italian company RIV.

The Stalingrad Tractor Plant, built according to Kahn's design in 1930, was originally built in the United States, and then was dismantled, transported to the USSR and assembled under the supervision of American engineers. It was equipped with equipment from more than 80 American engineering companies and several German firms.

results

At the end of 1932, the successful and early implementation of the first five-year plan in four years and three months was announced. Summing up its results, Stalin said that heavy industry fulfilled the plan by 108%. Between October 1, 1928 and January 1, 1933, the production fixed assets of heavy industry increased 2.7 times.

In his report on XVII Congress VKP (b) in January 1934, Stalin cited the following figures with the words: "This means that our country has become firmly and finally - an industrial country."

The first five-year plan was followed by the second five-year plan, with slightly less emphasis on industrialization, and then the third five-year plan, which was disrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War.

The result of the first five-year plans was the development of heavy industry, due to which GDP growth during 1928-40, according to V.A.Mel'yantsev, amounted to about 4.6% per year (according to other, earlier estimates, from 3% to 6 , 3%). Industrial production in the period 1928-1937 increased by 2.5-3.5 times, that is, 10.5-16% per year. In particular, the production of machinery in the period 1928-1937. grew on average 27.4% per year.

With the beginning of industrialization, the consumption fund fell sharply, and as a result, the standard of living of the population. By the end of 1929, the rationing system had been extended to almost all food products, but there was still a shortage of rations, and huge queues had to be stood in order to buy them. Later, the standard of living began to improve. In 1936, the cards were abolished, which was accompanied by higher wages in the industrial sector and an even greater increase in the state ration prices for all goods. Average level per capita consumption in 1938 was 22% higher than in 1928. However, the greatest growth was among the party and labor elite and did not affect the vast majority of the rural population, or more than half of the country's population.

The date of the end of industrialization is determined in different ways by different historians. From the point of view of the conceptual striving to raise heavy industry in record time, the most pronounced period was the first five-year plan. Most often, the end of industrialization is understood as the last pre-war year (1940), less often the year on the eve of Stalin's death (1952). If industrialization is understood as a process whose goal is the share of industry in GDP, characteristic of industrially developed countries, then the economy of the USSR reached such a state only in the 1960s. The social aspect of industrialization should also be taken into account, since only in the early 1960s. urban population exceeded rural.

Professor ND Kolesov believes that without the implementation of the policy of industrialization, the country's political and economic independence would not have been ensured. The sources of funds for industrialization and its pace were predetermined by economic backwardness and the too short time allotted for its liquidation. According to Kolesov, the Soviet Union managed to eliminate backwardness in just 13 years.

Criticism

During the Soviet era, the communists argued that industrialization was based on a rational and feasible plan. Meanwhile, it was assumed that the first five-year plan would come into effect at the end of 1928, but even by the time of its announcement in April-May 1929, the work on its preparation had not been completed. The original form of the plan included targets for 50 industries and agriculture, as well as the relationship between resources and opportunities. In the course of time, the achievement of predetermined indicators began to play a major role. If the growth rates of industrial production initially set in the plan were 18-20%, by the end of the year they were doubled. Despite the report on the successful implementation of the first five-year plan, in fact, the statistics were falsified, and none of the goals were achieved even close. Moreover, there has been a sharp decline in agriculture and industrial sectors that depend on agriculture. Part of the party nomenklatura was extremely outraged by this, for example, S. Syrtsov described the reports on the achievements as "eyewash."

Despite the development of the production of new products, industrialization was carried out mainly by extensive methods: economic growth was ensured by an increase in the rate of gross fixed capital formation, the rate of savings (due to the fall in the consumption rate), the level of employment and the exploitation of natural resources. British scientist Don Filzer believes that this was due to the fact that as a result of collectivization and a sharp decline in the standard of living of the rural population human labor greatly depreciated. V. Rogovin notes that the desire to fulfill the plan led to an atmosphere of overextension of forces and a permanent search for reasons to justify the failure to fulfill the overestimated tasks. Because of this, industrialization could not feed on enthusiasm alone and required a number of coercive measures. Beginning in 1930, free movement of labor was banned and criminal penalties were introduced for violations of labor discipline and negligence. Since 1931, workers have been held liable for damage to equipment. In 1932, the forced transfer of labor between enterprises became possible; the death penalty was introduced for the theft of state property. On December 27, 1932, the internal passport was restored, which Lenin once condemned as "tsarist backwardness and despotism." The seven-day week was replaced by a continuous working week, the days of which, without names, were numbered from 1 to 5. Every sixth day had a day off set for work shifts, so that factories could work without interruption. Prisoners' labor was actively used (see GULAG). In fact, during the first five-year plan, the communists laid the foundations for forced labor for the Soviet population. All this has become the subject of sharp criticism in democratic countries, and not only from the liberals, but primarily from the social democrats.

