Industrial and agricultural changes 1917-85

Question 1

What were the key points of nationalisation?

Answer 1

• Land decree, 1917, gave the land to the people by abolishing private land
• Decree of workers control, 1917, factories in control of workers
• People’s bank of the Russian republic, 1917, all private banks nationalised
• ## The Vesenkha, 1917, workers sort revenge on previous employers and voted to give themselves pay rises and the economy needed to be supervised.

Question 2

What was the ideological reasons for starting war communism?

Answer 2

• WW1 had destroyed the world’s economy meaning there was a chance to rebuild some of it through marxist ideology
• Bartering was seen as a liberation from capitalism and led to a radicalisation of policy extending state and large scale nationalisation of industry before intended

Question 3

What were the economic reasons for war communism?

Answer 3

• Bolsheviks had inherited an economy in a state of collapse after WW2

Question 4

What Bolshevik excesses were fixed by war communism?

Answer 4

• Given complete control to the workers was idealistic but inefficient
• Factory managers returned order to industry
• Military ranks returned

Question 5

What were the key features of war communism?

Answer 5

• State ownership of all industry without compensation
• 1917, all industry placed under the control of the Vesenkha
• Hierarchical structures of industry returned, workers councils replaced by management
• Military style discipline in the workplace, death penalty for strikers
• Private trading banned and controlled by the state
• Bartering introduced, workers paid in goods rather than currency
  Forced requisitioning of food, 150,000 bolshevik volunteers used to seize grain
• Rationing, key workers receiving preferential treatment

Question 6

How successful was war communism?

Answer 6

• Ensured the victory of the civil war
• 1921, Industrial production was 20% of its 1913 level
• Disease and starvation widespread especially in the countryside

Question 7

What were economic reasons for the New Economic Plan?

Answer 7

• Heavy industry 20% of its 1913 level
• Food production only 48% of its 1913 level
• Breakdown of transport and distribution caused widespread famine killing 20 million

Question 8

How did the unpopularity of war communism cause the New Economic Plan?

Answer 8

• Rationing hated, mostly by bourgeoisie
• Hierarchical systems and management bred hate and sometimes violence in factories

Question 9

What was the Tambov uprising and why did it cause the NEP?

Answer 9

• Peasant resentment grew in the countryside after the planning of getting rid of the mir, a genuine peasant organisation
• 1920-21, a series of uprisings happened in Siberia and the Caucasus region the most dangerous being the Tambov uprising which took 50,000 red guard troops to put down

Question 10

What was the Kronstadt mutiny and why did it cause the NEP?

Answer 10

• Revolt by sailors at a naval base outside Petrograd
• The group were genuine revolutionaries and could not be dismissed as counter revolutionaries
• Phrase ‘soviets without Bolsheviks’ used but the group was put down by red army troops

Question 11

What were the agricultural reasons for the NEP?

Answer 11

• End to requisitioning replaced by taxation and peasants free to sell left over product
• No forced programme of collectivisation meaning the mir could stay

Question 12

What were the economicchnges caused by the NEP?

Answer 12

• Small scale industry returned to original owners
• Bonuses and piecework used to encourage production seen as techniques of a capitalist
• Currency used to pay wages, seen as the remergence of capitalism
• Reintroduction of private trade, return to capitalism
• Development of NEPmen

Question 13

How successful was the NEP?

Answer 13

Benefits
- Repairing of infrastructure massively increased economic output during the first three years
- Restaurants and market stalls set up by NEPmen brought economic growth and life to cities under the legalisation of private trade

Costs
- Black markets, prostitution and youth gangs developed
- The scissor crisis, food prices fell discouraging peasants from producing food and industrial goods rose, government fixed prices in 1923

Question 14

What influenced the decision to move to a command economy?

Answer 14

• 1924, industrial production was 45% of its 1913 level by 1926 it was back in order
• The key to growth was food to feed industrial workers to develop technology through foreign exchange and Stalin wanted to stick with the NEP
  The threat of foreign invasion because of the raiding of Soviet British offices and the attack on the Shanghai communists
• A command economy ensured efficient use of the countries resources especially since foreign trade had been neglected since 1917
• Removal of Nepmen and kulaks, aswell as consilidation over the party by Staliin

Question 15

How was the first five year plan implemented?

Answer 15

• Fifteenth party congress, 1927, the decision to abandon the NEP and implement the first five year plan focusing on mass mobilisation and heavy industry
• Industrialisation under supervision of gosplan, party officials used at factory levels and peoples commisariats coordinated branches of industry
• Supermarkets and stalls under control of state-operatives hurting NEPmen business and state took control of all urban economy
• Bourgeois experts who kept their jobs under state capitalism were expelled and put into show trials

Question 16

What did the first five year plan concentrate on?

Answer 16

• 1928-32 Focused on heavy industry such as coal, steel, iron

Question 17

What did the second and third 5 year plan focus on?

