Objectives of the Third Five-Year Plan

The main attention was no longer given to quantitative indicators, but quality. The emphasis was on increasing the production of alloy and high-quality steels, light and non-ferrous metals, and precision equipment. During the Third Five-Year Plan, serious measures were taken to develop the chemical industry and chemicalization National economy, the introduction of comprehensive mechanization, and even the first attempts to automate production were made. Over three years (until 1941), production increased by 34%, which was close to the planned figures, although they were not achieved. Overall the pace economic development were quite modest. It was felt that the gains were being achieved under enormous stress. The new technological level increased the requirements for the balance of all parts of the economy, for the quality of management and for the workers themselves.

The political situation in Europe indicated that war was approaching, so the Third Five-Year Plan became a five-year plan of preparation for war. This was expressed as follows.

Firstly, instead of giant enterprises, it was decided to build medium-sized backup enterprises in various regions of the country, but mainly in the eastern ones.

Secondly, military production grew at an accelerated pace. The average annual growth rate of military production, according to official data, was 39%.

Thirdly, many non-military enterprises received military orders and mastered the production of new products, switching to their production at the expense of civilian products. Thus, in 1939, the production of tanks increased by 2 times, armored vehicles by 7.5 times compared to 1934. Naturally, this led to a reduction in the production of tractors, trucks and other civilian products.

Construction of the third five-year plan

Fourthly, new construction, and for 1938-1941. About 3 thousand new large plants and factories were put into operation, mainly in the east of the country - in the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia. By 1941, these areas began to play a significant role in industrial production. In addition, during the years of the Third Five-Year Plan, the foundations of industrial infrastructure were laid here, which made it possible, in the most difficult first months of the war, to evacuate industrial enterprises from the western regions and put them into operation as soon as possible, which would have been simply impossible without the existing industrial capacities and iron roads, power lines, etc.

Features of the third five-year plan

The most important problem of the third five-year plan remained the training of qualified personnel. The system of training workers in production through a network of courses and technical study circles that emerged during the Second Five-Year Plan no longer fully satisfied the rapidly growing needs of industry for qualified personnel. Therefore, on October 2, 1940, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a system for training state labor reserves was created. It was envisaged that up to a million young men and women would be admitted annually to vocational and railway schools, and FZU schools and their maintenance at the expense of the state. After graduation, the state had the right to send young workers at its discretion to any of the industries. In Moscow alone, 97 technical training colleges and schools were opened for 48,200 students and 77 vocational schools with a two-year training period.

The country's institutes and technical schools continued to train workers of higher and secondary qualifications. By January 1, 1941, there were 2,401.2 thousand certified specialists in the USSR, which was 14 times higher than the level of 1914.

And yet, despite the undoubted successes in this area, the needs of the economy have not been adequately satisfied. Quality indicators left much to be desired. Thus, in 1939, only 8.2% of workers had a 7th grade education or more, which negatively affected the rate at which they mastered new technology, the growth of labor productivity, etc.

Approximately the same picture was with regard to engineering and technical personnel. By 1939, out of 11-12 million employees, only 2 million had a diploma of higher or secondary specialized education.

Discussions during the NEP period

Import of technologies

Industrialization and the Cultural Revolution

The origins of the first - Stalinist industrialization, plans for the industrial development of the country of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II

Collectivization – industrialization of agriculture

Mobilization economy or what funds were used for industrialization?

Where does the money for industrialization come from?

About collectivization

On the role of industrialization in victory in the Great Patriotic War

The first is Stalin’s industrialization: the first five-year plan

The first is Stalin’s industrialization: the second five-year plan

Results of collectivization

Results of industrial development of the USSR in the post-war years

Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on collectivization, on the need for collectivization

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on collective farm construction

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on industrialization

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on the results of collectivization

• – Material and technical base of socialism.
• – Social ownership of the means of production is the basis of the production relations of socialism.
• – The basic economic law of socialism.
• – The law of planned (proportional) development of the national economy
• – Social labor under socialism.
• – Commodity production, the law of value and money under socialism
• – Wages under socialism.
• – Economic calculation and profitability, cost and price.
• – Socialist agricultural system.
• – Trade turnover under socialism.
• – National income of a socialist society.
• – State budget, credit and money circulation under socialism.
• – Socialist reproduction.

Energy is the basis of the economy

Second industrialization of Russia Industrialization Industrialization of the USSR New industrialization of Russia Industrialization of Russia 3D printers of the Prizma family with a unique coating of the printing table 3S separator for highly efficient gas separation at supersonic speeds Automation and robotization of production with industrial robots Automated line for the production of construction products - Formanta Hercules molding complex Automated log sawing machines, lines and centers Automated woodworking lines of the Backaut brand Automated lines for bottling water, drinks and other liquids Automatic and semi-automatic machines and lines for welding meshes, frames, 3D fences and fences Automatic powder coating lines Unmanned aircraft automatic control systems based on robotic complexes Concrete pumps, truck-mounted concrete pumps, stationary concrete pumps, distribution booms, truck-mounted concrete pumps - mixers High-speed plasma, gas and combined CNC cutting machine Wind power plants, wind generators Screw piles Coal-water fuel and technology for the production and combustion of coal-water fuel in boiler houses of various capacities High-performance electrolyte-plasma polishing installation High-performance multifunctional complex based on a wave power plant High-strength materials for 3D printing of the new generation High-strength laminated veneer lumber (LVL timber, LVL timber) High-tech environmental electric transport High-precision, multifunctional Russian CNC systems of the FMS-3000 series High-yielding wheat varieties Highly effective microbiological fertilizers Highly effective organic fertilizers with specified characteristics and technology for their production based on deep processing of livestock waste Highly efficient ignition wires Bugaets (Bugaets) with zero resistance Highly efficient agricultural tools for soil cultivation of the new generation Gas-thermal technologies for applying protective coatings Helium-neon, helium-cadmium, wave and nitrogen lasers Hydraulic and electric heavy, medium, light and self-propelled drilling rigs of the heavy, medium, light and self-propelled series Humates and the technology for the production of humate and fertilizers based on it with specified characteristics by the method of oxidation with active oxygen Disinfectants, hygiene products of the new generation POLYSEPT Cheap prefabricated industrial modular (block) film greenhouses Liquid thermal insulation Izollat ​​Substitutes for new agricultural fertilizers generations - mycorrhiza Pulse and energy supercapacitors Invest in technology! Intelligent autopilots for transport in warehouses Infrared electric heaters for industrial and domestic use IkoLine Cavitation-enzyme technology for treating waste, domestic and sewage water Frame-tent hangars Composite material that absorbs and reflects electromagnetic radiation New generation lithium-ion batteries Liotech Linen thermal insulation and sound insulation Ecoteplin (linen boards) Metal-ceramic galvanizing based on the zinc-silicate anti-corrosion composition “Zinoferr” Method of increasing labor efficiency, 1939 “Soviet economic miracle” Microgels for purifying water and hard surfaces Microdisplays based on organic light-emitting diodes Microorganisms recycling plastic, plexiglass , petroleum products, organic waste and heavy metals Multifunctional laser equipment and technologies for welding, cutting, surfacing, engraving Multifunctional equipment for driving piles Multifunctional vacuum evaporation plants and systems Multifunctional plasma device Multiplaz Multipurpose composite material “Polyceramoplast” based on ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and modifying additives Mobile quick-assembling containers of the Mobil-Box brand Mobile automated construction 3D printer "ApisСor" Fuel modifier "ECOS" to reduce the consumption of any type of liquid hydrocarbon fuel Motor-wheel (gearless energy-saving electric drive) We will select the technology for you! Domestic high-performance multi-tiered mobile hydroponic system Domestic fault-tolerant multicellular processors MultiClet Domestic processors “Baikal” based on a new generation architecture Heating of greenhouses and industrial premises with an environmentally friendly catalytic air heater Underground robot “Geokhod” for multi-purpose purposes Anti-wear nanomodifier “Striboil” for restoring friction surfaces Industrial-type fish-breeding complexes Prefabricated monolithic floors Secret Soviet control technologies "Sputnik" and "Scalar" Control system (technology) "KOMPAS". Socio-economic "miracle weapon" of the USSR. Or staff motivation on autopilot. System for curtaining greenhouses System for evaporative cooling and humidification of a greenhouse - fog creation system System for feeding greenhouse plants with carbon dioxide Own home garden and vegetable garden in an apartment (house, office) Drinking water purification station "Water-life" Ekranoplanes and ekranoplanes - new generation transport

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Demand factor 3 382

Eleventh Five-Year Plan- a five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR and the corresponding stage in the country’s history from January 1, 1981 to December 31, 1985 inclusive. The last of the four full five-year plans of the so-called. "Brezhnev era" in the history of the USSR.

