They say about the years of Stalin's rule that he took the country with a plow, and left it with an atomic bomb. The pace of industrialization of the USSR is really amazing. How did it succeed? Industrialization was not without money from the West.

Interrupted program

Industrialization in the USSR did not arise from scratch. The process of transforming the country from an agrarian to an industrial one was launched back in Tsarist Russia, but was interrupted by the First World War and the Civil War.
The New Economic Policy (NEP), proclaimed in 1921, completed the task of restoring the destroyed national economy in a short time, returning the country to the economic indicators of 1913. But the potential for further development of the economy under the dominance of the private sector was extremely low. Additional resources were required.
In December 1925, at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a course towards industrialization was proclaimed. The leadership of the USSR set a number of tasks. Among them: to increase the productivity of the national economy, to accelerate the pace of industrial development, to increase defense capability, to switch from the purchase of machinery and equipment to their production.

Two ways

The Soviet leadership was faced with a dilemma: which of the two ways of industrialization to choose. The first, supported by N. Bukharin, emphasized the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans. It was supposed to maintain high rates of industrialization, but at the same time focus on the real possibilities of the national economy.
The second way, which was promoted by L. Trotsky, proposed to seek out internal resources, pumping them from agriculture and light industry to heavy industry. The pace of industrialization was expected to be accelerated as much as possible. Everything took 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to "pay" for the costs of rapid industrial growth.
The directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the "Bukharin approach", but already at the beginning of 1928, Stalin revised them and gave the green light to forced industrialization. In order to catch up with the developed countries of the West, it was necessary to “run a distance of 50-100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task.

The threat of war

The need for industrialization was due not only to economic, but also to the foreign policy interests of the country. After the establishment of Soviet power, many treated the young state with undisguised hostility. According to the party leadership, there was a high probability of a new war with the capitalist states.

Preparation for a possible war required a thorough re-equipment of the army: such a shift in emphasis in economic policy brought to the fore the strengthening of heavy industry. This largely explains the intensive path of development chosen by the country's leadership.
One of the first rearmament plans was proposed by M. Frunze back in 1921. The draft stated the inevitability of a new big war and the unpreparedness of the Red Army for it, and therefore the military leader was supposed to deploy a wide network of military schools in the country, organize "in shock order" mass production of tanks, armored cars, armored trains, artillery and airplanes.

Enthusiasts

Using propaganda, the party leadership quickly ensured the mobilization of the population to participate in industrial construction. There was no shortage of cheap labor. Many volunteers responded to the call of the Soviet government, mostly young people. Komsomol members, despite the hardships and difficult working conditions, enthusiastically took on the most difficult projects.
A significant part of the volunteers were yesterday's rural residents who, fleeing hunger, poverty and the arbitrariness of local authorities, left for the cities. Millions of workers selflessly, often in three shifts, built hundreds of factories and power plants, laid thousands of kilometers of railways, opened new mines.
In the 30s, a whole series of gigantic structures was erected: Dneproges, Uralmash, GAZ, tractor factories in Volgograd, Kharkov and Chelyabinsk, metallurgical plants in Novokuznetsk, Magnitogorsk and Lipetsk, and in 1935 the first stage of the Moscow Metro was opened, more than 11 km long.
In the same 1935, the "Stakhanov movement" arose. One of the main reasons for its appearance was the practice of tying pay to performance. Shakhtar Alexei Stakhanov set off a series of production records by completing 14.5 norms per shift.

Western aid

The leadership of the USSR in the process of industrialization still could not completely turn away from the West. In particular, the Soviet government used foreign currency to finance various projects. Sometimes, in order to get the required amount, one had to resort to such methods as selling paintings from the Hermitage collection.
Experts of various profiles were actively invited from abroad. Some companies, for example, Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and General Electric, were involved in the work and supply of modern equipment. It should be noted that most of the equipment produced in those years at Soviet factories was either copies or modifications of Western models.
The American architect Albert Kahn played a prominent role in socialist construction. According to the contract, Kahn's firm became the chief consultant of the Soviet government on industrial construction. The package of orders for the construction of more than 500 industrial enterprises was valued at $2 billion (about $250 billion in today's prices).
In particular, according to the project of Kahn, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant was built. Rather, it was first built in the USA, then dismantled and reassembled in the USSR under the supervision of American engineers.

Result

In the late 1930s, Stalin announced the transformation of the USSR from an agrarian to an industrial country. For 10 years, the state has achieved amazing results. New branches of industry appeared in the USSR - aviation, tractor-building, automobile, machine-tool building and chemical.
The growth of industrial production over the years of the first two five-year plans was 18%, and in terms of industrial output, the USSR came in second place, second only to the United States. Open unemployment was eliminated in the country.
However, according to many researchers, such successes were achieved solely due to the incredible overstrain of the population. Industrialization has cost the lives of millions of people, most of whom are victims of collectivization.
The initial enthusiasm of Soviet citizens was not enough - and then the authorities increasingly resorted to coercive measures. The standard of living of the majority of the population was extremely low, and many, especially the peasants, existed on the verge of poverty. Factories and collective farms went on strike all over the country.
However, everything was put at stake by the Soviet leadership. Largely due to the high pace of industrialization, the country's defense capability was strengthened, which played one of the key roles in the final victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany.

