02 Industrial and Agricultural change 1917-53 Flashcards
The Russian Civil War
-1918-1921
-Reds only controlled Western Russia, rest controlled by Whites
-Famine and 6 million deaths
Lenin’s Land Decree
-October 1917
-Abolished private ownership of land which was given to ‘the people’
Lenin’s Decree of worker’s control
-November 1917
-Placed control of the factories into the hands of industrial workers (workers don’t know how to run the factories)
War Communism
-1918-1921, replaced State Capitalism 1918
-Nationalisation of all industry
-Forced grain requisitioning
-Strict labour discipline including 11 hour work days
-Private trade made illegal
-Money abolished
War Communism a pragmatic policy?
-It was ‘necessitated by the exceptionally difficult conditions of national defence’
-A product of the economic collapse caused by WW1
War Communism an ideological policy?
-Only survived for a year after the civil war
-Simply called Communism at the time (called War Communism after it’s failure)
-Aligned with communist beliefs – money, private trade abolished – class warfare the kulaks to stir up inter-class hatred, un-even food distribution to punish the middle class who were referred to as ‘former people’
-Stalin’s communist policies in the 1930’s based upon War Communism
War Communism failures
-By 1921, industrial production had fallen to 1/5 of the 1913 production
-Industrial workforce declined from 3 to 1 million
-Disease and starvation were common and there was a wave of serious unrest across the countryside
Tambov Uprising
-1920-1921
-Massive peasant revolt due to the Bolsheviks taking all the grain
-15,000 peasants executed
-Union between the peasants and the workers has broken down
Kronstadt Mutiny
-1921
-Kronstadt sailors from naval base that had rebelled against the Tsar in 1917
-Used to be the most loyal Bolshevik supporters
-Caused the reform away from War Communism
New Economic Policy (NEP)
-1921-1928
New Economic Policy Industry
-Industrial production increased from 1920-1926, over the pre-war 1913 level
-Railways carried more traffic in 1926-1927 than in 1913 (pre-war)
New Economic Policy Agriculture
-Grain harvest increased
-Farming methods had not modernised by 1928 and 20% of peasants still farmed with a wooden plough and 50% of the harvest was still collected by hand
New Economic Policy Life for workers
-Monthly wages of urban workers increased from 1920-1926
-With state-run factories being expected to increase productivity due to the budget defecit, workers were laid off with urban unemployment increasing from 1922-1929
New Economic Policy Ideology
-All wages paid in money in 1924 (money going against communist ideology)
-Capitalist grain market for peasants
-The hated Kulaks and Nepmen profited off the NEP with the use of capitalism, going against communist ideals
-Nepmen controlled 2/3 of all retail trade by 1924
Scissors Crisis
-1923
-price of manufactured goods rose sharply relative to the price of agricultural goods
-This meant the peasants delayed their purchases of consumer goods until prices fell and therefore delayed selling their grain
-This jeopardised food supplies in urban areas
Government response to Scissors Crisis
-The government responded to a reduction in the volume of grain marketing’s by decreeing a reduction in industrial prices at the beginning of 1924, therefore giving peasants a concession in what was supposedly a workers’ state
Grain Crisis
-1927
-State cut prices paid to peasants for grain by 25% which resulted in the Soviet government only being able to buy 50% of what it had bought in despite the harvest having been excellent
-Instead of raising prices, Russia’s leaders decided to intervene directly in the grain trade by encouraging local politicians to charge peasants with crimes
Magnitogorsk population, turnover, housing
-grew from 25 in 1929 to 250,000 in 1933
-High turnover of labour with the average worker staying for 82 days
-Housing crisis brewing
Five Year Plans organization
-Organized by Gosplan – Agency which sets targets for every industry, factory, worker
Reasons for Rapid Industrialisation
Fear of Invasion
-Police raid Soviet embassy in London in 1927
-Soviet diplomat assassinated in Poland in 1927
-In the Chinese civil war, the Chinese Nationalist attacked the Chinese Communists in 1927
-Soviets fearing invasions and are not ready for war so want to prepare
Limitations of NEP
-Growth under NEP stagnated
First Five-Year plan
-1929–1932
-Ended a year early due to being mostly finished
First Five-Year plan Successes
-Increase Coal, Iron, and Steel production
-Created a heavy industry base for the USSR
-Soviet workers in industry, construction, and transport grew from 4.5 million to 12.5 million
-Factory output increased by 120%
First Five-Year plan Weaknesses
-Consumer goods industries were sacrificed to the needs of heavy industry
-Bottlenecks due to shortages of materials and the inadequacy of the transport system/railways
-Shortages, wastage, underproduction, and overproduction
-Few managers or officials were prepared to admit anything was wrong
-loss of valuable personnel so quickly caused so many problems that by 1931 the offensive against them was quietly dropped
Second Five-Year Plan
1933-1937