The main task of the five-year plan

The formula of the main economic task of the 11th Five-Year Plan is “to give the country’s development even greater dynamism through more effective use production assets, their further development and renewal, the introduction of advanced technologies and achievements of scientific and technological progress, especially in heavy industry."

Features of the Five Year Plan

At the beginning of the five-year plan, he was appointed first deputy. In October 1980, shortly before Kosygin's death, Tikhonov accepted the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Tikhonov led the national economy throughout the 11th Five-Year Plan, until October 1985. During this time, 4 general secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee were replaced: , .

Badge of the drummer of the XI Five-Year Plan

In the light and food industries, along with the creation of new capacities, expansion and technical re-equipment of existing enterprises was actively carried out. The total length of main oil and gas pipelines and branches from them reached 54 thousand and 112 thousand kilometers, respectively. Overall, over the five-year period, national income and gross social product increased by another 19%.

During the 11th Five-Year Plan, the increase in the number of industrial workers decreased by two-thirds and fell to 2.7% (from 30,479 thousand in 1980 to 31,302 thousand in 1985, including students). However, continued growth in labor productivity allowed industrial production to increase by 20% and national income by 17%. The wages of workers and employees increased by 13%, and the wages of collective farmers by 29%, amounting to 190 and 150 rubles, respectively. per month. It should be noted that prices for the vast majority of items in the retail trade assortment, as well as housing and communal services, transport and communications, remained at the level of 1961–63 until the end of the 1980s.

During this five-year period, real per capita income increased by 11%, and payments and benefits to the population from public consumption funds increased by 25%. The rapid growth of the latter meant that an ever-increasing share of newly created value was distributed not “”, but “according to needs,” that is, without direct dependence on the quantity and quality of labor costs brought by a particular person into the formation of the mass of consumed goods. Thus, the idea of ​​overcoming the path to communism was not removed from the agenda. However, instead of immediately canceling them by order (which was especially active during the years of war communism

The main task of the introduced planned economy was to build up the economic and military power of the state at the highest possible pace; at the initial stage, this came down to the redistribution of the maximum possible amount of resources for the needs of industrialization.

Objectives of the first five-year plan

The first five-year plan (October 1, 1928 - October 1, 1933) was announced at the XVI Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (April 1929) as a set of carefully thought-out and realistic tasks.

This plan, immediately after its approval by the V Congress of Soviets of the USSR in May 1929, gave grounds for the state to carry out a number of measures of an economic, political, organizational and ideological nature, which elevated industrialization to the status of a concept, the era of the “great turning point.” The country had to expand the construction of new industries, increase production of all types of products and begin producing new technology.

Features of the first five-year plan

A five-day work week (“five-day week”) was introduced.

Using the media, the USSR leadership promoted mass mobilization of the population in support of industrialization. The Komsomol members in particular received it with enthusiasm. Millions of people selflessly, almost by hand, built hundreds of factories, power plants, laid iron roads,metro.

Often I had to work three shifts. In 1930, construction began on about 1,500 facilities, of which 50 absorbed almost half of all capital investments.

A number of gigantic transport and industrial structures were erected: Turksib, DneproGES, metallurgical plants in Magnitogorsk, Lipetsk and Chelyabinsk, Novokuznetsk, Norilsk, as well as Uralmash, tractor plants in Stalingrad, Chelyabinsk, Kharkov, Uralvagonzavod, GAZ, ZIS (modern ZIL), etc. .

Construction of the first five-year plan

In 1935, the first stage of the Moscow Metro opened with a total length of 11.2 km.

Particular attention was paid to the industrialization of agriculture.

Thanks to the development of the domestic tractor industry, in 1932 the USSR refused to import tractors from abroad, and in 1934 the Kirov plant in Leningrad began producing the Universal row crop tractor, which became the first domestic tractor, exported abroad. During the ten pre-war years, about 700 thousand tractors were produced, which amounted to 40% of their world production.

During the first five-year plan, they were built

Engineers were invited from abroad, many well-known companies, such as Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and General Electric, were involved in the work and supplied modern equipment. A domestic system of higher engineering and technical education was urgently created. In 1930, universal primary education was introduced in the USSR, and compulsory seven-year education in cities.

In 1930, speaking at the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Stalin admitted that an industrial breakthrough is possible only by building “socialism in one country” and demanded a multiple increase in the five-year plan targets, arguing that the plan could be exceeded for a number of indicators.

Since capital investment in heavy industry almost immediately exceeded the previously planned amount and continued to grow, the issue of money (that is, printing) was sharply increased paper money), and throughout the first five-year plan, the growth of the money supply in circulation was more than twice as fast as the growth in the production of consumer goods, which led to rising prices and a shortage of consumer goods.

At the same time, the state moved to a centralized distribution of its means of production and consumer goods; command-administrative management methods were introduced and private property was nationalized. A political system emerged based on the leadership role of the CPSU(b), state property on the means of production and a minimum of private initiative.

To increase incentives to work, pay became more closely tied to productivity. Centers for the development and implementation of the principles of scientific organization of labor were actively developing. One of the largest centers of this kind, the Central Labor Institute (CIT), has created about 1,700 training centers with 2 thousand highly qualified CIT instructors in different parts of the country. They operated in all leading sectors of the national economy - mechanical engineering, metallurgy, construction, light and forestry industries, railways and motor transport, agriculture and even the navy.

The first five-year plan was associated with rapid urbanization. The urban labor force increased by 12.5 million people, of which 8.5 million were from villages. The process continued for several decades, so that in the early 1960s the number of urban and rural population caught up.

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

Discussions during the NEP period

From Stalin's speech at the first All-Union Conference of Socialist Industry Workers on February 4, 1931.

Industrialization and the Cultural Revolution

The origins of the first - Stalinist industrialization, plans for the industrial development of the country of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II

Collectivization – industrialization of agriculture

Course towards industrialization

Mobilization economy or what funds were used for industrialization?

Where does the money for industrialization come from?

About collectivization

The first is Stalin’s industrialization: the first five-year plan

The first is Stalin’s industrialization: the second five-year plan

Results of collectivization

Results of industrial development of the USSR in the post-war years

The role of industrialization in winning the war

Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on the personnel of industrialization

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on collectivization, on the need for collectivization

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on collective farm construction

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on industrialization

Quotes from I.V. Stalin on the results of collectivization

What would have happened if the USSR - Soviet Russia had joined the WTO in 1932?

• – Material and technical base of socialism.
• –

Stalin's industrialization of the late 1920s and 30s was traditionally viewed by Soviet historiography (as well as Soviet propaganda) as a way to raise the USSR's economy to a global level. This was patently untrue.

Under normal conditions, economic growth is accompanied by the development of trade, entertainment infrastructure, growth in public consumption and an increase in living standards. And the industrialization of the national economy means, first of all, the industrialization of the production of consumer goods.

In the USSR everything was the other way around. The sharp growth of productive forces was accompanied by the elimination of trade, a sharp decrease in the production of consumer goods, a decrease in consumption itself to a minimum level and, accordingly, a catastrophic drop in the standard of living of the population.

The first versions of the plans of the first five-year plan were developed in parallel in the Supreme Economic Council (for state industry) and in the State Planning Committee of the USSR (for the entire national economy) since 1926. The first five-year plan was approved in May 1929 at the V Congress of Soviets. There are six or seven options in total.

During these four years in the USSR there was a change in the state regime and a change in state economic principles.

The dictatorship of the Politburo established after Lenin's death, whose members were not unanimous in their views on the future of the government's economic policy, was replaced by the one-man dictatorship of Stalin.

The goal of continuing and developing Lenin’s “new economic policy,” which was defended by the “right-wing communists” who were in the majority of the Politburo until 1928, was replaced by Stalin’s goal of eliminating the NEP, introducing universal forced labor and concentrating all resources on the construction of heavy industry, which was by no means designed to provide the population with the basic necessities of life.

The first Five-Year Plans, developed by NEP supporters, were based on the uniform and interconnected growth of agriculture and industry, mutually providing each other with the necessary means. And, as a consequence, from the gradual increase in the standard of living of the population.

The five-year plan approved in 1929 had already lost all connection with any meaningful economic calculations. He combined unnaturally high target targets for industrial growth, which had to be achieved at any cost, and purely fictitious fantastic indicators for the growth of labor productivity, consumer consumption, housing construction, etc., which were obviously not designed for implementation. The first completely excluded the second. The implementation of Stalin's plans for industrial production could only be achieved at the expense of the population. This was clear to all developers of five-year plans.

The first authors of the five-year plans were convicted at the “Menshevik trial” in 1931. The survivors lived by an aphorism attributed to Stanislav Strumilin, who at the initial stage led the development of five-year plans in the USSR State Planning Committee: “It is better to stand for high rates than to sit for low ones.”

1. General results of the first five-year plan

The extent to which the results of the first five-year plan did not correspond not only to the first versions of the five-year plan of 1927–28, but also to the officially approved project of 1929, can be judged by the volume “Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR” published in 1933.