In the late 1920s, the Stalinist leadership abandoned the New Economic Policy and proceeded to the direct introduction of socialism. Considering its power sufficiently strengthened, it proceeded to accelerated industrialization, the elimination of capitalist elements - entrepreneurs, NEPmen, kulaks, the beginning of the transformation in agriculture on a socialist basis and the establishment of the only communist ideology in society. Of all the above, only industrialization was an objective necessity, caused by the interests of the country's development, the rest was a product of the Bolshevik doctrine.

The XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which took place in December 1925 and went down in national history as the industrialization congress, became the initial stage in the development of the modernization program. After the abandonment of the NEP, industrialization was planned with a tightening of the regime, the application of administrative and repressive measures, and the state-planning mechanism.

The policy of "socialist industrialization" was aimed at: 1) the comprehensive development of the state sector as the basis of the socialist economy; 2) introducing a planned principle into the management of the national economy; 3) the establishment of new relations between the city and the countryside, taking into account the expansion of peasant demand not only for consumer products, but also for the means of production; 4) reduction of unproductive consumption (“economy regime”) in order to direct the saved funds to the construction of new plants and factories.

Industrialization is the process of creating large-scale machine production in all branches of the national economy, and primarily in industry.

Background of industrialization. In 1928, the country completed the recovery period, reached the level of 1913, but the Western countries have gone far ahead during this time. As a result, the USSR lagged behind. Techno-economic backwardness could become chronic and turn into a historical necessity for industrialization.

The economic necessity of industrialization lay in the fact that large-scale industry and, first of all, group A (the production of means of production) determines the economic development of the country as a whole and the development of agriculture in particular. Social necessity - without industrialization, it is impossible to develop the economy, and therefore the social sphere: education, health care, recreation, social security. Military and political necessity - without industrialization it is impossible to ensure the technical and economic independence of the country and its defense power.

Industrialization was carried out in conditions that did not completely eliminate the consequences of devastation, did not establish international economic relations, lacked experienced personnel, and met the need for machines through imports.

The purpose of industrialization was as follows: the transformation of Russia from an agrarian-industrial country into an industrial power, ensuring technical and economic independence, strengthening the defense capacity and raising the welfare of the people, demonstrating the advantages of socialism.

The sources of industrialization were internal accumulations: internal loans, siphoning funds from the countryside, income from foreign trade, cheap labor, the enthusiasm of the working people, the labor of prisoners. An essential source of industrialization was the most severe state exploitation of the population, all kinds of restrictions on consumption, the strictest regime of savings on everything - on wages, food, housing, etc.

The state industrialization initiative is supported by enthusiasm from below. Industrialization is planned.

Industrialization was based on private capital and external relations, balanced development of agriculture and productivity, command and control methods from internal sources.

The historical task of industrialization had to be solved in the shortest possible time. The rapid pace of industrialization was dictated, first, by the need to make maximum use of the peaceful respite for building the economic foundation of socialism, which the imperialists could disrupt at any moment; secondly, the need to provide agriculture with a technical base in a short time as the main condition for its socialist transformation and increase in its productivity; thirdly, in the shortest possible time to strengthen the defense capability of the Soviet state. The implementation of the rapid pace of industrialization was ensured by the advantages of the socialist economic system: public ownership of the instruments of labor and means of production, planned economic management, and the labor enthusiasm of the working class.

Industrialization was a decisive condition for overcoming the age-old economic backwardness of many peoples of the USSR, for eliminating the actual inequality between the peoples of our country, for the formation of national cadres of the working class. Socialist industrialization ensured the technical and economic independence of the USSR, its independence from the capitalist countries, the basis of the defense might of the Soviet state, as well as a radical rise in the living standards of the working people (the complete elimination of unemployment, a sharp increase in the production of consumer goods, and an increase in national income).

There were also negative aspects of industrialization: commodity famine, food cards (1928-1935), wage cuts, shortage of highly qualified personnel, migration of the population and aggravation of housing problems, difficulties in establishing new production, mass accidents and breakdowns, and the search for those responsible.

The political leadership sought to carry out industrialization as soon as possible (10 - 15 years). In December 1925, the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) proclaimed the main task of economic policy to be the development of heavy industry while maintaining market ties between town and countryside. The development of the first five-year plan began.

The decisive condition for its implementation was the accelerated export of grain and other types of agricultural raw materials, which was the main source of currency for the purchase of machinery and equipment abroad for industrial enterprises under construction. On the other hand, the number of urban population increased simultaneously with the construction of new industrial enterprises, and the state had to guarantee its food supply. Industrialization, therefore, required huge amounts of grain. Grain procurement, however, did not go as fast as the country's leadership wished. In 1927, grain procurement plans were not fulfilled; the state received less than in 1926 128 million poods.

The first five-year plans were based on designing the development of individual key branches of heavy industry - metallurgy, energy, engineering, etc. Gosplan began with plans for the production and distribution of certain types of products, and then plans were developed for the development of individual industries and regions, and, finally, for comprehensive development of the most closely interconnected sectors and the entire national economy as a whole. This method was then called the method of choosing the main link, more precisely, several main links (later it will be called program-target). It was most in line with the strategy of accelerated industrialization (for example, in the first five-year period, the key industries were the fuel and energy complex, metallurgy, and engineering). The key industries were followed by planned developments in agriculture, and then in transport and construction. The next stage is planning the sphere of circulation and finance: trade, credit and budget. And, finally, the problem of labor force reproduction.

