Industrial and social developments in towns and cities

Question 1

What is Gosplan?

Answer 1

The state planning agency that was responsible for drawing up the plans and establishing output targets for every economic enterprise in accordance with Party directives

Question 2

Who made the overall decision as to what should be produced?

Answer 2

The government

Question 3

Why was Gosplan job made harder?

Answer 3

o Party leaders arguing that their region should have first call on resources
o Lack of reliable information
o had to plan for many variable and changing commodities

Question 4

What were targets set like and what were they intended to do?

Answer 4

o They were ambitious

o Intended to force managers and workers to devote their maximum effort to the programme

Question 5

How was corruption and faulty reporting built into the system from the outset?

Answer 5

o Failing to achieve a target was a criminal offence so people went to great lengths to ensure that reported statistics showed huge improvements

Question 6

Who was blamed when things went wrong with the Plans and evidence of this?

Answer 6

o Gosplan

o Members from offices dismissed

Question 7

When was the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 7

1928-1932

Question 8

Criticisms of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 8

o Not based on secure information
o Extremely over-ambitious
o People afraid to question anything about it, therefore no improvements could be made to it

Question 9

What should be emphasised about the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 9

o That it was a great experiment
o No obvious example of where else to learn especially at a time of economic collapse in the West due to the Wall Street Crash

Question 10

What did the first Five Year Plan focus on and what were its aims?

Answer 10

o Focused on heavy industry
Aimed to:
o Increase production by 300%
o Focus on the development of coal, iron, steel, machinery etc
o Boost electricity production by 600%
o Double the output from light industry e.g. chemicals

Question 11

What was the result of the publicity surrounding the launch of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 11

o Provoked an enthusiastic response

Question 12

How long did it take for the first Five Year Plan to be completed and why did this happen?

Answer 12

o Four years

o Most likely due to over-enthusiastic reporting by local officials

Question 13

What was the reality of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 13

o None of the major targets were met

Question 14

What were the successes of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 14

o Electricity output trebled
o Coal and iron output doubled
o Steel production increased by a third
o New railways, engineering plants and industrial complexes

Question 15

What were the failures of the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 15

o Targets for light industry weren’t met
o Consumer goods woefully neglected
o Too few skilled workers
o Smaller industrial works lost out to bigger factories

Question 16

What were the aims of the second Five Year Plan and what did it give more attention to?

Answer 16

o Consumer goods were given more attention
Aims were to:
o Continue development of heavy industry
o Promote the growth of light industries
o Develop communications for links between industrial centres
o Foster engineering and tool making

Question 17

What was the date of the second Five Year Plan?

Answer 17

1933-1937

Question 18

What were the successes of the second Five Year Plan?

Answer 18

o ‘Three good years’ (1934-36)
o Moscow Metro opened 1935
o Dam for hydro-electric power
o Electricity and chemical production grew rapidly
o Steel output trebled, coal and iron doubled

Question 19

How did the second Five Year Plan change in 1936?

Answer 19

Greater emphasis placed on rearmament

Question 20

What were the failures of the second Five Year Plan?

Answer 20

o Oil production failed to meet its targets
o Still no appreciable increase in consumer foods
o Emphasis on quantity over quality

Question 21

What were the aims of the third Five Year Plan?

Answer 21

o Place a renewed emphasis on the development of heavy industry
o Promote rapid rearmament
o Complete transition to communism

Question 22

What was the date of the third Five Year Plan?

Answer 22

1938-42

Question 23

When and why was the plan disrupted?

Answer 23

Disrupted by approach of war in 1941

Question 24

What did the growing threat of Nazi Germany lead to?

Answer 24

Particular focus on the needs of the defence sector

Question 25

What were the successes of the third Five Year Plan?

Answer 25

o Heavy industry, strong growth in machinery and engineering

Question 26

What were the failures of the third Five Year Plan and causes of them?

Answer 26

o Steel production stagnated
o Consumer goods were lowest priority
Causes of problems:
o Death of good managers, specialists and technicians following the purges
o Hard winter in 1938
o Due to resources being diverted to rearmament there were adverse effects on other areas

Question 27

What were the ‘showpiece’ projects involved in the plans and what were they supposed to show?

