war communism, new eco policy, five year, collectivisation

Question 1

War Communism

Answer 1

• According to the Bolsheviks, War Communism was introduced to meet the economic, political and military crises of the Civil War
• War Communism has been seen by many to be a deliberate attempt to swiftly impose ‘Communism’ upon Russia
• Features included:
  o Grain requisitioning
  o Banning of private trade
  o Nationalisation of industry
  o Labour discipline
  o Rationing
• Terror became an essential component of enforcing new policy
• War Communism involved the centralisation of economic control and the eradication of the traditional features of a market economy where possible
• The policies imposed by War Communism were resented by the rural classes and the city workers and created tension between these groups and the Bolsheviks
• War Communism paved the way for the bureaucratisation of the nation and the Party
• The nature of the membership of the Communist Party changed greatly during War Communism
• Most historians believe that it was a deliberate attempt to introduce communist principles into Russia
• Only after the measures had failed and changes had to be made did the Bolsheviks claim that War Communism had been a response to circumstances
• Read, Christopher, From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and their Revolution, p192 “There is no word of strong enough force to use when one come to the situation in Russia in those years”
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Russian Revolution, p86 “The worst blow to the new regime came in March 1924 when, after an outbreak of workers’ strikes in Petrograd, the sailors at the nearby Kronstadt naval base rebelled. Now they were repudiating the Bolsheviks’ revolution, denouncing ‘the arbitrary rule of the commissars’ and calling for a true soviet republic or workers and peasants”
• Read, Christopher, p266 “According to Cheka sources there were 118 separate rising throughout Soviet Russia in February 1921”
• Figes, Orlando, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, p758 “By March 1921 Soviet power in the countryside had virtually ceased to exist”
• Figes, Orlando, p758 “Lenin was thrown into panic… ‘We are barely holding on’ he acknowledged in March. The peasant wars, he told the Tenth Party Congress in March. The peasant wars, he told the Tenth Party Congress on 8 March, were ‘far more dangerous than all the Denikins, Yudeniches and Kolchaks put together’.”

Question 2

new economic policy

Answer 2

• Economic hardship and military devastation caused major difficulties for the Bolshevik state by 1921
• There were increasing calls for a change in economic policy and for a freeing of debate and discussion
• Despite winning the Civil War Lenin was left presiding over a war-torn and starved nation
• The sailors at the Kronstadt naval base rebelled and wanted greater political accountability and social/economic freedom (Lenin responded by crushing the uprising)
• Future public debate was stifled at the Tenth Party Congress in 1921
• Lenin introduced the NEP to reinforce the Party’s hold on power
• There making economic concessions to avoid political concessions
• The NEP included some capitalist features with the state retaining control of the major economic institutions
  o The linchpin of NEP was the introduction of a tax-in-kind, set at levels considerably below those of previous requisition quotas, which permitted peasants to dispose of their food surpluses on the open market
  o This concession to market forces soon led to the denationalization of small-scale industry and services; the establishment of trusts for supplying, financing, and marketing the products of large-scale industry; the stabilization of the currency; and other measures, including the granting of concessions to foreign investors, all of which were designed to reestablish the link (smychka) between town and country
  o Referring to NEP as a retreat of the state to the “commanding heights of the economy” (large-scale industry, banking, foreign commerce), Lenin insisted that it had to be pursued “seriously and for a long time.”
• The NEP slowly stabilised the economy
  o By 1926-27, most economic indices were at or near pre-war levels
  o But recovery via market forces was accompanied by the re-emergence of a “capitalist” class in both the countryside (the kulaks) and the towns (NEPmen), persistent unemployment among workers (some of whom referred to NEP as the “new exploitation of the proletariat”), and anxieties within the party about bourgeois degeneracy and the loss of revolutionary dynamism
• The NEP created new groups within the society, notably the Kulaks, who were to prove an obstacle to future developments
• Ideologically, the NEP was a reversal of socialist ideals, which created intense disharmony among many in the party
• As a result there was a concern (particularly from Lenin) about factionalism
• During the NEP, though willing to compromise in the economic sphere, Lenin was not about to extend similar freedoms to politics
  o Having taken a step back from the ideal of a fully socialist economy, Lenin argued that the strictest discipline needed to be maintained within the Party
  o Discontent simmered over the NEP, increasing bureaucratisation, role of workers’ unions and the Politburo’s dominance over lower levels of the Party
   Workers’ Opposition (headed by Alexandra Kollontai who were concerned of placing non-Communist experts in charge of factories)
   Democratic Centralists who called for unions to direct the economy
  o Lenin introduced two decrees:
   ‘On the Anarcho-Syndicalist Deviation’ (continued advocacy of demands inconsistent with membership of the Communist Party was illegal)
   ‘On Party Unity’ (which banned factions within the Party)
• Kochan, L, The Making of Modern Russia, p340 “The overall consequence [of the NEP] was an economy in which the state virtually monopolised industrial life, acted as the arbiter of commercial life, and left agricultural production under the control of an ever growing number of small producers”
• Westwood, J.N, Endurance and Endeavour, p281 “The factory workers of the early twenties were largely ex-peasants, ill-educated, ill-disciplined, and not particularly interested in the party. Thus the Bolsheviks, who had regarded themselves as the vanguard of the proletariat, found themselves in the van with nothing to guard”