The five-year plans had a strong stimulating effect on industrial development, on the optimal distribution and interconnection of the new productive forces being put into operation. The history of the creation of a dam and a hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper, called the Dneprostroy, is typical. Dneprostroy proved to be a model for many audacious projects launched in accordance with the first five-year plan.

The most important of them is the creation in the East of the second main coal and metallurgical center of the USSR through the use of coal and ore deposits in the Urals and Siberia. During the years of the second and third five-year plans, the construction of backup enterprises began in the eastern regions of the country - in the Volga region, in the Urals, in Siberia, in the Far East. What in a number of branches of mechanical engineering, oil refining and chemistry was previously produced entirely in the western and central regions of the USSR, now it was planned to be produced in regions remote from them. By doing this, the Soviet leadership sought to protect the most important industrial enterprises, including defense orders, from the blows of a potential aggressor from the West.

Based on the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of November 11, 1931 and the Decree of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the USSR N 516 of November 13, 1931, the State Trust for Road and Industrial Construction was organized in the Upper Kolyma region (Dalstroy). The trust was entrusted with the development, prospecting and exploration of gold deposits in the Olsko-Seimchansky district of the Far Eastern Territory and the construction of a highway from Nagaev Bay to the gold mining area.

To ensure the existing and planned work of Dalstroy in territories where there was practically no population, in April 1932 the North-Eastern Correctional Labor Camp (SVITL) was created, which is part of the structure of Dalstroy, but formally subordinate to the Permanent Representation of the OGPU for the Far Eastern Territory (later the Directorate NKVD for the Far Eastern Territory), and already in May, prisoners from other camps in the country began to be delivered to Magadan.

In 1932, two decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway" were issued and design and survey work was launched. Following this, the construction of three connecting lines from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the planned BAM route began.

Outwardly, it seemed that the development of the country accelerated. In fact, the political projecting of the Stalinist leadership disrupted the normal development of the economy, imposed adventurous solutions. With the revision of the planned targets, the construction of new production facilities was laid in excess of the foreseen, which led to the dispersion of finances, material resources, equipment, labor, construction projects turned into long-term construction, did not give up on time and did not give a return. Super-requirements led to the breakdown of the entire system of management, planning and supply. The labor impulse of the working class could not prevent a drop in growth rates. If in the first years of the five-year plan industry grew by 23%, then in 1933 - by only 5.5%. A similar scenario, despite its inferiority, was repeated in subsequent five-year plans.

The policy of “whipping the country” disrupted the normal development of the economy and had a negative impact on the living standards of the population. The years of the five-year plan were marked by rising prices, long lines for food, strikes, a housing crisis, and the introduction in 1928 of a rationing system for distributing food products. People lived in barracks, basements, communal apartments. The social position of the working people was deteriorating, but a whole system of privileges and departmental distributors was created for the growing army of the bureaucratic apparatus. In order to divert the attention of the population from the true causes of the deterioration of living conditions, the leader found the culprits, "scapegoats" - bourgeois specialists who were accused of espionage and sabotage. Fraudulent trials were organized to confirm these false accusations.

For example, the well-known "Shakhty case" (1928) was a process of engineers and technicians from the city of Shakhty in the Donbass. According to the verdict of the court, 5 people were shot, 41 were imprisoned. In 1930, the case of the "Industrial Party" was fabricated. All 8 defendants were mainly from among the leaders of the State Planning Commission and the Supreme Council of National Economy and were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. In addition, in cases fabricated by the NKVD on the cases of the Labor Peasant Party, the union bureau of the Mensheviks, the heads of the supply and food industry, dozens of people were shot and thrown into prison without any trial. Intimidation was an integral part of Stalin's Great Leap Forward.

Stalin announced that the first five-year plan was completed in 4 years and 3 months, by the end of 1932. In fact, the milestones outlined by the five-year plan were not achieved in any of the most important indicators: neither in the extraction of coal or oil, nor in electricity generation, or the production of tractors, automobiles, or the smelting of iron and steel. Many of the planned targets will be completed in the second half of the 1930s or even by the mid-1950s. It is no coincidence that by the decision of the Politburo all departments, republics and regions were forbidden to publish any data on the results of the five-year plan.

The second five-year plan (1933-1937) had more realistic tasks, but even during this period the planned tasks were repeatedly redrawn. Now there is more new technology, and its development and use has become of great importance. The slogan "Cadres decide everything!" was put forward, which, closer to 1937, began to have a double meaning. The emphasis was on a labor upsurge, the enthusiasm of the workers, and their involvement in the Stakhanovist movement. Its participants struggled to set production records, with little regard for their time, effort, and the quality of their products. The second five-year plan, although more successful, was also not fulfilled.

What are the results of the first five-year plans? The USSR took the second place in the world in terms of industrial production (overall growth by 4.5 times); the gap between the USSR and Western countries in terms of industrial production per capita has narrowed; dozens of large industrial enterprises were built (Dneproges, Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical plants, Stalingrad, Chelyabinsk, Kharkov tractor plants, etc.); new industries emerged; unemployment disappeared. The USSR became one of the few countries capable of producing all kinds of modern industrial products. At the same time, the planned growth rates were not achieved; there was a tendency for them to constantly fall.

The price of success is high: bloodless agriculture; lagging light industry; a significant decline in the living standards of the population; the ever-widening use of free (essentially slave) labor of prisoners, whose army grew inexorably during the years of industrialization.