Industrialization was largely carried out at the expense of agriculture (collectivization). First of all, agriculture has become a source of primary accumulation, due to low purchase prices for grain and re-export at higher prices, as well as due to the so-called. "Super tax in the form of overpayments for manufactured goods." In the future, the peasantry also ensured the growth of heavy industry with labor. The short-term result of this policy was a drop in agricultural production: for example, animal husbandry was reduced by almost half and returned to the level of 1928 only in 1938. economic situation peasantry. Agricultural degradation has been a long-term consequence. Additional expenses were required to compensate for the losses of the village. In 1932-1936, collective farms received from the state about 500 thousand tractors not only for the mechanization of land cultivation, but also to compensate for the damage from the reduction in the number of horses by 51% (77 million) in 1929-1933.

As a result of collectivization, famine and purges between 1927 and 1939, the death rate above the "normal" level (human losses) was, according to various estimates, from 7 to 13 million people.

Trotsky and other critics argued that, despite efforts to increase labor productivity, in practice, average labor productivity was falling. This is also stated in a number of modern foreign publications, according to which for the period 1929-1932. the added value per hour of work in industry fell by 60% and returned to the 1929 level only in 1952. This is explained by the emergence in the economy of a chronic commodity shortage, collectivization, mass famine, a massive influx of untrained labor from the countryside and the increase in enterprises of their labor resources. At the same time, the specific GNP per worker in the first 10 years of industrialization increased by 30%.

As for the records of the Stakhanovites, a number of historians note that their methods were a continuous method of increasing productivity, previously popularized by F. Taylor and G. Ford. In addition, the records were largely staged and the result of the efforts of their assistants, but in practice turned into a quest for quantity at the expense of product quality. Due to the fact that wages were proportional to productivity, the salaries of the Stakhanovites were several times higher than the average earnings in industry. This caused a hostile attitude towards the Stakhanovites on the part of the "backward" workers, who reproached them with the fact that their records led to higher norms and lower prices. The newspapers talked about the "unprecedented and undisguised sabotage" of the Stakhanov movement by foremen, heads of shops, and trade union organizations.

The exclusion of Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev from the party at the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks gave rise to a wave of repression in the party, which spread to the technical intelligentsia and foreign technical specialists. At the July 1928 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin put forward the thesis that "as we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify." In the same year, a campaign against sabotage began. The Wreckers were accused of failing to meet the plan's targets. The first high-profile trial in the case of the "saboteurs" was the Shakhty case, after which accusations of sabotage could follow for the enterprise's failure to fulfill the plan.

One of the main goals of forced industrialization was to overcome the lag behind the developed capitalist countries. Some critics argue that this lag itself was largely a consequence of the October Revolution. They point out that in 1913 Russia ranked fifth in world industrial production and was the world leader in industrial growth with a rate of 6.1% per year over the period 1888-1913. However, by 1920, the level of production fell nine times compared to 1916.

Soviet propaganda announced the growth of the socialist economy against the background of the crisis in the capitalist countries

Soviet sources claimed that the economic growth was unprecedented. On the other hand, a number of modern studies claim that the GDP growth rates in the USSR (mentioned above 3 - 6.3%) were comparable to those in Germany in 1930-38. (4.4%) and Japan (6.3%), although they significantly exceeded the indicators of countries such as England, France and the United States, which experienced the Great Depression at that time.

The USSR at that time was characterized by authoritarianism and central planning in the economy. At first glance, this lends weight to the widespread opinion that the high rates of increase in industrial output of the USSR were due precisely to the authoritarian regime and the planned economy. However, a number of economists believe that the growth of the Soviet economy was achieved only due to its extensive nature. Within the framework of counterfactual historical research, or so-called "virtual scenarios", it was suggested that if the NEP continued, industrialization and rapid economic growth would also be possible.

Industrialization and the Great Patriotic War

One of the main goals of industrialization was to build up the military potential of the USSR. So, if as of January 1, 1932, there were 1,446 tanks and 213 armored vehicles in the Red Army, then on January 1, 1934 there were 7,574 tanks and 326 armored vehicles - more than in the armies of Great Britain, France and Nazi Germany combined.

The relationship between industrialization and the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War is a subject of debate. In Soviet times, the view was adopted that industrialization and pre-war rearmament played a decisive role in the victory. However, the superiority of Soviet technology over German on the western border of the country on the eve of the war could not stop the enemy.