Of course, statistical data from this time should be treated with extreme caution: there is no doubt that they were generally falsified. At the same time, even from unreliable data, guessing what exactly was falsified and for what purpose, one can understand the meaning of the economic and social processes taking place in the USSR.

Officially, the first five-year plan was completed in four and a quarter years. The optimal option, approved in 1929, assumed particularly favorable conditions for economic development and “... was based on a lower share of defense spending in the national economy compared to the starting option. However, during the implementation of the five-year plan, due to the increased military danger, the USSR was forced to increase its defense program in the last year of the five-year plan to increase its defense capability.<…>...particularly favorable conditions, which according to the five-year plan should have ensured the implementation of the optimal option in five years, were not only absent, but moreover, instead of them we had additional difficulties. And yet the plan was carried out and, moreover, on time, which was a stunning surprise for the enemies of the USSR.”

The military danger did not increase at all in 1932. In any case, not from the side of the Western neighbors in relation to the USSR, perhaps the other way around.

It is safe to say that, by increasing the pace of industrialization, Stalin was building a mobilization-type economy, the purpose of which was to create military industry and, as a result, the largest and most combat-ready army possible. All other sectors of the economy played a subordinate role and served heavy and military industries.

As the American researcher Alec Nove wrote in 1989, “there are suggestions that the war psychosis was deliberately incited as a weapon of internal party struggle, since, of course, the Soviet Union felt threatened by the capitalist encirclement. But there is another explanation. Many years ago, Polish economist Oskar Lange described the Soviet centralized system as “a special type of war economy.” There is logic and psychology of wartime, and as such they are not related to ideology. For example, in Great Britain in 1943, the market equilibrium was disrupted, prices did not express consumer value, the currency was inconvertible, and bureaucrats distributed raw materials. All this happened, just as there were bureaucratic perversions of all kinds. However, it was believed that these were inevitable and necessary wartime costs. Of course, at the end of the 20s there was no war as such, but there was a “military” psychology and it was consciously instilled: a toughening of the class struggle, “fronts”, “bridgeheads”, “assaults” everywhere ... ".

But in the plans of the first five-year plan, as well as in its official results, there is no data on defense spending. There is only a column “administration and defense”, in which expenditures on the state apparatus are combined with defense ones and are not differentiated in any way.

In numbers, the increase in spending for these purposes is as follows. In 1927/28, 1.2 billion rubles were spent on administration and defense, which accounted for 23.7% of all budget expenditures(RUB 5.06 billion).

In 1932, already 1.84 billion rubles passed through this column. accounting for 6.1% of all expenses (RUB 30.16 billion). In just 4.25 years, 6.95 billion rubles were spent on these purposes, 9.7% of all budget expenditures for the five-year period, amounting to 71.96 billion rubles. Thus, officially, expenditures on apparatus and defense increased by 1932 by only one and a half times, while decreasing by a percentage of 3.9 times.

The population of the USSR in 1932 was 165.7 million people, having increased by 11.5 million people since 1928. The urban population was 38.7 million, the rural - 127 million. The urban population has increased since 1928 by 11.1 million people, the rural - by 0.4 million people. .

The population employed in agriculture decreased overall from 119.9 million people. up to 117.2 million people

These data reflect the intensive forced transfer of the rural population to the cities, more precisely, to the construction sites of the Five-Year Plan. According to Ginzburg’s plan, which was based on natural migration to cities from the countryside, the urban population was supposed to grow only to 30.1 million people, that is, there would be 8.6 million fewer people.

The rural population has hardly grown numerically over the five-year period, and the number of people engaged in agriculture has decreased by 2.7 million. This indicates colossal withdrawals of the population from collective farms.

The collective farm population, which amounted to two million people in 1928, grew to 66.7 million people. (growth - 3300%).

The share of collective farmers in the agricultural population increased from 1.7% to 61.6%.

The number of state farms increased by 1932 from 3125 to 10,203. The number of workers in them increased from 345.5 thousand to 1046.6 thousand people.

The number of collective farms grew from 33.3 thousand in 1928 to 209.6 thousand in 1932 (620.4% growth). The number of collective farms increased from 416.7 thousand to 14,707.7 thousand (3529.4% growth).

The increase in the number of collective farms by 38 times and state farms by three times meant the actual expropriation of personal property from the absolute majority of the rural population and the subordination of its former owners directly to the Politburo as forced laborers. The productivity of collective farms was much lower than that of private farms, but much more important was the ability, without much hassle and without the need to negotiate with each individual farmer, to confiscate the entire produced product into the ownership of the state and freely manipulate the labor force, moving it in the right quantities to where it was needed At the moment.

Capital investments in people economy over the five-year period amounted to 60 billion rubles. (in prices of the corresponding years), while in the socialized sector - 52.5 billion and in the private sector - 7.5 billion.

Including investments in the socialized industrial sector amounted to 24.8 billion rubles, in agriculture - 10.8 billion rubles. .

The gross output of the entire licensed industry amounted to 34.3 billion rubles in 1932. with a plan of 36.6 billion (93.7% fulfillment).

For comparison, according to the “Strumilin Plan,” investments in the national economy were planned over a five-year period of 17.6 billion rubles, in state industry - 4.95 billion rubles, in agriculture - 1.2–1.3 billion rubles. . Gross industrial output was planned according to Ginzburg's plan in 1932 in the amount of 20.4 billion rubles.

The total number of workers and employees increased from 1928 to 1932 from 11.599 million people to 22.804 million people. (the five-year plan figure is 15.763 million people, according to Ginzburg’s plan - 12.86 million). Growth - 196.6%.

Including in industry - from 4.534 million to 6.781 million (according to plan - 4.602 million people). Growth - 191.9%.

In the licensed industry - from 3.126 million to 6.311 million people. (plan - 4.08 million people). Growth 201.9%.

In construction, the number of workers and employees increased from 723 thousand people (1928) to 3125.6 thousand people. (according to the five-year plan - 1882.5 thousand people). According to the five-year plan, the number of workers in construction in 1932 was supposed to be 166% by 1928, but it was 432.3%.

These figures give an idea of ​​the scale of the forced transfer of labor from the village and how it was used. The total number of hired workers increased by 11 million people. in five years, 10 million more than expected under Ginzburg’s plan, and 7 million more than the approved 1929 plan.

The average monthly wage in industry increased from 70.24 rubles. in 1928 to 116.62 rubles. in 1932 (66% growth).

The annual wages of the proletariat increased from 703.4 rubles. up to 1432 rub. (growth 103%). The entire average salary over the years of the five-year plan almost doubled, exceeding the outline of the five-year plan (for 1932/33) by 44%.

At the same time, the growth of nominal wages outpaced the growth of labor productivity and lagged far behind the growth of prices, which will be discussed below.

The five-year financial plan was fulfilled by 131.1%. According to the plan, income and expenses over five years should have amounted to 91.6 billion rubles, and over four and a quarter years they amounted to 120 billion. Of this, the income of the socialized sector amounted to 89.9 billion rubles. (74.9% of the total). According to the five-year plan, they should have amounted to 70.9 billion rubles. (77.4% of the total). The five-year plan was exceeded by 126.8%.

According to Strumilin’s plan, based on the continuation of the NEP, the five-year financial plan was supposed to amount to 39.68 billion rubles, but in reality it amounted to three times more. It is clear that the remaining 80 billion rubles (and in reality more, since the NEP mechanisms ceased to operate) were squeezed out of the population by various non-economic means.

The results of housing construction are covered very sparingly in the “Results of the Five-Year Plan.” A total of 22,264 thousand square meters were put into operation during the first five-year plan. m of living space. Another 5 million should be delivered at the beginning of 1933.

The total housing stock in cities was 162.46 million square meters in 1928. m, grew by 1932 to 185.6 million square meters. m.

Capital investments of the socialized sector in housing construction amounted to 4 billion rubles. .

No data on what the constructed living space was like - what part of it was temporary housing, and what part was normal, corresponding to sanitary standards, what part were apartments, and what part were dormitories - is not presented in the “Results...”. Just as there is no data on the per capita standard of living space.

Based on the above data, the 38.7 million urban population in 1932 accounted for 185.6 million square meters. m. That is, the per capita rate fell from 5.6 sq. m. m in 1928 to 4.8 sq. m in 1932 instead of growing to 6.9 square meters. m according to the starting point and up to 7.3 sq. m according to the optimal (approved) five-year plan.

According to the 1934 statistical yearbook, on January 1, 1933, the urban population of the USSR was 38,739 thousand people. , and the housing stock in the cities of the USSR in 1933 was 191.5 million square meters. m. Hence the per capita norm is 4.94 sq. m.

Most likely, the data on the urban population is more or less correct, but the data on housing built is overestimated. Just as housing finance figures are overstated. In any case, the real situation with housing in the cities of the USSR, especially in new industrial cities, was much worse.