In order to speed up the course of industrialization, in January 1929, Lenin's article "How to Organize Competition?" was first published, which gave impetus to mass competition, which in a short time covered half of all workers. Stalin considered it necessary to whip up and urge the country on. On his initiative, the already high indicators of the five-year plan were revised upwards, clearly unrealistic targets were set for the most important branches of industry. At first, the slogan "Five-year plan - in four years!" was put forward everywhere. The new chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Molotov, announced that the plan for 1931 for industry was planned at 45%, i.e., 2 times higher than planned. Stalin soon explained that this would mean fulfilling the five-year plan in three years in the main sectors.

A campaign began to develop mass socialist competition in factories, plants, transport, and construction. For several months, the entire press, led by Pravda, party, trade union, and Komsomol organs, intensively propagated various labor initiatives, many of which were taken up by the workers. Such forms of competition as the movement of strikers, the movement for the adoption of counter plans, "continuity", the movement to "catch up and overtake" (DIP) the capitalist countries in terms of production volumes and labor productivity, etc., became widespread. Socialist competition was proclaimed one of the main conditions for fulfilling tasks. five-year plans. It revived the revolutionary-romantic mood of the masses, the confidence that with the help of an assault, a swoop, an impulse, everything can be done. This attitude also ran counter to the NEP tradition, which relied more on realism in economics and politics and appealed to Lenin's formulation "not on enthusiasm directly, but with the help of enthusiasm."

The Stakhanov movement, the mass movement of innovators of socialist production in the USSR - advanced workers, collective farmers, engineering and technical workers for increasing labor productivity on the basis of mastering new technology. It arose in the Second Five-Year Plan, in 1935, as a new stage in socialist emulation. The Stakhanov movement was prepared by the entire course of socialist construction, the success of the industrialization of the country, the growth of the cultural and technical level and the material well-being of the working people. The “Stakhanovite” movement was named after its initiator, A. G. Stakhanov, a miner in one of the Donbass mines, who mined 102 tons of coal per shift at a rate of 7 tons. Stakhanov’s record was soon broken by his followers. The Stakhanov movement, supported and led by the Communist Party, in a short time covered all branches of industry, transport, construction, agriculture and spread throughout the Soviet Union. November 14-17, 1935, the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites was held in the Kremlin, which emphasized the outstanding role of the Stakhanov movement in socialist construction. In December 1935, the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) specifically discussed the development of industry and transport in connection with the Stakhanov movement. The resolution of the plenum emphasized: “The Stakhanov movement means the organization of labor in a new way, the rationalization of technological processes, the correct division of labor in production, the release of skilled workers from secondary preparatory work, the better organization of the workplace, ensuring a rapid growth in labor productivity, ensuring a significant increase in workers' wages and employees"

In accordance with the decisions of the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a wide network of industrial and technical training was organized, courses for masters of socialist labor were created for advanced workers. The industry-specific production and technical conferences held in 1936 revised the design capacities of enterprises, and output standards were raised. In 1936, Stakhanov's five-day meetings, decades, and months were held on the scale of entire enterprises. Stakhanov's brigades, sections, workshops were created, reaching a stable high collective output.

The unfolding Stakhanov movement contributed to a significant increase in labor productivity. So, if during the years of the 1st five-year plan (1929-1932) labor productivity in the industry of the USSR increased by 41%, then during the years of the 2nd five-year plan (1933-1937) by 82%.

The Stakhanovites, the leaders of production, enjoyed certain privileges: they were provided with the best equipment, special working conditions, bonuses, orders, and apartments. Their achievements were often propagandistic in nature in order to maintain the constant labor enthusiasm of the masses. On the other hand, competition made it possible for the new system to organize the masses, to captivate them with a lofty idea, to force them to work hard for its sake.

The achievements of the pre-war five-year plans were quite impressive. Already in the first five-year plan the industrial potential doubled. 1.5 thousand new enterprises were built in the first five-year plan, and 4.5 thousand new enterprises in the second. A leap was made in the development of heavy industry, primarily in the defense industry, which grew three times faster than industry as a whole. Such giants as Dneproges, Magnitogorsk, Uralo-Kuznetsk combines, Stalingrad and Kharkov tractor plants, Ural and Kremato heavy engineering plants, Ural car-building and Chelyabinsk tractor plants, Krivoy Rog, Novolipetsk, Novotulsk metallurgical plants, etc. came into operation. production of tractors, cars, tanks, aircraft. Already in the first five-year plan, the number of workers and employees doubled, suburbs were drawn into the orbit of industry, dozens of new cities and industrial towns grew up, and in 1930 unemployment was put an end to.

In terms of absolute volumes of industrial output, the USSR came second in the world after the United States. Its lagging behind the advanced countries of the world in terms of industrial output per capita was reduced: in the 1920s the gap was 5-10 times, in 1940 - 1.5-4 times.

The deployment of the "industrialization front" resulted in the construction of new industrial facilities, the strengthening of the economic regime, the voluntary-compulsory distribution of "industrialization loans", the establishment of card supply to the population of cities and workers' settlements. These measures were accompanied by the displacement of the private sector from the economy. During 1928 and 1929 the rates of progressive taxation were repeatedly changed, primarily on crafts and excises, the doubling of taxes led to the curtailment of private shops and shops and, as a result, to the flourishing of speculation on the "black market". The village, the kulak, was blamed for the continuing deterioration of life as the main culprit of the difficulties. A hostile attitude towards the peasantry was intensified as an inert and inert mass, as the bearer of a petty-bourgeois consciousness that impeded socialist transformations. The slogan was spreading more and more widely: "The law of industrialization is the end of the village, poor, torn, ignorant!" The party organs sent workers from industrial enterprises to the countryside to help the grain procurement commissioners, preparing a mass march of workers to the countryside.