According to the historian K. Nikitenko, the built command-administrative system nullified the economic contribution of industrialization to the country's defense capability. V. Lelchuk also draws attention to the fact that by the beginning of winter 1941 the territory was occupied, where 42% of the population of the USSR lived before the war, 63% of coal was mined, 68% of pig iron was smelted, etc. with the help of the powerful potential that was created during the years of accelerated industrialization. " At the disposal of the invaders was the material and technical base of such giants built during the years of industrialization as

A topic such as the industrialization of the USSR in the 30s is of keen interest not only among historians, but also among ordinary citizens... In recent years, all residents of most of the post-Soviet states have witnessed a noticeable decline in the level of development of industry and their own production. The market is flooded with foreign goods, and this applies not only to sophisticated devices and electronics, but even food and medicine.

Naturally, a natural question arises - how in Soviet times did the leaders manage to relatively quickly raise the country from a backward agricultural territory to a modern state at that time, having everything necessary for a normal life?

All this became possible due to the fact that forced industrialization was implemented - the construction of thousands of factories and industrial facilities in record time, which provided the state with everything necessary and gave a constant replenishment of its own GDP.

Reasons for industrialization

The era in question fell on the 30s, when the country was just trying to recover from the revolution, the First World War, various upheavals and internal cataclysms.

She was simply necessary for such important reasons:

1. The entire civilized world began a rapid development and technological leap forward. Germany, the USA, France and other developed powers began to develop rapidly, and if the USSR did not follow their example, this would lead to a significant lag. Then such a huge country could not speak and compete on equal terms with its Western partners and opponents.
2. The position of the working people at that time was assessed more sadly than in pre-revolutionary times under the tsar. People earned very little, unemployment was enormous, and all this could lead to social unrest, riots and serious internal crises. It is clear that the authorities could not allow this.
3. Another goal is to make the Union more competitive in the military sphere. A large territory needs to be protected, and this requires science and technology, advanced technologies and trained personnel. Otherwise developed in technically states could attack at any moment, and the consequences of this would be sad for the inhabitants of the USSR.

Summarizing what has been said, it should be noted that the super-industrialization of the 1930s was caused by the necessity and by the challenges that faced the country and the people.

The main goal of industrialization in the USSR

The country's leadership realistically assessed the state of the USSR and the main sectors of the national economy, and many problems were obvious to it, which did not hesitate to resolve.

The main goals of industrialization were as follows:

1. The country had to take a firm course towards scientific and technological development and technological breakthrough. The main task is to eliminate the technical and economic lag of the Union in the main spheres of activity.
2. The creation of a defense industry that provides the military with everything necessary to protect their borders from a potential enemy.
3. Development of heavy industry, metallurgy, construction of their own machines and mechanisms.
4. Obtaining independence from other states in terms of the economy and providing everything necessary for the life of people.

These critical tasks were to ensure the country's exit from crisis, poverty and transition to a state of growth and prosperity.

How socialist industrialization took place

Among historians, there is no unequivocal attitude to the specifics of industrialization. Many are of the opinion that this event was exclusively compulsory, people were imprisoned in camps and forced to build factories for free, villagers were driven off the land and sent to work in factories. But in fact, such a view of those events is very biased and does not correspond to reality.

The country needed development, and building up its industrial potential was equally needed by both the leaders and the common people. Unemployment, low incomes, lack of prospects and development - what good could a backward agricultural country offer its inhabitants?

And the huge construction projects of the Union scale, thousands of factories, plants, scientific institutes solving specific applied problems gave the state a huge impetus and made it possible in record time to become a world leader on an equal footing with the United States.

The modernization of the country took place gradually, but at the same time very rapidly. The first five-year plan, implemented in 1928-1932, was completed ahead of schedule in 4 years, and during this time about 1,500 large-scale construction projects were deployed, including DneproGES, Uralmash, GAZ, ZIS and much more. The excellent results of the first five-year plan prompted the country and people to move on at an equally accelerated pace.

Since the state propaganda worked no worse than the workers in the factories, then from all the media people were invited to work, the advantages of the industrialization being carried out were explained to them, and ambitious goals were proclaimed. This was a great success. In most cases, work went on in 3 shifts, many citizens worked selflessly and for the sake of a common cause. It also became a factor in the success of the entire case.

Features of industrialization in the USSR

The main features of the industrialization carried out in the USSR are the following:

1. The main emphasis was placed on heavy industry, the creation of factories, huge industrial complexes, which, when fully loaded, provided work for 50,000 people and even more.
2. Activities were actively carried out to educate the population in order to convey to them the meaning of what is happening. Thanks to this, many people approached the matter more consciously and competently.
3. All stages of industrialization were accompanied by the rapid formation of the internal market and the development of its union economy.
4. In the process of the country's development, not only internal, but also foreign capital... Many large Western companies actively contributed to the leadership of the USSR, sold equipment to the country and sent trained engineers, scientists and other experienced personnel.

There were other features that could characterize this period. For example, the cities experienced a shortage of products, since isolated rural farmers could not provide the country with a sufficient amount of bread and food. Therefore, almost compulsory collectivization and the formation of large collective farms were carried out.