It turns out that the urban population, according to official data, grew by 12.423 million people over the five-year period. (27.316 million at the beginning of 1929 and 39.739 million at the beginning of 1933). Living space increased during this time by 23 million square meters. m. Consequently, an average of 1.85 square meters was built per new city resident over the five-year period. m of living space. In 1931-32, this was approximately the amount per resident of new industrial cities that did not have the old housing stock and, therefore, were deprived of the possibility of densification.

For example, in Chelyabinsk, where a giant tractor plant was being built, the average per capita rate in 1933 was 2.2 square meters. m, in Perm - 2.8 sq. m. In Magnitogorsk, which was built in an open field, - 1.6 sq. m. m, and in Sverdlovsk, which had an old fund, - 4.2 sq. m. m (in 1928 - 5.3 sq. m).

What is striking is how the volume “Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR” of 1933 edition differs from the publications of the plans of the first five-year plans, especially the first ones in 1927.

The statistics in it are extremely stingy, crude and unverifiable. Data on the implementation of production plans are given in monetary terms. What was produced and in what quantity is in most cases unclear.

The volume of capital investments, the increase in the share of the socialized sector in industry and agriculture, the growth of the urban population and the relative decrease in the rural population, and the increase in the share of production of means of production are considered as economic achievements. That is, circumstances that do not characterize the state of the economy and the level of well-being of the population in any way. Or they characterize it in a negative sense.

An increase in the volume of capital investments, carried out due to a decrease in the level of consumption of the population, clearly indicates a decrease in the standard of living and increased exploitation of the population.

Behind the growth in the share of the socialized sector in industry and agriculture is a fall in labor productivity, the degradation of small industry, crafts, trade, and a fall in the production of consumer goods.

The unnaturally rapid growth of the urban population while the rural population is declining indicates the compulsory nature of this process, which became possible only thanks to terror in the countryside - “dekulakization”, deportations and artificially organized famine as a result of the total withdrawal of food from the countryside.

An increase in the share of production of means of production could indicate growth in the economy as a whole and an increase in well-being only if we were talking about the production of means of production of consumer goods. Or any products that generate income for the manufacturer. But at the same time, the trade network would inevitably have to develop. In the USSR, the opposite happened: private trade was completely destroyed, and the market was replaced by a system of state distribution.

“Results...” does not contain data on what actual goods and in what quantities were produced (or should have been produced) as a result of the gigantic growth in the production of capital goods, mechanical engineering, electricity production, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, oil and coal production.

As achievements in agriculture, the increase in the size of crops on state and collective farms, the number of various machines received by the village, the overall growth of crops is indicated... There is, however, no data on agricultural production and consumption of agricultural products, including food.

There is data on trade, but very meager. And there is no data on foreign trade, except for general information about the underfulfillment of the export-import plan, due to political complications with England and the USA and the “slanderous campaign about “forced labor” in the USSR.”

For example, in the chapter “Trade turnover” there is data that “state procurement of grain grain increased from 12.1 million tons in 1928/29 to 23 million tons in 1931/32, that is, almost 2 times.” But in the “agriculture” chapter there is no data on overall grain production and yield dynamics. Instead, there is an abundance of data on the percentage increase in the socialization of agriculture by 1928.

There is no data on small and cottage industries.

The chapter “Consumption” is completely absent.

There is no information about the housing situation and changes in per capita standards.

This work was published by the State Planning Committee of the USSR, but the State Planning Committee of 1933 represents something completely different from what it was five years ago. Both the goals and methods of work of Soviet economists changed.

Accordingly, the results changed.

It is interesting to compare the official results of the first five-year plan with the options for its planning at the beginning of the Stalin era, in 1927, which were based on the continuation of the NEP, balanced growth of industry, agriculture and the welfare of the population.

From a comparison of the data, it is clear that the national economic budget has officially increased from 13 million rubles. in 1928/29 to 44.6 billion in 1932. In total, 120 billion rubles were invested in the economy in less than five years. While according to the calculations of Strumilin’s five-year plan, all savings over five years should have amounted to 12.8 billion rubles, and with loans, withdrawals from the budget and emissions - 18.250 billion rubles.

It is impossible to explain the origin of these funds other than by forcefully pumping them out of the population. By own means for the purposes of accelerated industrialization the state did not have it. Nor did they have the required number of workers.

During the first five-year plan, a pathologically sharp increase in the so-called “urban population”, the number of hired workers, workers in state industry and construction, far exceeding the indicators of the planned natural migration of the rural population to the city. At the same time, there is an equally pathologically sharp relative reduction in the rural population in general and the population employed in agriculture.

The means of pumping out funds and transferring the population from the countryside to construction sites were the social reforms carried out at that time with exceptional cruelty - the collectivization of agriculture and the complete destruction of private ownership of the means of production, that is, the destruction of small industry, crafts, trade, etc.

From the point of view of normal balanced economic development, these reforms were deadly. Enslaving the population and reducing living standards cannot be the goal economic reforms- under normal conditions. Forced labor is also ineffective under normal conditions. Stalin's reforms of the era of the first five-year plan led to a decrease in labor productivity, a decline in the well-being of the population, and were crimes in themselves. But without them, in principle, the goals that the government set for itself could not be achieved.

It is quite obvious that the planned indicators of growth in labor productivity, growth in real wages, growth in consumption and per capita norms contained in the approved five-year plan were in no way designed to be fulfilled. They completely contradicted those indicators, the maximum possible fulfillment of which the government really demanded - the volume of capital investments, the growth of wage earners, the socialization of the national economy, etc.

2. Industry

According to Strumilin's plan, the growth of industrial production was to be 79%. According to Ginzburg's plan, the growth of industrial production in industry, planned by the Supreme Economic Council, was to be 82.1%.

According to the five-year plan of 1929, “... the physical volume of production of the entire licensed industry grows according to the calculations of the starting option by 2.3 times and according to the calculations of the optimal option by 2.6 times, while the output of the planned industry grows according to the options by 135% and 180% %" .

According to Naum Yasny, “in the period of less than two years between the drawing up of the first and final versions of the plan, the planned figures for the growth of industrial production more than doubled. Shortly after the adoption of the Five-Year Plan, a resolution of the Sixteenth Party Congress (June-July 1930) provided for further growth of industrial production for some of the most important industries. A worthy conclusion to this unrestrained orgy of planning was the decision of the VI Congress of Soviets (March 8–18, 1931): the approved targets of the five-year plan were to be completed in four years, and for particularly important industries a period of three years was allotted. Thus, the figures in the assignments of the two five-year plans drawn up in the first half of 1927 were more than doubled, and in some cases almost tripled."

As a characteristic moment in the evolution of planning, Yasny notes the disappearance of data on the planning and production of small industry.

“In 1927, statistical reports were still true, so both five-year plans drawn up by the State Planning Committee and the Supreme Economic Council and approved in 1927 contained some data on small industry. However, in the first five-year plan there is no data on the output of small industry, although in general the plan itself was much more detailed than its draft developed by the State Planning Committee in 1927. Since 1929, information on the output of small industry has not been available in most statistical collections.” .

According to Yasny’s ​​calculations, small-scale industry planning looked like this:

The implementation of the industrial production plan looked like this: “According to official statistical sources, in four years, from 1928 to 1932, industrial output increased by 101% (for industry as a whole) and by 132% (for large-scale industry). At the same time, the output of small industry decreased by 2%. For comparison: it was planned to increase production growth by 136% for industry as a whole, by 164% for large and 50% for small industry.”

The priorities of the Soviet government during the implementation of the first five-year plan are given by the official indicators of production growth in the first five-year plan cited by N. Yasny.

Official growth rates in the first five-year plan

The indicators of increase in production of means of production, the most intense ones, were fulfilled (to the extent possible) first. Secondly, the entire industry. At the same time, the increase in the production of consumer goods, projected to be extremely insignificant, turned out to be completely negative. That is, the production of consumer goods has sharply decreased.

Despite the gigantic construction program of the Five-Year Plan, “the production of construction timber increased over three years (1930–1933) by 1.5%, while the output of brick and cement fell by 20% and 9.9%, respectively.”

This speaks of a catastrophic reduction in civil engineering in the USSR and an equally catastrophic decline in its quality.

It is quite obvious that the gigantic volumes of industrial construction absorbed almost all the scarce resources. Construction Materials- cement, metal, brick... Residential and municipal construction accounted for a pitiful remnant. The government constantly issued decrees to limit or completely ban the use of metal, cement, and high-quality wood in civil construction, to replace scarce building materials with substitutes, and to reduce the cost of construction by thinning walls and using low-grade wood.