Stalinist industrialization, as under Peter I, was based not on private enterprise, but on state coercion and cheap labor. This force consisted of: enthusiastic workers who, with weak material incentives, were ready to work for free and around the clock for the sake of socialism; about one and a half million former unemployed; millions of peasants mobilized for large construction projects, as well as those who fled from collectivization.

Forced labor was mainly used for the extraction of natural resources in difficult climatic conditions: at logging, construction of canals, railways, earthworks. Prisoners worked at the construction sites of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow-Volga Canal, the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), which began in 1933. The vast territory was occupied by Dalstroy, better known as the Kolyma camps, where 2-3 million prisoners worked steadily, mining gold, ore, who built roads and cities.

The free labor force was represented by millions of prisoners of the Gulag system. Stalin justified this as follows: "Repressions in the field of socialist construction are a necessary element of the offensive." In 1934, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps, Labor Settlements, and Places of Confinement (GULAG) was created in the USSR. It was a division of the NKVD (MVD) that managed the system of forced labor camps (ITL). Special departments of the GULAG united many camps in different parts of the country: Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Dalstroy NKVD / USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Solovetsky ITL (USLON), White Sea-Baltic ITL and the NKVD combine, Vorkuta ITL, Norilsk ITL, etc. Under the conditions of forced industrialization, the system The Gulag became an almost inexhaustible source of free slave labor for prisoners used in the "great construction sites of communism." There were distribution orders for the number of repressed citizens, plans were fulfilled and overfulfilled. All categories of citizens were subjected to repressions. For the scientific and technical intelligentsia, so-called "sharashki" were created, which provided an effective solution to the most complex national economic problems. The Stalinist Gulag system existed until the early 1950s. The repressions became especially widespread in the 1930s and 1940s (according to various estimates, from 10 to 20 million people were repressed during this period).

The most difficult conditions were created in the camps, elementary human rights were not respected, severe punishments were applied for the slightest violations of the regime. The prisoners worked on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities in the Far North, the Far East and other regions. Mortality from starvation, disease and overwork was extremely high. In the minds of the people "GULAG" has become synonymous with camps and prisons, the totalitarian regime as a whole. After the death of Stalin and subsequent reforms, part of the camps was liquidated, but for a long time the system of camps itself remained unchanged.

From 1929 the camps began to play a new role. Stalin decided to use forced labor to accelerate the industrialization of the country and to develop the minerals of the sparsely populated north. In the same year, control over the network of Soviet correctional institutions began to pass to the state security system, which gradually removed all the camps and prisons of the country from the jurisdiction of the justice authorities. The camps entered a period of rapid growth, aided by the mass arrests of 1937 and 1938. By the end of the 1930s there were camps in each of the twelve time zones of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet prison-camp system began to take shape during the years of the Civil War. A feature of this system was the fact that there were only one places of detention for criminals (subordinate to the Main Directorate of Forced Labor of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR and the Central Punitive Department of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR ordinary prisons and labor camps), and for political opponents of the Bolshevik regime - other places conclusions (the so-called “political isolators”, as well as the Directorate of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps, created in the early 1920s, which were under the jurisdiction of the state security organs of the Cheka - OGPU).

From the very beginning of the existence of Soviet power, the management of most places of detention was entrusted to the punitive department of the People's Commissariat of Justice, formed in May 1918. The Main Directorate of Forced Labor under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs also dealt with these same issues. On July 25, 1922, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution on concentrating the management of the main places of detention (except for general prisons) in one department and a little later, in October of the same year, a single body was created in the NKVD system - the Main Directorate of Places of Detention.

In the following decades, the structure of state bodies in charge of places of deprivation of liberty changed several times, although there were no fundamental changes. On April 24, 1930, by order of the United State Political Directorate (OGPU) under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Directorate of Camps was formed. The first mention of the GULAG itself (the Main Directorate of Camps of the OGPU) can be found in the order of the OGPU dated February 15, 1931.

On June 10, 1934, in accordance with the Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, during the formation of the new Union-Republican NKVD, the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps and Labor Settlements was formed in its composition. In October of the same year, this department was renamed the General Directorate of Camps, Labor Settlements and Places of Detention.

Many military facilities, the nuclear industry, energy enterprises were built in the Gulag system, and the prisoners of the top-secret camp on Novaya Zemlya worked on the extraction and purification of uranium, from which they practically did not return. Great violence, great sacrifices were the price of the Great Leap Forward.

The Great Leap Forward has taken place. Stalinist industrialization achieved its goal. It was in many ways reminiscent of Peter's and strengthened, above all, the military power of the state. An incredibly high price has been paid for it - the strain of all the forces of the people, hunger, the death of millions, the slave labor of millions of prisoners, a new edition of serfdom for the peasants, the low standard of living of the population, the bureaucratization of society.

The implementation of the industrialization of the country was complicated by the fact that the socialist transformation of agriculture was carried out almost simultaneously. This meant that the necessary material and financial resources, cadres of organizers, builders, engineering and technical workers of the party and the state had to be sent here as well.

The industrialization of the country was supposed to be carried out simultaneously with the transformation of agriculture. The synchronism of the processes was dictated by the fact that for industrialization huge funds were needed, which were planned to be taken from the peasants by combining them into collective farms, which facilitated the solution of this problem.