Question 3

Creation of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

Answer 3

• The Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union, was adopted on December 30, 1922, by representatives from Belorussia, Soviet Russia, Transcaucasian Federated Republics and Ukraine
• As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power numerous independent nation states were created on the periphery of the former empire - some of them were able to prolong the fight for their independence for many years; but in Ukraine, Belarus, and the South Caucasus satellite governments were put in place (these three then-independent communist countries joined Soviet Russia in the aim of creating a common state)
• The final version of the Treaty, like that of the Constitution, reflected party leaders’ sensitivities to fears of Russian domination within the new union but also their determination to create more centralised authority
• In January 1923 the presidium of the new All-Union Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of the Soviets appointed a commission to produce a draft constitution
• Key decisions, however, were made by the party’s Politburo
• The issue of national representation was resolved by the creation of a two-chamber Central Executive Committee: a Council of the Union consisting of members elected by the All-Union Congress in proportion to the population of each republic, and a Council of Nationalities containing five representatives from each union or autonomous republic and one from each autonomous region
• The Constitution also delineated a tripartite classification of commissariats, essentially replicating the structure of the RSFSR and its constituent autonomous republics
  o Foreign affairs, foreign trade, military affairs, and state security were the exclusive domain of central authorities
  o Commissariats concerned with economic affairs existed at both central and republic levels
  o A third set of six commissariats (Education, Health, Internal Affairs, Justice, Nationalities, and Social Welfare) were reserved for the republics and had no union counterpart.
• On July 6, 1923 the VTsIK approved the Constitution which came into effect immediately. It received formal confirmation by the second All-Union Congress of Soviets on January 13, 1924.

Question 4

Five Year Plans, state control of the economy and modernisation of the Soviet Union

Answer 4

• The Five Year Plans were a set of targets for Russian industry which involved large scale government projects – and demands to increase production by almost impossible margins
• The First Five-Year Plan (1928-32) was the most ambitious undertaking in centralised state planning ever attempted. It reflected both the unbridled optimism of the Stalinist leadership in the capacity of the Soviet Union to catch up to and surpass the advanced capitalist countries “in a relatively minimal historical period,” and the considerable pressure they had exerted on the economic specialists who devised successive versions of the plan
• Those economists, working in the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) were faced with the unprecedented and incredibly complicated task of drafting a plan to transform the entire economic structure of the country
• They did so by resorting to “teleological” planning, that is, the projection of five-year targets backward to determine annual levels of investment and material balances which were to be applied to each sector of the economy and ultimately serve as guidelines for every enterprise in the country
  o Two versions were produced: a first variant and an optimal variant, each of which was presented to the party’s Sixteenth Conference in April 1929, that is, some six months after the plan was supposed to be in operation.
  o The first variant was quite optimistic, calling for increases in investments over the five-year period of 151 percent, of producers’ goods of 161 percent, of electrical output of 236 percent, and so forth. Yet, the sixteenth conference rejected this version in favor of the optimal variant which envisioned investments rising by 228 percent, producers’ goods by 204 percent, and electricity by 335 percent. Even these targets were subsequently revised upward. For example, coal production which stood at 35 million tons in 1927-28, was supposed to increase to 75 million tons by 1932-33 according to the optimal version, but this was amended in the course of 1929-30 to 95-105 million tons. Indeed, in December 1929, the entire five-year plan was projected to be fulfilled “in its essentials” in four years, that is, by October 1931. This, of course, was impossible, and the rush, strain, shortages and wastefulness proved lethal to millions of people
• For all that though, the plan was declared a brilliant success and indeed did catapult the Soviet Union into one of the leading industrial countries of the world
• Not surprisingly, few targets were met, and some historians question the validity of those that were achieved
• Approximately three million kulaks, prisoners and labourers were involved with many thousands dying each year
• The Soviet Union grew faster than any other Western country during the 1930s
• They were joined by thousands of foreign volunteers fleeing the Great Depression
• Each year Stalin’s government produced a report on progress. These reports were made available for foreign governments to see how successful communism was. Stalin was careful not to publicise any failures to the rest of the world. The picture that emerged from the USSR during the 1930s was one of success
• The Dnieper Dam, Belmor Canal and Mangitogorsk were cited as triumphs of a centrally-planned economy
• It is clear that production greatly increased and new factories, dams, railways and roads were built. However, there were problems with wastage and inefficiency in the plans. Official figures were exaggerated or gave only a partial picture of the targets met
• Nevertheless, by 1939 Russian industrial production levels were far higher than they had been in 1928. The USSR was able to play a major part in the defeat of Germany during World War 2 and emerged as a superpower, ranked second only to the USA
• Bullock, Alan, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, p295 “After the grey compromises of the NEP, the Plan revived the flagging faith of the party. Here at last was the chance to pour their enthusiasm into building the New Jerusalem they had been promised…None of Stalin’s targets might be achieved, but in every case output was raised: 6 million tons of steel was little more than half the 10 million allowed for, but 50% up on the starting figure”