3. Agriculture

According to the data cited by Naum Yasny, “instead of an increase of 55% over the five-year period from 1927/28 to 1932/33, which was provided for by the approved version of the five-year plan, the total output of agricultural products decreased by 14% between 1928 and 1933 G. . The output of livestock products decreased by 48% instead of the planned increase of 50–54%. This means that the five-year plan for these indicators was fulfilled by a little more than a third<…>In 1928, there was a slight increase in agricultural production (3%). Since the approval of the first five-year plan in 1928, there has been an annual decline in both total agricultural output and livestock output, and to an even greater extent<…>in the last years of the first five-year plan, millions of people died of hunger. The famine continued during the Second Five-Year Plan period."

Mass famine in the USSR was caused not only by a drop in production and the total withdrawal of food from the collectivized villages, but also by the export of food abroad. The fall in food production itself could not have caused such a catastrophe if not for exports. Export earnings were the main source of foreign exchange needed to purchase industrial goods. modern technology, equipment for factories under construction and payment for specialists who installed Western equipment. And the main export item, along with timber, was food, primarily grain.

4 . International trade

The approved five-year plan stated:

“A feature of the export plan is the restoration of grain exports. Due to the fact that material growth in production is projected at an even higher rate than exports, our trade relations will not grow relatively. In relation to the gross output of 1932/33, exports will be approximately 3%, which is close to modern ratios.<…>As for imports, in addition to its large growth, due to the strengthening role of agriculture as a raw material base for industry, its structure will change towards an increase in the importance of importing equipment at the expense of raw materials. This will make the Soviet market especially attractive to world industry, which suffers from chronic overproduction."

The relationship between food exports, equipment imports and hunger in the USSR is well illustrated by data from Konstantin Trommel’s dissertation work on the development of Soviet-German trade relations from 1928 to 1936 and defended in Leipzig in 1939.

For the USSR, Germany has been the most important trading partner since 1928 (ahead of England and the USA). Only in 1935 did Germany move to third place in terms of the volume of Soviet imports (after the USA and England), but in 1936 it again found itself in first place.

In terms of the volume of Soviet exports, Germany was in first place only in 1928, 1929 and 1934; in the remaining years, England took first place.

German imports to the USSR reached their maximum volume (in rubles) in 1931 - 410 million rubles. This amounted to 37.2% of all Soviet imports in 1931 (1.105 billion rubles). The following year, the volume of imports decreased in absolute terms to 327.7 million rubles, but increased in relative terms to 46.5% (total 704 million rubles).

In total, over the years of the Five-Year Plan (1928–1932), the USSR imported goods worth 4.7 billion rubles from abroad. , and exported 4.140 billion rubles. .

Generally international trade USSR for 1928–1933. looked like this.

Trade between Germany and the USSR over the five-year period looked like this: the bulk of Soviet imports consisted of machine tools and apparatus, electrical equipment, metal products, cars and parts for them, tractors and agricultural machines.

From the tables above it is clear that the maximum export from the USSR falls in 1929–1930, and the maximum import to the USSR falls in 1930–31. Almost exclusively industrial equipment of various types and raw materials (for example, wool, rubber) were also imported from Germany to the USSR. Consumer goods accounted for a few percent.

In 1930, goods worth 1.058 billion rubles were imported into the USSR, and goods worth 1.030 billion rubles were exported.

For comparison, in the relatively prosperous and well-fed year of 1925, imports amounted to 724 million rubles, and exports - 559 million rubles. (for Germany, respectively - 102.7 and 87.4 million rubles).

The absolute maximum of imports from Germany falls in 1931 - 410 million rubles. Exports from the USSR to Germany this year amounted to 129 million rubles.

The absolute maximum of exports to Germany was 1929 (251 million rubles).

Imports to the USSR from Germany in 1931 (762 million Reichsmarks) consisted of 89% finished products, by 9.3% from raw materials and semi-finished products, by 0.9% from food and drinks.

Soviet exports to Germany in 1931 (303.45 million Reichsmarks) consisted of 27.4% food, 63.3% raw materials and semi-finished products, and 9.3% finished products.

In total, in 1931, the USSR exported abroad out of a total amount of 811 million rubles. food for 302 million rubles, raw materials and semi-finished products for 418.9 million rubles, finished products for 89.6 million rubles.

In general, food exports from the USSR over the five-year period looked like this:

The import of industrial equipment into the USSR developed as follows:

In total, during the five-year period, only industrial equipment worth 2236.5 million rubles was imported into the USSR, 47.5% of total imports.

Other goods of a purely industrial nature are not taken into account here - products made of non-ferrous metals, chemical products, cotton, wool, rubber, etc.

Food exports for individual goods were as follows (million rubles; % of total exports):

For five years, from 1928 to 1932, the SSSO exported grain worth 458.4 million rubles;

Oils for 120.6 million rubles;

Eggs for 76.2 million rubles;

Fish for 66.6 million rubles;

Sugar for 141.2 million rubles;

Cake worth 82 million rubles.

The dynamics of Soviet food exports to Germany can be seen from the following table (in tons and millions of Reichsmarks).

Import of Soviet food products into Germany

From the tables above it can be seen that the peak of food exports from the USSR as a whole falls in 1930–31–32. It coincides with the peak of imports of machinery and equipment into the USSR, and also coincides (partially preceding it) with the mass famine of 1932–33. with millions of victims. The maximum import of industrial equipment into the USSR falls in 1931, the maximum export of food in 1930 - the year of collectivization.

At the same time, the maximum export of grain (805,709 tons) and oil (13,438 tons) to Germany falls in 1932 - the peak of famine in the Soviet countryside.

At the same time, through simple calculations one can find out that grain prices fell from 308 Reichsmarks per ton in 1928 to 90.8 in 1932 (3.4 times). Accordingly, oil prices fell during this time from 3010 to 1174 Reichsmarks per ton (2.6 times). That is, by the end of the five-year plan, the USSR exported food at dumping prices.

In 1929, grain was exported abroad for 23.9 million rubles, and in 1930 (at the height of collectivization) - for 207.1 million rubles, that is, almost 9 times more (in monetary terms). Considering the dumping prices at which the USSR sold its goods, the difference in quantity should have been even greater. Even in the terrible year of 1933, grain was exported for 46.5 million rubles, almost the same as in the relatively well-fed 1925 (51.4 million rubles) and four times more than in 1928 (11, 8 million rubles).

The five-year plan of 1929 was based on “... the task of doubling the starting point and growing by more than two and a half times optimal option our exports<…>by the end of the five-year period, grain exports should grow to 50 or 80 million centners<…>Expanding agricultural exports products (butter, eggs, etc.) is planned with full consideration of the needs of the domestic market and the tasks of the so-called improvement of the consumption structure (increased consumption of eggs, butter, etc.), which should naturally accompany the industrial and cultural growth of the country.”

The following table gives an idea of ​​the relationship between the dynamics of Soviet exports over the five-year period as a whole, food exports and exports of grain and legumes in monetary terms according to Tremel.

The table shows that the entire export of 1929 exceeded the export of 1928 by 15%, the export of 1930 - by almost 30%, the export of 1931 was almost equal to the export of 1028, and the export of 1932 fell by 28%.

That is, in the first three years of the Five-Year Plan, Soviet exports grow, reaching a maximum in 1930, and then fall sharply, ending up in 1932 below the 1928 level.

At the same time, food exports as a whole in the second year of the five-year plan almost did not increase compared to 1928, in 1930 they increased by 60%, in 1931 they exceeded the exports of 1928 by 40%, and in 1932 they amounted to only 66 % of the first year of the five-year plan.

This means that the share of food in total exports increased until 1931 and fell sharply only in 1932. being lower than in 1928.

The dynamics of the export of grain crops gives a completely different picture.

In 1929, income from grain exports increased slightly more than twice as much as in 1928 (202%). In 1930 the increase was 17.5 times (1755%), in 1931 - 13 times (1336%), in 1932 - almost five times (494%) compared to the first year of the Five-Year Plan.

Grain exports rose sharply before 1930, but even after falling in 1931 and 1932, they were many times higher than at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan.

Bread exports generated maximum revenue in 1930 and 1931. But even in 1932, when mass famine set in, revenue from grain exports was 5 times greater than in the relatively prosperous year of 1928.

Data on grain exports in tons are even more expressive and show how much importance the Politburo attached to grain exports as a source of financing for industrialization.

Export of grain crops from the USSR (tons)

The maximum export of grain crops falls in 1931 - 5,182,835 tons (51.8 million centners) and exceeds the export of 1927/28 by 15 times. This is almost the level of the planning assumptions of 1929 at the end of the five-year plan - “50 or 80 million centners,” except for the fact that these achievements led to mass famine in the country.

For comparison, grain exports in the relatively prosperous years of the NEP amounted to 2,068,777 tons in 1925/26; in 1926/27 - 2,177,714 tons.

In 1928, earnings from grain exports accounted for only 1.5% of total exports. Butter and eggs gave 4.9 and 5.2%, respectively. In subsequent years, the export of these products fell sharply (in 1930, 1.1 and 0.4%, respectively), but the share of grain rose in 1930 to 25.5% of total exports.