After the civil war, the Russian economy, in the modern "Obama" language, "was torn to shreds." Truly torn and broken.

And the NEP only somewhat stabilized the problem of providing the country's population with food and consumer goods, but it caused a sharp increase in class contradictions in the countryside due to the growth in the number of kulaks and aggravated the class struggle in the countryside to open kulak uprisings.

Therefore, the VKP(b) party took a course towards the development of the country's industrial production in order to obtain an opportunity for independent solution of the national economic problems facing Russia, which had been destroyed by many years of war. And a fast decision. That is, the party headed for the industrialization of the country.

Stalin said:

“We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed. This is what our obligations to the workers and peasants of the USSR dictate to us».

Industrialization is the socio-economic policy of the Bolshevik Party in the USSR, from 1927 to the end of the 30s, the main goals of which were the following:

1. Elimination of the technical and economic backwardness of the country;

2. Achievement of economic independence;

3. Creation of a powerful defense industry;

4. The priority development of a complex of basic industries: defense, fuel, energy, metallurgical, machine-building.

What ways of industrialization existed by that time and which ones were chosen by the Bolsheviks?

From Stalin's statements about industrialization:

1. “History knows various ways of industrialization.

England industrialized due to the fact that it plundered the colonies for tens and hundreds of years, collected "additional" capital there, invested them in its industry and accelerated the pace of its industrialization. This is one way of industrialization.

Germany accelerated its industrialization as a result of the victorious war with France in the 70s of the last century, when it, having taken five billion francs of indemnity from the French, poured them into its industry. This is the second way of industrialization.

Both of these methods are closed to us, because we are a country of Soviets, because colonial robberies and military seizures for the purpose of robbery are incompatible with the nature of Soviet power.

Russia, old Russia, handed over extortionate concessions and received extortionate loans, trying in this way to gradually get out onto the path of industrialization. This is the third way.

But this is the path of bondage or semi-bondage, the path of turning Russia into a semi-colony. This path is also closed to us, because we did not wage a three-year civil war, repelling all and sundry interventionists, so that later, after the victory over the interventionists, we would voluntarily go into bondage to the imperialists.

The fourth path of industrialization remains, the path of own savings for the cause of industry, the path of socialist accumulation, which Comrade repeatedly pointed out. Lenin, as the only way to industrialize our country. (“On the economic situation and policy of the party”, vol. 8, p. 123.)

2. “What does it mean to industrialize our country? This means turning an agrarian country into an industrial country. This means setting up and developing our industry on a new technical basis.

Nowhere else in the world has a vast backward agrarian country been transformed into an industrial country without plundering the colonies, without plundering foreign countries, or without large loans and long-term credits from outside.

Remember the history of the industrial development of England, Germany, America, and you will understand that this is exactly the case.

Even America, the most powerful of all capitalist countries, was forced to spend as much as 30-40 years after the civil war in order to establish its industry at the expense of loans and long-term credits from outside and to rob the states and islands adjacent to it.

Can we take this “tested” path? No, we cannot, because the nature of Soviet power does not tolerate colonial robberies, and there is no reason to rely on large loans and long-term credits.

Old Russia, tsarist Russia, went to industrialization in a different way - through the conclusion of onerous loans and the return of onerous concessions for the main branches of our industry.

Do you know that

almost the entire Donbass, more than half of St. Petersburg industry, Baku oil and a number of railways, not to mention the electrical industry, were in the hands of foreign capitalists.

It was the path of industrialization at the expense of the peoples of the USSR and against the interests of the working class. It is clear that we cannot take this path: we did not fight the yoke of capitalism for this, we did not overthrow capitalism in order to voluntarily go under the yoke of capitalism.

Only one path remains, the path of our own savings, the path of economy, the path of prudent management of the economy in order to accumulate the necessary funds for the industrialization of our country..

There are no words, this task is difficult. But, despite the difficulties, we are already resolving it. Yes, comrades, four years after the Civil War we are already solving this problem.

3. “There are a number of accumulation channels, of which at least the main ones should be noted.

Firstly. It is necessary that the surplus accumulation in the country should not be dissipated, but collected in our credit institutions, co-operative and state, as well as in the form of internal loans, with a view to using them for the needs, first of all, of industry. It is clear that investors should receive a certain percentage for this. It cannot be said that in this area things were in any way satisfactory with us. But the task of improving our credit network, the task of raising the prestige of credit institutions in the eyes of the population, the task of organizing the business of internal loans is undoubtedly before us as the next task, and we must resolve it at all costs.

Secondly. It is necessary to carefully close all those paths and cracks through which part of the surplus accumulation in the country flows into the pockets of private capital to the detriment of socialist accumulation. To do this, it is necessary to conduct such a price policy that would not create a gap between wholesale prices and retail prices.

All measures must be taken to reduce retail prices for industrial and agricultural products in order to stop or at least reduce to a minimum the leakage of surplus accumulation into the pockets of the private owner. This is one of the most important issues of our economic policy. From here comes one of the serious dangers both for our accumulation and for the chervonets.

Thirdly. It is necessary that certain reserves be set aside within industry itself, in each of its branches, for depreciation of enterprises, for their expansion, for their further development. This is a necessary, absolutely necessary thing; it must be moved forward at all costs.