Answer 27

o Show the modernity and capabilities of the Soviet state
o Construction of completely new industrial cities e.g. Magnitogorsk and Komsomolsk
o Dams, railways e.g. Moscow Metro 1935

Question 28

What was Magnitogorsk like?

Answer 28

o Giant steel plant and a town
o Workers lived in communal barracks
o Subject to constant lectures and political discussions

Question 29

How was Komsomolsk built?

Answer 29

o Using volunteer labour from the communist youth organisation Komsomol
o Also used penal labour from the prison camps in the area

Question 30

Who was the USSR forced to turn to and why?

Answer 30

o Foreign companies and individuals

o For managerial and technical skills

Question 31

Why was the USSR appealing to foreigners and what did it lead to?

Answer 31

o Led to ordinary labourers travelling to the USSR from the West to work on the new plants
o Communism presented an attraction and some foreigners genuinely believed they were contributing to a new world order

Question 32

How were foreigners looked upon and what did this lead to?

Answer 32

o Sometimes looked upon with suspicion

o Led to them being scapegoated when things went wrong

Question 33

Why did the Stakhanovite movement emerge?

Answer 33

o After Aleksei Stakhanov, a coal miner cut a huge amount of coal in a short amount of time
o Amount of coal was expected from a minor in 14 times that length of time
o Hailed an example of how human determination and endeavour might increase productivity
o Competitions arranged for others to emulate Stakhanov’s achievement

Question 34

Was the Stakhanovite movement popular?

Answer 34

o Not all the time
o Jealousy attached to the Stakhanovites’ receipt of superior accommodation and other material benefits
o Stakhanovites victimised and even attacked

Question 35

Why was the Stakhanovite movement used?

Answer 35

o To force management to support their workers so as to increase production

Question 36

Negatives of being a manager?

Answer 36

o Had to ensure that the output targets set by regional administrators were met
o Limited control over their own resources, wages and other tasks
o Little choice by to focus on attain output target
o Protesting workers

Question 37

Positives of being a manger?

Answer 37

o Bonuses

o Status

Question 38

Why was there pressure for managers to falsify statistics?

Answer 38

o Could be put on trial, imprisoned and even executed if they fail to meet targets

Question 39

Why was it difficult for managers to earn the good will of workers?

Answer 39

o Managers expected to apply state regulations in the work place
o National ‘work norms’ which governed how much work a Labourer should be expected to and rules
o Led to protesting workers

Question 40

How did the Stakhanovites pose a problem to managers?

Answer 40

o Their efforts could lead to factory targets being revised upwards, creating new problems for output in the following year

Question 41

What were the measures brought in for the drive for industrialisation?

Answer 41

o Seven-day working week
o Longer working hours
o Arriving late of missing work could result in dismissal or eviction from housing
o Damaging machinery was a criminal offence
o Strikes were illegal

Question 42

Why was there a certain degree of enthusiasm amoung workers?

Answer 42

o Opportunities for advancement by learning new skills meant some workers did well
o Wage differentials introduced, reward wages
o Opportunities for social advancement

Question 43

How did the proletariat suffer

Answer 43

o Poor working conditions 
o Numbers that poured into industrial cities left workers living in extremely cramped communal apartments where they had to cope with inadequate sanitation and poor water supplies 
o Transport overcrowded
o Shops empty 
o Queues and shortages

Question 44

Why were there plenty of vacancies at the ‘top’?

Answer 44

o Purges hit intellectuals and white collar workers the most

Question 45

How were female workers treated before the first Five Year Plan?

Answer 45

o Largely concentrated at lowest paid jobs

o Routinely discriminated against

Question 46

What happened during the second Five Year Plan in regard to women?

Answer 46

o Party took note of the value of female workers and set orders for more to be employed in heavy industry
o Many factory managers didn’t do this

Question 47

What was Zhenotdel and what happened with it?

Answer 47

o Department of Russian Communist Party devoted to women’s affairs
o Closed down in 1930
o No longer an institution to fight inequality in the workplace

Question 48

What advances were made with women?

Answer 48

o Party made more of an effort to enrol women in technical training programmes
o Increasing number of women found their way into well-paying positions

Question 49

Did the Party achieve what it set out to do?

Answer 49

o Partly
o Plans advanced the proletarianisation of the Russian people and transformed basis of the Soviet economy
o Pride and sense of belief that communist system was superior to western Capitalism