These patterns can easily be explained by collectivization, the height of which falls precisely in 1930. The production of butter and eggs decreased sharply after the destruction of individual peasant farming and small private industry. The tasks of collective farms were to produce as much grain as possible, which was almost completely removed from the village.

This situation is very clearly illustrated and explained by Stalin’s letter to Molotov in August 1930: “Mikoyan reports that procurement is growing and we are exporting 1-1.5 million poods of grain every day. I think this is not enough. We must now raise the daily export rate to at least 3-4 million poods. Otherwise, we risk being left without our new metallurgical and machine-building (Avtozavod, Chelyabzavod, etc.) factories... In a word, we need to frantically speed up the export of bread.”

The supply of equipment for factories was directly dependent on the export of food from the USSR.

The data on the supply of Soviet timber to Germany is interesting.

The table shows a sharp increase in supplies, reaching a maximum in 1930 - 1.309 million tons, four times more than in 1925 (at the height of the NEP). At the same time, prices fall sharply, in 1932 - almost twice as much as in 1928.

Here we must keep in mind that almost the entire logging plan was carried out with the help of forced labor.

According to the reference book “Labor Control Figures for 1929-30” 1.0 million foot and horse workers were involved in timber harvesting in 1927/28, 1.198 million in 1928/29. It was planned to use 2.307 million foot and horse workers in 1929/30. Another 793 thousand workers were planned to be used for rafting.

The reality looked like this:

“At the spring plenum of the Central Committee<1928 г.>It turned out that it was impossible to carry out the logging program of 1929 using the same means and methods. By this time collectivization had just begun. The Commissioner of Agriculture responsible for it pointed out that collectivization would be impossible if, as before, logging in the winter season was carried out by forcibly recruited masses of peasants with their horses, who, when returning home, were not only monstrously reduced in number, but also so exhausted , that they are not able to participate in the spring work... According to the accepted methods and organization of work, already in 1928, a total of about five million people and two million horses were required for logging and transportation of timber during the four months from November 15 to March 15.

These incredible masses of people were forcibly sent to areas without roads, and not the slightest concern was shown about their accommodation and provision."

5 . Consumption

The first five-year plan approved in 1929 included indicators for the growth of food consumption.

Growth in food consumption according to the 1929 Five-Year Plan

As can be seen from the table, in 1932/33 the urban population should have consumed the same amount of bread as in 1928, consumed 12% more meat than in 1928, 71% more eggs, 71% more dairy products than in 1928. 55% more. The consumption of the rural population was also expected to increase, although not as significantly.

We can say with complete confidence that the planned indicators for growth in population consumption were a deliberate bluff already at the time the five-year plan was approved. No one was going to carry them out, and it was impossible. The government pursued goals of the opposite kind - reducing consumption to the possible minimum. At the same time, the rural population found itself in a much worse situation than the urban population, which was also starving.

As Elena Osokina writes, “... government system supply was based on the assumption of self-sufficiency of the rural population. However, the possibility of self-sufficiency was undermined by ever-increasing state procurements, which confiscated not only marketable products, but also products necessary for the consumption of the villagers themselves. As a result, the collective farms were left with a small amount of money - procurement prices for collective farms were unprofitable - and with a small supply of products grown by them, from which seed and reserve funds still had to be allocated. As a result, as the Russian proverb says, “the shoemaker sat without boots”: grain growers did not have enough bread, those who raised livestock did not eat meat, did not drink milk.

While clearing out the collective farm bins, the state supplied the rural population meagerly and irregularly. Although the rural population was more than three times larger than the urban population, during the period of the rationing system, rural supplies accounted for only about a third of the country's trade turnover. The goods were imported mainly in the third and fourth quarters to stimulate the harvest. In 1931–33, Narkomsnab allocated only 30–40% of garments, shoes, soap, and knitwear to supply the rural population. The food supply for the rural population was even worse. During this period, Narkomsnab sent to the cities of the USSR more than half of the market fund of vegetable oil, about 80% of the funds of flour, cereals, animal oil, fish products, sugar, almost the entire fund of meat products (94%), all margarine, a third of all state funds tea and salt.

If we take into account that the cities, which received the lion's share of state funds, were extremely insufficiently provided, then it is clear that the crumbs remaining for the rural population could not improve their situation.

Even these data, being averaged, only weakly characterize the poverty of state supplies to the rural population. The funds sent to the village had a specific purpose. This means that goods were not distributed equally among residents, but were used to provide for certain groups of the population, primarily workers of political departments, MTS and state farms. By the time goods arrived in the general store, most of them were assigned to certain groups of consumers.”

6. Prices

One of the most obvious symptoms of the catastrophe that ended the implementation of the first five-year plan is the rise in consumer prices and the decline in trade in consumer goods.

“...During the entire period of the first five-year plan and especially in the last two years of the five-year plan, there was a huge increase in prices for consumer goods and a sharp drop in the supply of these goods to the retail trade network. These data are especially impressive when viewed on a per capita basis. According to Malafeev, sales of food products through state retail trade decreased from 7,367 million rubles. in 1930 to 5538 million rubles. in 1932. Throughout the five-year plan, sales of retail products excluding food grew, but their growth was only 1.5% But at the same time, prices for both categories of goods increased by 62.4% between 1930 and the first half of 1932. This meant that in two years, from 1930 to 1932, the actual volume of government trade was reduced by more than half.

During the same short period, prices in private markets increased by 233%. Already in 1931, in private trade, the increase in prices for retail products was quite high. Between 1927/28 and 1930 the price increase was 131%, and between 1927/28 and the first half of 1932 there was an almost eightfold increase in prices. The next significant jump in prices for retail goods occurred in the second half of 1932."

Official data on the results of the first five-year plan (as well as materials for the preparation of the approved five-year plan with all changes) do not provide an answer to main question- what was its purpose?

It is clear that the USSR produced a huge amount of coal, oil, electricity, metals, machine tools and other intermediate products intended for the production of something final. But this final product was never mentioned.

Almost none of the goods produced at the enterprises built during the First Five-Year Plan were exported. They also did not enter the domestic market. Moreover, by 1930 private trade had already been destroyed, and the supply of essential goods to the population took the form of distribution by ration cards.

Just as the underlying data that served as the basis for calculating Soviet industrialization was never mentioned. Planning for the construction of about one and a half thousand new enterprises had to be based on planning the production of their final products, which certainly could not be just cast iron, steel, electricity, and even tractors and cars.

Tractors and cars, data on the planned production of which are given in the Five-Year Plan documents, are also not final goods. They are also a means of production, especially since passenger cars for private individuals was not carried out at all.

The data presented in “Results...” about the growth in the production of consumer goods (obviously bullshit) do not in any way explain all the superhuman efforts to build the production of means of production. Moreover, these conditional data relate only to state production, the growth of which occurred against the background of the destruction of private small industry, which, in fact, provided the household needs of the population under the NEP.

During the first five-year plan, an industry was built whose production goals were never disclosed. Social reforms were carried out, which boiled down to the introduction of universal forced labor. Forced labor is the least productive form of labor. But it is extremely effective when the task is to build something that ultimately does not have a direct economic effect for society and is unprofitable for the population. And when the organizer of this construction does not have the means and capabilities to provide the construction with funds and free labor.

7. The problem of foreign investment

A characteristic (and surprising, at first glance) feature of Soviet industrialization plans is the absence of any mention of the possibility of attracting foreign investors. They are not even in the very first plans of the first five-year plan. Although, it would seem, foreign investment could play a key role in the rise of the national economy. The fact that this topic was discussed in government circles is confirmed by the publication in 1929 of several books in the series “Concession Objects of the Soviet Union” in foreign languages. Among them are definitely the Magnitogorsk plant, the Nadezhda and Taganrog iron foundries, the Svir power plant and the Volga-Don Canal.

In the book by Prof. M.I. Bogolepov’s “Financial Plan for the Five-Year Plan,” which is an expanded version of the corresponding section of the five-year plan approved in 1929, indicates the sources of financing for the five-year plan, determined in the amount of 76,800 million rubles. There are no foreign investments among them.

Stalin's negative attitude towards concessions is well known.

Some light on the explanation of this fact is shed by the memoirs of Grigory Besedovsky, a Soviet diplomat who fled to the West (that is, literally through the wall of the Soviet embassy in Paris) in 1929. The memoirs were first published in Paris in 1930. The former Socialist Revolutionary Besedovsky became the highest-ranking diplomat - a defector of the Stalin era, at the time of his flight he was acting as the Soviet plenipotentiary in Paris. Besedovsky was well aware of the internal discussions and contradictions of the Soviet political elite. This is how he describes the situation in the summer of 1928:

“... Inside the country there was almost no hope left that it would be possible to avoid a new outbreak of military communism, even more acute in its appearance and even more unbearable psychologically, since this time there was a war on the borders of the country, and there was no enemy inside the country threatened the peasant.