Fourth. It is necessary that certain reserves be accumulated in the hands of the state, which are necessary for insuring the country against all kinds of accidents (lack of crops), for nourishing industry, for supporting agriculture, for developing culture, etc.

It is now impossible to live and work without reserves. Even the peasant, with his small farm, cannot now do without certain supplies. Moreover, the state of a great country cannot do without reserves. (“On the economic situation and policy of the party”, vol. 8, p. 126.)

Means for industrialization:

Where did the Bolsheviks get money for industrialization?

1. Funds were withdrawn from agriculture and light industry;

2. Funds came from the sale of raw materials (Oil, gold, timber, grain, etc.);

3. Some treasures of museums and churches were sold;

4. The private sector was taxed up to the complete confiscation of property.

5. By reducing the standard of living of the population, due to rising prices, the introduction of a distribution card system, individual government loans, etc.

6. Through the enthusiasm of the working people who are building a new world for themselves without the exploitation of man by man.

7. Through the most powerful propaganda and agitation of new forms and new, collectivist methods of organizing labor.

8. By organizing an advanced Stakhanovist movement both in industrial production and in agriculture.

9. By introducing state awards for labor achievements.

10. By developing a system of free social benefits and state guarantees for working people: free education and free medicine for all groups of the population, free nurseries, kindergartens, pioneer camps, sanatoriums, and so on and so forth.

And again Stalin's words about the foundations of industrialization in the USSR:

“So, is the industrialization of our country possible on the basis of socialist accumulation?

Do we have sources of such accumulation sufficient to ensure industrialization? Yes, it is possible. Yes, we have such sources.

I could refer to the fact as the expropriation of landlords and capitalists in our country as a result of the October Revolution, destruction of private ownership of land, factories, factories, etc. and their transfer to public ownership. It scarcely needs to be proved that this fact is a fairly solid source of accumulation.

I could refer, further, to the fact that cancellation of royal debts which removed billions of rubles of debt from the shoulders of our national economy. It must not be forgotten that in leaving these debts we had to pay annually several hundred millions of interest alone, to the detriment of industry, to the detriment of our entire national economy. Needless to say, this circumstance has brought great relief to our accumulation.

I could point to our nationalized industry which has recovered, which is developing, and which gives some of the profits necessary for the further development of the industry. It is also a source of accumulation.

I could point to our nationalized foreign trade, giving some profit and representing, therefore, a certain source of accumulation.

One could refer to our more or less organized state internal trade, which also gives a certain profit and thus represents a certain source of accumulation.

One could point to such an accumulation lever as ours. nationalized banking system which yields a certain profit and nourishes our industry to the best of our ability.

Finally, we have such a weapon as state authority that manages the state budget and which collects a small fraction of money for the further development of the national economy in general, our industry in particular.

These are basically the main sources of our internal accumulation.

They are interesting in the sense that they give us the opportunity to create those necessary reserves, without which the industrialization of our country is impossible.

(“On the economic situation and policy of the party” vol. 8 p. 124.)

For, according to Stalin, the rapid rate of development of industry in general and the production of means of production in particular is the fundamental principle and key to the industrial development of the country, the fundamental principle and key to the transformation of our entire national economy on the basis of advanced socialist development.

At the same time, we cannot and must not curtail heavy industry for the sake of the all-round development of light industry. Yes, and light industry cannot be developed to a sufficient extent without the accelerated development of heavy industry.

The result of industrialization was:

1. Creation of a powerful industry in the country; From 1927 to 1937 over 7,000 large industrial enterprises were built in the USSR;

2. The USSR took the 2nd place in the world in terms of industrial production after the USA;

3. The USSR created its own powerful defense industry, new for Russia;

4. In the USSR, on the basis of powerful industrial production, sectoral science also began to develop powerfully, determining the technical level of technologies being developed and used in industrial production;

5. The USSR became the birthplace of technical cosmonautics, having created in the country a new, world branch of production, space industry, significantly ahead of the USA in this direction.

The results of the industrialization of the USSR were stunning not only for the inhabitants of the USSR, but for the whole world. After all, the former tsarist Russia in an unusually short time became a powerful, industrially and scientifically developed country, a power of world significance.

As you can see, Stalin turned out to be right in making Russia completely collapsed, out of Russia plows and bast shoes, an advanced industrial power with the shortest working day in the world, the world's best free education, advanced science, free medicine, national culture and the most powerful social guarantee of workers' rights. countries.

However, in today's Russia, everything is not done the way Stalin did in the USSR, and we have a Russia with a barely glimmering industrial production, completely ruined agriculture, dead science, a poor, barely making ends meet population, but with countless numbers of its own billionaires.

So who was right in choosing the path of Russia's development, the Bolsheviks or the current democrats? In my opinion, the Bolsheviks! After all, not a single word of Stalin about the industrialization of Russia has not yet become outdated.