Question 5

The first Five Year Plan, Oct 1928 – Dec 1932

Answer 5

• The targets were backed by law so failure to meet them was seen as a criminal offence
• Bonuses were paid to enterprises that exceeded their planned target
• Industrial enterprise = large factory, mine etc or collection of factories, mines etc run as 1 unit
• Private industry was starved of supplies and resources
• Lots of foreign participation
• ‘Spirit of a Cultural Revolution’ swept people along = Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1932
• 1st 5 year plan lacked detail – party handed out broad directives and priorities and it was left to officials and managers at regional and local levels to work out ways to achieve the targets they had been set
• In some parts of the economy there was underproduction as factories were held up by shortage of materials. In others there was overproduction as factories rushed to exceed their targets
• There was a lot of wastage as overproduction led to thousands of parts being created that other industries didn’t want. Much of the output was sub-standard
• Managers and officials didn’t want to admit that anything was wrong as they didn’t want to be accused of sabotaging the plans or criticising the party which led to mistakes being covered up and problems left unresolved
• Stalin created class enemies = the ‘bourgeois specialist’ = the old pre-1917 managers, engineers and technical staff who survived the NEP in important jobs because of their skills and abilities. Now they were identified as saboteurs who caused hold-ups, breakdowns and general problems in the supply industries which led to show trials and imprisonment
• The loss of valuable personnel as quickly caused so many problems that by 1931 the offensive against them was quietly dropped
• Vesenkha = Supreme Economic Council
• Gosplan = the State Planning Committee
• 5 yr plan was a series of targets drawn up by Gosplan

Question 6

The Second and Third 5 Year Plans

Answer 6

• Emphasis on consolidation
• The plan was worked out in greater detail for each industry and region
• The People’s Commissariats, who were more organised and defined by 1934, gave specific targets for enterprises under their control as well as estimates of costs, labour and prices
• The railway system was improved so the vast quantities of raw materials produced could be transported quickly
• There were new training schemes that encouraged workers to learn skills and master techniques to tackle the problem of skills shortages
• There were still problems e.g. shortages, waste, over/under production, but not on the scale of the 1st 5 year plan
• USSR was almost self-sufficient in the production of machine tools and far less dependent on foreign imports of machinery
• The Soviet Union enjoyed the ‘three good years’ of 1934-36 and the achievements by 1937 were impressive
• Leaders realised how badly the workers had suffered during the early 1930s due to lack of goods and basic commodities and so planned to put more resources into consumer industries. However, due to threat of war with Germany more money was put into the armaments industry
• After 1937 the USSR suffered an economic slowdown – some historians blame the Great Purges for this as they deprived the economy of valuable personnel and stopped administrators and party officials from taking the initiative and solving problems. Many planners were purged which threw the planning system into confusion
• The end of the 3rd 5 year plan shows planning in a confused and chaotic state with shortages and waste as growing features of the economy
• Yet by 1941 the USSR had succeeded in creating the industrial base for a powerful arms industry

Question 7

How did the workers fare under the plans?

Answer 7

• The urban working classes and young people were enthusiastic at the beginning of the plans, they wanted to move forward to a better society, they were prepared to make sacrifices to build a new world
• They believed that their wages would increase and living conditions improve
• Workers who stayed in their jobs and observed labour discipline could so well in the 1930s. Training courses meant they could improve their qualifications and position, pay and prospects. Those who exceeded their targets were rewarded with higher pay, better working conditions and better housing. They were celebrated in newspapers and on notice boards where they worked

Question 8

Women in the labour force

Answer 8

• 10 million women entered the workforce
• They dominated professions such as medicine and school teaching, the less well educated became labourers or factory workers
• Generally, women were paid less and found it more difficult to gain advancement than me. However, women were working in jobs that they had not done before e.g. pilots
• Women made up 44% of the workforce in the city but were likely to be less well paid, less literate and less involved in political and technical education than their male counterparts. Their chances of reaching the top (becoming factory directors, head doctors etc) were limited
• The issues most important to them were their children’s needs, queues and fluctuating prices, as they had to look after the home and work