Answer 17

• 1933-37, Initially focused on consumer goods but the rise of Hitler put focus on defence and heavy industry
• Launched in 1938, Further focus on defence from Htler’s and the Nazis

Question 18

What were the results of the first five year plan?

Answer 18

• Magnitogorsk and Gorki, large industrial centres built, with Magnitogorsk growing by 250,000 in three years starting in 1929
• Material rewards were limited and people only worked by socialist values with only 17% of Moscows workers being skilled. The government used shock brigades to set an example such as Alexei Stakhanov who could mine 15 times more coal than the average worker
• Slave labour used in remote areas such as Siberia, the white sea canal employed 180000 prisoners by 1932 10,000 of them dying in 1931-32. The canal was useless with the dam being reduced by 10 feet in depth making it useless
• Bribery and Ambushing people for resources became common due to super high targets
• Quantity over quality, Stalingrad tractor factory produced 8 tractors instead of 500 a month in 1930 with most of them breaking down

Question 19

What were the results of the second and third five year plans?

Answer 19

• Coal increased sixfold, steel increased fourfold and chemical production increased but oil didn’t
• Further developed industrial centres such as Moscow and Leningrad and also developed new ones such as Kazakhstan and in the Ural mountains to defend against invasion and dneiper dam finished
• Rapid growth in transportation and engineering and heavy industry
• 1928-41, 17% unbalanced growth rate. Housing, agriculture, consumer goods and textiles declined
• Increase in food and footwear production
• Misuse of resources because Moscow planners didnt know what life was like in rural areas

Question 20

What were the industrial reasons for collectivisation?

Answer 20

• Industrial development would only increase if supported by agriculture
• Industry required foreign technology and surplus food was needed in order to trade for this
• mechanisation of agriculture would free men to work in urban centres

Question 21

\what were thee economic reasons for collectivisation?

Answer 21

• Small peasant plots inefficient
• Collective farms would be more efficient through machines and provide workers for the cities

Question 22

What were the political reasons for collectivisation?

Answer 22

• Would extend socialism to the countryside
• Less than 1% of land was collectivised and collectivisation would fix this
• Ensures the extermination of kulaks
• Growing too much food meant a cheap state procurement and the solution would be forced collectivisation

Question 23

What were the steps of collectivisation?

Answer 23

• Step 1, declaration, collectivisation announced at the 15th party congress of 1927
• Step 2, liquidation of the kulaks, officials went into villages and lectured the farmers about kolkhozs
• Step 3, Machine tractor stations, provided machinery to collectives and when enough people signed up property and livestock could be seized for the collective and those who didnt sign up were labelled kulaks and deported
• Step 4, dekulakisation, violent protests to collectivisation included setting fire to farms, murdering of party officials and slaughtering animals. 25 thousanders versed in class warfare set up collectoves forcibly, some kulaks were deported and some villages bombed out of existence
• Step 5 dizzy with success, 62% of villages collectived by 1932 and 93% in 11937

Question 24

What were the results of collectivisation?

Answer 24

• Devastating for the economy
• Supply of tractors slow
• Removal of kulaks damaging because they were most productive
• 1928-33 number of cattle halfed due to slaughter
• Grain produciton fell by 6 million
• Meat and milk production fell
• Famine in Ukraine and the Caucasus region due to requisitioning food for urban areas killing 4 million in 1933
• Lack of livestock meant no haulage and tractor production fell even more
• Centralisation meant bad planning for rural areas

Question 25

What was the impact of WW2 on soviet economy?

Answer 25

• Between 1943-45 73000 tanks, and 94000 aeroplanes produced
• steel fell by 6 million tonnes by 1945
• oil production fell by more than a third
• grain output had fallen by 65 million tonnes by 1942
• 25 million people homeless and 70,000 villages destroyed

Question 26

What were the impacts of the fourth five year plan?

Answer 26

• 1946-50, aimed to fix wartorn economy
• 2 million slaves used to boost industrial ouput
• Effective training programmes
• ## Focus on heavy industry, neglect on chemicals, light industry and consumer goods

Question 27

What were the impacts of the fifth five year plan?

Answer 27

• 1951-55
• Increase on arms spending due to cold war
• ## Volga dan canal, big buildings that had limited economic value built

Question 28

What was agricultural policy like after WW2?

Answer 28

• ‘link system’ peasants given responsibility over a small piece of land at first where they could sell surpluses for profit
• After war link system abolished and tax raised on private plots and MTS supervised private plots
• Productivity made super low in 1952 due men being lost in the war
• Khrushchev proposed 100,000 bigger collectives which were unpopular with the peasants

Question 29

Khrushchev wanted to move towards light industry but what was stopping him?

Answer 29

• The workforce was afriad of the consequences of getting in the way of the previous plans because of harsh labour laws
• System was inflexible meaning target were only estimates and extraneous variables could influence demand and the system couldnt respond

Question 30

What industrial reforms did Khrushchev make in order to fix the system?