However, I still cherished faint hopes that if I could bind Stalin with a number of concessions in foreign policy and thereby enable the country to receive financial assistance from outside, it would be possible to soften Stalin’s policy without leading to an open break with the peasantry.

It seemed clear to me that the pressure on the peasantry was growing as a result of the absurd line of rapid industrialization of Russia that was taken by Stalin’s government. This super-industrialization required colossal funds for its implementation and should have forced Stalin to ultimately increase his pressure on the peasantry to the point beyond which starvation and death of millions of people began.

I understood perfectly well that Stalin’s foreign policy for this period of time would be a derivative of his so-called “general line.” But at the same time, in the field of foreign policy it was possible to put pressure on Stalin much more successfully than in the field of domestic policy. The prospect of receiving a large foreign loan could cause some change in sentiment among influential members of the Politburo and Stalin's immediate circle. The party apparatus, led by Molotov, followed the latter unquestioningly, pulling him towards the implementation of Stalin’s directives on the ground. But the party apparatus moved in the direction reluctantly, reluctantly, since for all party workers on the ground the difficulties and dangers arising on this new path of acute struggle against the peasantry were clear. That is why the prospect of reviving financial and economic relations with foreign countries could even change the mood of the party apparatus and make it difficult, if not impossible, for Stalin’s policy of turning against the peasant.”

Besedovsky tried to convince members of the Politburo to agree to pay off the Russian debt to France, which could be beneficial for the USSR, as it greatly improved the conditions for obtaining loans and freed up funds for industrialization and opened up wide opportunities for the USSR in the French market. Stalin vetoed Besedovsky's report.

According to Besedovsky, in October 1928 he was summoned to Stalin, who, among other things, said:

“We cannot pay debts without changing the class essence of our power<…>You think that it is possible to establish long-term financial cooperation with the capitalist world. But by surrendering to Poincaré, we will lose all possibility of revolutionary maneuvering, we will lose one of the most important positions - the refusal to recognize old debts. We overpay on abnormal loans. You're right. But on the other hand, we retain complete independence of our economic system in its fight against the capitalist encirclement. You have to be naive to think that in France we can get long-term loans without any conditions. We will be given conditions as a result of which we will not be able to run our farm the way we want. We will not lead, but we will be led. Understand that short term commodity loans for all their high cost, they save us from political bondage. We do not need large external loans. Or rather, we still won’t get them on the terms we can offer. To think otherwise means to fall into disgusting opportunism, to imagine long-term cooperation between two irreconcilable economic systems possible.”

The most important thing in this speech is the fundamental rejection of the prospects of foreign loans, since they will inevitably entail external control over the economic use of investments: “we will not be able to run our economy the way we want.” Short-term loans unprofitable, expensive and forced to deplete the national economy, but at the same time the Soviet government is freed from any external control.

This method of economic development is beneficial only if the results of industrialization must be kept secret from the outside world, and a military clash with it is considered inevitable.

Besedovsky, at his own peril and risk, tried to negotiate with a consortium of English banks to finance Soviet industrialization on a fairly large scale. Based on the data received from the State Planning Committee, Besedovsky drew up a general plan for possible British investments and handed it over to the British side. This plan in itself is of undoubted interest as a list of objects that the State Planning Committee could theoretically imagine as investment, that is, capable of generating income in the future.

Besedovsky comments: “This plan, of course, was sinful of being sketchy and insufficiently substantiating the figures given in it, but basically it exhausted the content of the work plan of the State Planning Commission. It is clear that if both sides accepted such a broad plan, which reached the impressive figure of five billion gold rubles (that is, already at that time, about ten billion chervonets rubles, since the fall of the chervonets was already proceeding at a rapid pace), a complete political agreement was necessary and a far-reaching agreement between both parties. This plan, if successful, would provide a fairly solid basis for the five-year plan without the abolition of the NEP creating a serious political conflict in the country and threatening the existence of Russian agriculture, and, consequently, the country’s economy as a whole. I hoped that this plan could provide a fairly reliable platform for the right side of the Politburo in its desire to repel Stalin’s increasingly developed offensive against the economic and political system NEP".

Besedovsky’s description of his activities to attract British investment to the USSR is quite confusing, but it is clear that it could lead to success, since the English side expressed clear interest. In the fall of 1928, Besedovsky began to carefully inform the Moscow authorities about its results. The reaction was more than cold. Besedovsky was ordered to stop negotiations, which were completely broken off in March 1929. In September 1929, Besedovsky was summoned to Moscow, but, knowing the morals of his superiors, he chose to flee.

This whole detective story testifies, first of all, to Stalin’s fundamental reluctance to attract foreign investment to the USSR and not only to Soviet economy under the control of potential investors, but also, in principle, to expand Soviet economic ties that go beyond the trade in Soviet raw materials and the purchase of Western technologies.

It seems to us that there can only be one explanation here. The industrialization of industrial production, which Stalin carried out, did not aim to obtain income from the sale of manufactured products. Moreover, the very nature of these products, as well as the purposes of their production, constituted a state secret.

Hence the conclusion. The specificity of the ways and methods by which Stalin carried out industrialization in the USSR can only be explained by the construction of the military industry and, as a consequence of this, a huge mechanized army. With any other setting of goals and objectives of industrialization, other methods could and should have been used that would have led to different results.

Notes

1. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 12.

2. Now Alec. About the fate of NEP. Letter to the editor of the journal “Questions of History”. "Questions of History". No. 8, 1989. - P. 172-176

3. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 272.

4. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 252.

5. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 252.

6. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 264.

7. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 265.

8. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 253.

9. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 253.

10. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 254.

11. Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926/27 - 1030/31. P. 47.

12. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 179.

13. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 178.

14. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 271.

15. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32", M., p. 635

16. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 186..

17. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 186..

18. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 186.

19. Socialist construction of the USSR. Statistical Yearbook. M., 1934, p. 353

20. Socialist construction of the USSR. Statistical Yearbook. M., 1934, p. 436

21. Socialist construction of the USSR. Statistical Yearbook. M., 1934, p. 353

22. A.V. Bakunin, V.A. Tsybultnikova. Urban planning in the Urals during the period of industrialization. Sverdlovsk, 1989, Table. 1.

23. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. eleven.

24. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 191.

25. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 271.

26. Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926/27 - 1030/31. P. 29

27. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 271.

28. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 271.

29. Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926/27 - 1030/31. pp. 32-33

30. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32,” M., p. 551.

31. “Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32”, M., p. 17

32. Results of the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR,” M., 1933, p. 253

33. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32,” M., p. 87.

34. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 129

35. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32,” M., p. 89.

36. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR, M., 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 129.

37. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 58

38. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 70

39. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 2, Part 2, p. 288

40. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32", M., pp. 107-108

41. Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926/27 - 1030/31. Appendix, p. 163.

42. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 70

43. Prospects for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1926/27 - 1030/31. Table P. 3 (Quoted from Yasny, p. 96)

44. Materials for the five-year industrial development plan of the USSR 1927/28 - 1931/32", M., p. 403

45. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, 83.

46. ​​Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 95-96

47. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 96-97.

48. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 99

49. Industry of the USSR. Statistical collection. M.: Statistics, 1957. P. 31. The same indicators are repeated in the book “National Economy of the USSR in 1958” (p. 135). Indicators for small industry are determined based on general values ​​for industry and data on large-scale industry. - Note N. Yasny

50. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 100.

51. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 108.

52. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, Volume 1, 131. - approx. N. Yasny

53. National economy of the USSR in 1958. Stat. Yearbook. M. Statistics, 1959, p. 136.

54. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 109

55. National economy of the USSR in 1958. Stat. Yearbook. M. Statistics, 1959, p. 350.

56. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 95-96

57. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 2, Part 2, p. 418.

58. Trömel, Konstantin, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sowjetrussischen Handelsbeziehungen seit 1928 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer handelsvertraglichen Grundlagen. Dissertation. Leipzig: Moltzen, 1939, Tabelle 3a.

59. Trömel, Konstantin, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sowjetrussischen Handelsbeziehungen seit 1928 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer handelsvertraglichen Grundlagen. Dissertation. Leipzig: Moltzen, 1939, Table 3b.

60. Trömel, Konstantin, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sowjetrussischen Handelsbeziehungen seit 1928 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer handelsvertraglichen Grundlagen. Dissertation. Leipzig: Moltzen, 1939, Tabelle 3a.

61. Trömel, Konstantin, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sowjetrussischen Handelsbeziehungen seit 1928 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer handelsvertraglichen Grundlagen. Dissertation. Leipzig: Moltzen, 1939, Table 3b.

62. Trömel, Konstantin, Die Entwicklung der deutsch-sowjetrussischen Handelsbeziehungen seit 1928 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer handelsvertraglichen Grundlagen. Dissertation. Leipzig: Moltzen, 1939, Table 8.

63. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 101.

64. Socialist construction of the USSR. Statistical Yearbook. M., 1934, p. 382-383

65. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 101.

66. Letters from I.V. Stalin V.M. Molotov. 1925-1936. M., 1995, p. 198, 203-205.

67. “Control figures for labor for 1929-30”, M. 1930, p. 89-90.

68. Karl I. Albrecht. “Ver Verratene Sozialismus”, Berlin, 1942, p. 67-68

69. Five-year plan for the national economic development of the USSR. M., 1929, 2nd ed. Volume 1, p. 106

70. If in 1927/28 11.5 million tons of grain were harvested, then by the end of the rationing system in 1934/35 - more than 26 million tons. (The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union. P. 290) - Footnote by E. Osokina.

71. In 1931, guideline grain procurement prices were about 5-12 kopecks. per kg. At the same time, the cost of one kilogram of wheat flour, even at low card prices, was 25-28 kopecks, and on the market - 4-5 rubles. In the same year, state procurement prices for beef and lamb ranged from 17 to 36 kopecks. per kilogram, for milk - 17 kopecks. per liter At the same time, the most low price for meat in trade (rationed supply in the city) was 1 ruble in 1931. 50 kopecks, in 1932 - more than 2 rubles. Commercial and market prices were significantly higher. Thus, in 1932, the average market price for meat in Moscow was 11 rubles, and milk - 2 rubles. (Osokina E.A. Hierarchy of consumption. P. 46). - Footnote by E. Osokina

72. Elena Osokina. BEHIND THE FACADE OF "STALIN'S ABUNDANCE". Distribution and market in supplying the population during the years of industrialization 1927-1941. Moscow, ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 115-116.

73. Malafeev A.N. Pricing history... P. 172. - Note N. Yasny

74. Malafeev A.N. Pricing history... P. 402. - Note N. Yasny

75. “This is clearly demonstrated by the data given by Malafeev (P. 402). If we take 1927/28 prices as 100, then the retail price indices in the first half of 1932 were: public sector - . 176.6; private sector - 760.3; general index - 251.8 If we take prices in 1928 as 100, then the retail price index in state and cooperative trade in 1932 was 255 (Ibid., p. 407). Thus, the increase in retail prices in the public sector in the second half of 1932 was so great that if the analysis takes into account data for the second half of 1932, then the index of price growth in the public sector and private sector applicable to characterize a single public sector" - approx. N. Yasny.

76. Naum Yasny, Soviet economists of the 20s. Debt of memory. M. 2012, p. 110.111.

77. P.S. Yegorov. THE MAGNITQGORSKY (MAGNET MOUNTAIN) METALLURGICAL WORKS MOSCOW, 1929; Prof. A.S. Axamitny. Die Volga-Don Grosswasserstrasse. Moscow 1929; Sergej Andreevič Kukel’-Kraevskij. Die Swir-Wasserkraftanlage für die Elektrizitätsversorgung[!] des Leningrader Gebiets. Moskau: (Upravl. Del. SNK SSSR i STO), 1929; Kostrow, I. N. Eisenhüttenwerke in Nadeschdinsk und Taganrog/.. - Moskau: , 1929

First Five Year Plan- the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR and the corresponding stage in the country’s history from October 1, 1928 to September 30, 1933 inclusive. The first of Stalin's five-year plans.

The main task of the five-year plan

The main task of the 1st Five-Year Plan is formulated as “creating production capacity, constituting a prerequisite for building the foundation of a socialist economy." The historical experience of industrialization of European countries with its initial accumulation of capital was unacceptable for the USSR due to the socialist nature of the state of workers and peasants. The economic blockade of the USSR by world capital, the fundamental impossibility of obtaining “political” (i.e., not secured by collateral) loans from them, imposed severe restrictions on the available resource base: it was necessary to rely only on one’s own forces, providing industrialization programs mainly through redistribution of the maximum possible amount of resources.

In December 1927, at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, “Directives for drawing up the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR” were adopted. The congress spoke out against “over-industrialization”: growth rates should not be maximum, and they should be planned so that there are no disruptions. The draft of the first five-year plan (October 1, 1928 - October 1, 1933), developed on the basis of these directives, was approved at the XVI Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (April 1929), and in May of the same year was approved by the V Congress of Soviets of the USSR .

Financial system reforms

The 1st Five-Year Plan differed from all subsequent ones in that many of the institutions of the NEP period continued to operate in the economy, and especially in finance. The banking system was decentralized - the industrialization program was served, in addition to the State Bank, by Tsekombank (central utility bank), Electrobank, Central Agricultural Bank, BDK (Bank for Long-Term Lending to Industry and Agriculture), as well as cooperative banks, Vsekobank and Ukrainbank.

In 1930, a credit reform was launched, which took 3 years (1930–32). In 1930, tax reform was also carried out.

Reform of the national economic management system

A reform of the national economic management system was also carried out. VSNKh, created back in 1917, after the formation of the USSR had the status of a united People's Commissariat. Even before the start of the Five-Year Plan, in August 1926, glavkas (abbreviated as main departments) by industry were created within its structure. As the Five-Year Plan progressed, the number of enterprises began to grow rapidly, and the need arose to give greater independence to sectoral management bodies so that each of them could concentrate on solving the specific problems of their industry.

For this purpose, on January 5, 1930, prototypes of ministries were created on the basis of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR - People's Commissariats (People's Commissariats) of heavy, light and forestry industries. The apparatus and tasks of the regional Council of National Economy (p.422) were transferred mainly to the corresponding executive committees of the councils of working people's deputies. By the end of the 1930s. There were 21 industrial people's commissariats in the USSR. Thus, there was a transition to sectoral principles of industrial management and centralization of intersectoral distribution of raw materials and manufactured products.

Agriculture

The largest structural transformation of the economy in the 1st five-year plan of the five-year plan was agriculture, which began in 1929. Already in March 1930, Stalin recognized the excesses in collective farm construction, after which there was a well-known rollback, and in August 1930 collective farms united a little more than one-fifth (21.4%) peasant farms.

Nevertheless, the course towards collectivization continued. The achievements of industrialization also came to agriculture. Due to the lack of funds among peasants to purchase agricultural machinery, in 1929 the state organized machine and tractor stations (abbr. MTS). Staffed and financed from the budget, MTS provided its equipment to collective and state farms for rent. By taking over the wages of rural machine operators, the state relatively increased the funds owed to the cooperative peasants for distribution through workdays. At the end of 1932, there were already 2,446 MTS operating in the USSR with a fleet of 73.3 thousand tractors.

Thanks to the emergence of the domestic tractor industry, in 1932 the USSR abandoned the import of tractors from abroad, and in 1934 the Kirov Plant in Leningrad began producing the Universal row crop tractor, which became the first domestic tractor exported abroad. During the ten pre-war years, about 700 thousand tractors were produced, which amounted to 40% of their world production.

Five-Year Plan Achievements

By 1930, a level of provision with schools and teachers was reached, which made it possible to pass the law “On Universal Compulsory Primary Education.” Compulsory seven-year education was introduced in cities. The system of higher education, including technical and humanitarian education, expanded.

In 1930, speaking at the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Stalin reported that an industrial breakthrough was possible when building socialism in one country.

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

Early completion of the five-year plan

Complex of reforms economic mechanism carried out in the USSR since 1928, gave the entire economy as an object of planning a new quality. The economy itself turned from agrarian-industrial into industrial-agrarian (in 1932, the share of industry in national income reached 70.2%), and therefore the choice of the end of the agricultural year (September) as the starting point for plans became an anachronism.

To speed up the transition to plans drawn up for a qualitatively different structure of industries, for a new system of finance and credit, at the end of 1932, work on the 1st Five-Year Plan was completed ahead of schedule. According to the updated data that I.V. Stalin reported on January 7, 1933 to the United Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, for 4 years and 3 months of work towards the 1st Five-Year Plan general program industrial production was completed by 93.7%.

Revealing a hypothetical alternative, Stalin pointed out that a policy of relegating the tasks of industrialization to the background would lead to the fact that “we would not have a tractor and automobile industry, ferrous metallurgy, metal for the production of cars. The country would be without bread. Capitalist elements in the country would incredibly increase the chances of the restoration of capitalism. Our situation would be similar to that of China, which then did not have its own heavy 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, because in this war we would be almost unarmed before enemies who have at their disposal all modern means of attack.”

By January 1, 1933, the five-year targets for heavy industry were exceeded (105%). For 4 years and 3 months basic production assets heavy industry increased by 2.7 times. The increase in coal, steel and cast iron was 1.8–1.9 times, and in the production of metal-cutting machines - 9.9 times. Thus, the main task of the 1st Five-Year Plan - the creation of production capacities, which constitute a prerequisite for building the foundation of a socialist economy - was recognized as completed.