Question 9

The quicksand society

Answer 9

• By the end of the 1st 5 year plan half the labour force was made up of peasants – if they could find a better job/pay elsewhere, they moved on – this led to a phenomenal turnover of labour. In the coal industry in 1930 the average worker moved jobs 3 times a year
• Skilled and semi-skilled workers soon found that their skills were at a premium and managers, desperate to fulfil their targets, offered higher wages and perks such as extra food rations – so workers moved easily between jobs
• The skills shortage was one of the biggest problems that the planners faced – in 1931 it was estimated that less than 7% of the workforce were skilled, in 1933 only 17%og those recruited to industry had any skills
• Untrained, clumsy workers were doing an astonishing amount of damage to expensive imported machinery and were producing poor-quality goods. Machines were not properly oiled and maintained. There were stories of whole production runs being ruined by ill-educated and untrained ex-peasants

Question 10

How did the party respond to its labour problems?

Answer 10

• To stop workers moving from job to job, wage differentials were introduced (paying some people more than others) were introduced to reward people who stayed put and acquired skills
• Managers were allowed to pay bonuses
• Incentives such as awarding honours to outstanding workers – could bring perks such as access to closed shops, better housing and clothes
• Egalitarianism in wages was abandoned as early as 1931
• Some labour shortages were solved by using forced labour especially for the worst jobs in the worst conditions
• 300,000 prisoners worked on the Baltic-White Sea Canal, many of them kulaks arrested during the collectivization drive
• After April 1930 all criminals sentenced to more than 3 years were sent to labour camps to provide cheap labour
• Number of forced labourers increased with the Great Purges in mid-1930s
• Used to encourage workers to raise their productivity which was very low during the 1st 5 year plan
• Shock-brigade campaigns were used = mounting intensive efforts to build structures such as dams – only limited success
• Stakhanovite movement was the most significant as productivity rates improved

Question 11

Collectivisation and state-created famine

Answer 11

• Involved the merging of small, inefficient farms into large, state-run farms
• Stalin needed grain to feed and fund the industrialisation process and thus Stalin had to modernise agriculture
• There had to be enough food, not only to feed the workers in towns, but also for export. Selling grain abroad would raise the money needed to invest in industry.
• Stalin declared in January 1929 that all grain producing areas should be collectivised by 1930 – this meant forced collectivisation in order to make them much larger and more productive
• The farmers were not compensated. They were expected to work with other farmers and hand over most of their produce to the government. In return, they would be supplied with tools, tractors and taught how to produce more
• Machinery and Tractor Stations (MTS) would be set up to school the peasants in modern farming methods
• The policy of collectivisation was not popular with the peasants. Many refused to give up their land or to give the government the crops that they had grown. Instead, they preferred to slaughter their animals, burn their crops and destroy their farm machinery. Stalin ordered the army to liquidate them. Uncooperative peasants were forcibly evicted from their farms, sent to labour camps in the Urals and Siberia and worked to death. Millions starved to death or were killed.
• Kulaks, supposedly the more prosperous farmers, were portrayed by the Party as class enemies and capitalists, while in reality their wealth was often modest
• Under Stalin’s direction, the Party decided to liquidate the entire kulak class by dispossession, deportation or death
• The Party set the numbers of kulaks at an arbitrary figure of 3% and initiated a series of quotas to eliminate them all
• Spontaneous acts of murder spread through the countryside as the hated collectivisers were targeted
• Stalin published an article dated 2 March 1930 in the Pravda called ‘Dizzy with Success’ where he claimed that local officials had got carried away and used excessive force
• This resulted in a massive disruption to farming and a drop in production (grain did not recover until 1935 and meat until 1953)
• Stalin refused to accept this and demanded that peasants meet their grain quotas so that industrial workers could be fed and profitable exports could continue
• In 1932 Stalin increased quotas as the urban population had grown by 40%
• The famine of 1932-1933 killed up to 7 million peasants (mostly in the Ukraine)
• Historian Robert Conquest argues that the famine was a deliberate policy of terror conducted against the Ukraine
• Ward, Chris, Stalin’s Russia, p47 “What happened between November 1929 and December 1931 cannot be grasped merely by reciting statistics… a socio-economic system in existence for five hundred years vanished for ever. But the whirlwind which swept across the countryside destroyed the way of life of the vast majority of the Soviet people, not just the Russians… Early in 1930, countless individuals and families in entire regions and republics – the Russian, Ukrainian and Caucasian grain districts – were stigmatized as kulaks, driven from their land, forced into collectives, exiled or shot. Central Asian cotton growers and sugar beet farmers in the Central Black earth region suffered the same fate in 1931”
• Service, Robert, A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, p181 “With the exception of 1930, mass collectivisation meant that not until the mid-1950s did agriculture regain the level of output achieved in the last years before the Great War”
• Service, Robert, p181 “After collectivisation it was the countryside, not the towns, which went hungry if the harvest was bad”