Answer 30

• 1957, sovnarkhozy set up to supervise enterprises to better take into account local circumstances
• work week reduced by 7 hours by 1960, benefits replaced coercion
• Managers allowed to keep 40% of profits to invest
• Vocational education encouraged
• Liberman plan encouraged autonomy of local enterprises but was dismissed by Stalinist politburo members

Question 31

What were the impacts of the seven year plan?

Answer 31

• 1959-65
• Developed fuel and chemical industries going from coal to oil and gas
• Regional development received 40% of the available budget
• Focus on consumer goods, synthetic fibers target grew by 500,000

Question 32

What were the results of the seven year plan?

Answer 32

• Sputnik launched into space and Yuri Gagarin in 1961
• Consumer goods abundant
• Targets met nut goods were poor
• Annual growth rate 4.2% bigger than US but still behind due to small economic base caused by Stalin
• Gosplan had more work but less influence
• Splitting of government into agricultural and industrial sectors made it more confusing and Sovnarkhozy made things more contusing aswell
• 1964 economic growth slowed due to resistance from the military industrial complex and Stalinist party members

Question 33

What reforms did Khrushchev make to agriculture?

Answer 33

• 1955, local collectives given more power
• MTS abolished, peasants had to buy their own machinery
• Collectives increased in size, agrogrodas, linked food production with food processing
• State procurement prices increased, now planned purchases
• Private plot could privately sell food and productivity was highest on these, nearly all eggs produced here
• Virgin land scheme, 1954, Komomsol put to work in siberia and kazakhstan, 6 million acres of land with 120,000 tractors

Question 34

What impact did Khruschev have on agricultural production?

Answer 34

• 1953-58 food production increased
• Income of farmers doubled in six years
• Productivity low with too many people farming
• 1959 Kazakhstan grain production not met, land dry and not suitable for growing replaced cash crops meaning less profit
• Underinvestment in the past meant poor food storage and roads mad bad harvest of 1963 even worse meaning millions of livestock were slaughtered
• Grain had to be imported form North America and Australia as a sign of ultimate failure

Question 35

What reforms did Kosygin make?

Answer 35

• 1965, gave incentives to managers to use resources better
• Try to use a cost and profit system rather than quantity like Stalin.
• Brezhnev sympathised with conservatives and the reforms were sabotaged, bonuses for success were higher than for innovation and focus on profit made people produce larger expensive items rather than much needed cheap ones

Question 36

What reforms did Brezhnev make?

Answer 36

• 1973, industrial complexes joined with scientific research institutions in order to apply breakthroughs to production but managers didnt install new technology because they didnt want miss production time
• System of targets centralised in 1974 focusing on cost and profit but this didnt work in a command economy

Question 37

What were the impacts of the ninth five year plan?

Answer 37

• 1971-95, impressive growth but targets not met, living standards rose
• 1980, 85% of families had televisions and 70% had washing machines
• 9% of families had cars but investment in public transport was high
• Brezhnev managed to convince the military-industrial complex which made decisions without telling other politburo members

Question 38

What reforms did Brezhnev make to agriculture?

Answer 38

• Agricultural decentralisation made by Khrushchev reversed
• Virgin lands scheme dropped
• 1976, 26% of investment went to agriculture
• steady rise in production but drop in productivity
• Workforce unskilled, machinery broke down, roads impassable and food rotted before it could be sold showing underinvestment appeared once more. Private plots produced 25% of all produce for double price at markets
• Work brigades allowed peasants to decide how profits were used but this was got rid of for fear of family farming returning
• Continued import of US wheat

Question 39

What reforms did Andropov attempt to make?

Answer 39

• 1982-84
• Believed system needed to be tougher and improved rather than changed
• Removal of corruption from the system such as stealing produce for the black market
• Wanted to stop alcoholism and absenteeism and encouraged people to come forward with key ideas but people didnt because he was KGB leader

Question 40

What evidence was there for economic decline in the 1980s?

Answer 40

• 1980s economic growth rate was 4% lower than the 1960s
• Production figures fixed by bureaucrats to hide this so it could be even worse
• quantity over quality remained a major problem
• The USSR used 25% of workforce, 26% of investment and a large area of land larger than the USA but only produced 1/6th of US output

Question 41

What were the reasons for economic decline in the 1980’s?

Answer 41

• Stalinist system towards efficiency and quality difficult to achieve under a highly centralised government
• The command economy, central control did not encourage creativity. Government set prices did not identify or solve problems of inefficiency. A command economy was too inflexible and central planners couldnt cope with changing circumstances
• Social issues, the government promised a good quality of living but failed to do so so workers levels of productivity dropped
• Lack of investment, Stalin’s narrow economy meant the neglect of agriculture making it hard for Brezhnev and Khrushchev’s investment to work
• Outdated technology, in the 70s the USSR was beating the US in steel production but failed to meet technological advances in the 80s. By 1980 most soviet technology was outdated and old
• Military industrial complex, employed 1/5 of the population and used 18% of soviet resources which could have been used for consumer goods and agriculture