Q&A rubric

• What are the sources of industrialization in the USSR?

The sources for industrialization were mainly only internal resources possessed by the state. These were the incomes of light industry, profits from foreign trade grain and agricultural products, timber, precious metals... The distribution of the resources available in the domestic market in favor of the state was also carried out.

• What condition was National economy on the eve of industrialization?

Most of the agricultural facilities were privately owned, and it was then that the state launched such a concept as collectivization. Small farmers could not meet the needs of the country and they had to be united in large groups to increase labor productivity, use expensive advanced machines and mechanisms. Since most of the villagers did not understand this, the people perceived collectivization extremely hard.

• What did the rate of Soviet industrialization depend on?

The concept of "industrialization" basically meant the active development of heavy industry and the creation of powerful industries. Here all successes depended on the availability of money for work (usually there were no problems with this), the presence of well-trained personnel (often foreign) in responsible areas of work, the enthusiasm of the workers themselves and their leadership. Since even the first five-year plan was completed in 4 years, the country did not experience any problems with all these points.

• What is characteristic of the Soviet model of industrialization?

The main features are the emphasis on heavy industry, metallurgy, energy, mechanical engineering, the chemical industry and the active development of science, the complete absence of foreign loans and credits, as well as the collectivization of agriculture.

• Can you name the pros and cons of industrialization?

In short, the pluses are: a reduction in unemployment, the transformation of the country from a technically backward into an advanced world economy with a GDP second after the United States, the creation of a powerful military-industrial complex, the production of everything necessary with our own efforts and capacities. The downsides are sometimes called the reduction in the level of people's incomes, the elimination of the so-called medium-sized businesses and trade; in the localities there were many excesses in relation to ordinary people.

Industrialization results

There is more than one table with similar results on the Internet, but their meaning can be briefly conveyed as follows.

The main results of the industrialization of the USSR were:

1. The emergence of the most powerful industries of gigantic proportions.
2. The rapid development of the Union and its transition to leadership, after which the entire world community characterized the USSR as an impeccable leader.
3. Rapid GDP growth.
4. The population has become much more literate, has received an incentive to study and improve education, and illiteracy has been eliminated.
5. There was a mechanization of agriculture and an increase in its efficiency.

It is possible to list the results for a very long time, since there were actually a lot of them. Over the years, the country has made a leap forward that has no analogues in history, as a result of which it has become a world leader.

In the second half of the 1920s. the economy of the USSR began to experience difficulties. There was a shortage of goods, little metal, machine tools and equipment were produced. The years of peace were viewed by the communists as a temporary respite, which means that it was necessary to prepare for a new war, which would inevitably be a “war of engines”. A serious modernization of the existing production base and the creation of new enterprises were required. Industrialization Is the process of creating a large machine production, first of all, heavy industry (production of means of production), in order to move from agricultural to industrial society, ensuring the economic independence of the country, strengthening its defense capability. Industrialization is considered completed, if the share of industrial production in the total volume of production exceeds 50%, and the state can provide itself with industrial products without importing it from abroad.

Industrialization in Russia began in the 1890s, but was not completed due to revolutions and wars. In the 1930s. it actually had to start over.

In 1927, Soviet economists began to develop the first five-year plan, whose main goal was the industrialization of the country. In developing this plan, they proceeded from the need to maximize the concentration of all resources, strict planning and the establishment of precise targets, a single planning leadership. Having become acquainted with the plan, Stalin personally corrected it, raising all indicators to dizzying heights. But even this did not seem enough. In December 1929, a congress of industrial shock workers put forward the slogan: "Five-year plan in four years!" IN 3-4 the production of electricity, metal, oil, and coal was to increase. New industries were to appear and the production volumes of existing ones should have grown significantly.

The first five-year plans:

• 1928-1932 - the first five-year plan. For propagandistic reasons, it was announced that it was completed in four years, but this did not correspond to reality. However, the real results are still significant: the production of heavy industry products increased 2.8 times, machine building - 4.5 times. The USSR turned from a country importing industrial equipment to a country producing it;
• 1933-1937 - the second five-year plan. Heavy industry production increased by another 2.2 times. The USSR turned from an agrarian country into an industrial one.

Results and consequences of industrialization. For eight years, the country has “covered” a path that took other countries from 50 to 100 years. A powerful heavy industry was created, new industries emerged: electrical, chemical, aviation, automotive, etc., - the economic independence of the country was ensured, its defense capability was sharply strengthened (the production of defense products increased 5 times) ... The created military-industrial complex of the USSR was the most powerful in the world, its products in some cases surpassed the best foreign samples. A command-mobilization model of the economy, the economic basis of a totalitarian regime, has been established in the country.

But all this was achieved due to the cruel exploitation of the population and huge human casualties.