More than 80 years have passed since the beginning of the industrialization of the Soviet Union (Russia), the policy of rapid creation of the industrial potential of the USSR and the transformation of the country from a predominantly agrarian into a developed industrial power. After the First World War (1914-1918) and the Civil War, as well as foreign intervention in Russia (1919-1922), the country's economy was almost completely destroyed. A serious social problem was the growth of unemployment in cities, which by the end of the 1920s. amounted to more than 2 million people, or about 10% of the urban population. A difficult situation also developed in the countryside, where there was not enough or no agricultural machinery and other equipment.
The leaders of the new, Soviet government, in their plans to build socialism in one country taken separately, planned to solve the "triune task of radically reorganizing society" (industrialization, collectivization of agriculture and cultural revolution). Specifically, the corresponding plans were developed by the Communist Party - the CPSU (b), in which Stalin's leadership was established. In December 1925, at the XIV Congress of the Communist Party, the task of industrializing the USSR and turning it into an economically independent state was substantiated and put forward. This process was initiated by the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1928-1932).
The development of industrial production (industrialization) in the country was an objective necessity and was of historical importance for the future of Russia. The question was in what forms, by what methods and at what pace this task would be solved. As subsequent events showed, Stalin's industrialization was carried out in harsh, one might say, tragic ways for the population, due to the strongest exploitation of workers, depeasantization and robbery of peasants (dekulakization). At the same time, private-commodity and capitalist forms of economy were liquidated, and exclusively social (state and collective) forms were planted in industrial and agricultural production. In addition, it was during this period that the repressive methods of government characteristic of Stalin and his entourage began to develop in the country, the search and identification of the so-called enemies of the people, mainly people and politicians who disagreed with the policy of the Stalinist elite and its management methods, began. All this left conflicting assessments of the period of Stalinist industrialization.
Its chronological framework covers the period from approximately 1929 to 1941, or two and a half five-year plans. The first five-year plan was supposed to be implemented from October 1, 1928 to October 1, 1933. The size of capital investments in the economy for those years amounted to 61.6 billion rubles. (in 1955 prices). According to the then official data, the first five-year plan was completed ahead of schedule, by the beginning of 1933. Basically, cheap labor was used, which, after collectivization, was supplied by the village. Beggars and hungry peasants moved in masses to the cities, to the construction sites of the first five-year plan. Thanks to the ideological and propaganda campaign launched in the country, millions of people selflessly got involved in the work, almost by hand, built factories, power plants, laid railways, the Moscow metro. Sometimes they had to work three shifts.
About 1,500 facilities were built and put into operation, including such gigantic structures for that time as the DneproGES, metallurgical plants in Magnitogorsk, Lipetsk, Chelyabinsk, Novokuznetsk, Norilsk and Uralmash, tractor plants in Stalingrad, Chelyabinsk, Kharkov, Uralvagonzavod, automobile plants: GAZ, ZIS (now ZIL), etc. New industries appeared in the country, such as tractor, automobile, aviation, machine-tool building, heavy and agricultural engineering, ferrous metallurgy, and chemical. The country's electrification plan (GOELRO plan) was overfulfilled, the country's second coal and metallurgical base Kuzbass was created. The Turkestan-Siberian railway was put into operation. A large defense industry was also created. The share of industry in the economy in 1932 was 70.7%.
After the collapse of the USSR and the privatization carried out, these enterprises (but not only these) passed almost for nothing into the hands of a handful of those who are called oligarchs. Let them remember that they appropriated the fruits of the enormous labor of the vast mass of the country's population, who built these facilities for meager pay in difficult, inhuman conditions and are now extracting gigantic profits.
A particularly large step in industrial development was made by the national republics and the outskirts of the USSR. And although many nationalities worked on many construction sites, Russian people were the main labor force, and the main funds also came from Russian regions (from the RSFSR). Therefore, let the current presidents of the former Soviet republics not boast and present any bills to modern Russia for their imaginary exploitation. Strange as it may seem, it was Russia itself (then the RSFSR) that was exploited by all the national republics of the USSR.
During the years of the first five-year plan, serious changes took place in the social structure of society in the country, the size of the working class and the urban population increased significantly, the urban labor force increased by 12.5 million people, of which 8.5 million were from rural areas. Accordingly, the size of the rural population decreased, large individual farms were forcibly liquidated (dispossession), the number of privately owned peasants sharply decreased, and agricultural cooperatives (collective farms) began to develop. Unemployment was eliminated. Positive tendencies have been outlined in the education and culture of the population. Universal compulsory primary education was introduced in the country, success was also achieved in the development of science, art, and literature. However, harsh and ill-conceived methods of transformation, especially in the countryside, led to a temporary drop in agricultural production, which led to hunger and the extinction of part of the population (“Holodomor”)
The first five-year plan was followed by the second (1933-1937), and then the third five-year plan (1938-1942), which took place under the conditions of the outbreak of World War II. During the years of the second five-year plan, the task was set to complete the reconstruction of the national economy. The task of training personnel with the latest technology has also come to the fore. In this regard, the slogan was put forward: "Cadres decide everything!". As a result of the second five-year plan, the volume of industrial output increased by 2.2 times compared with 1932. 4,500 new industrial facilities were put into operation. Among them are the White Sea-Baltic Canal (227 km.), the Moscow-Volga Canal (128 km.). In 1935, the movement of trains of the first stage of the Moscow Metro with a total length of 11.2 km was opened. As a result of the second five-year plan, the USSR became a major industrial power. It was a great feat of the people, although accompanied by enormous hardships and sacrifices.
In the late 1930s the third five-year plan was being implemented in the country, violated by the perfidious aggression of fascist Germany and its allies against the USSR that began on June 22, 1941. Three years before the Great Patriotic War, about 3 thousand new industrial enterprises were put into operation in the country, many of which contributed to strengthening its defense capability.
Heavy industry developed greatly as a result of the first three five-year plans. GDP growth during 1928-40 amounted to 4.6% per year. Industrial production in the period 1928-1937 increased by 2.5-3.5 times, that is, 10.5-16% per year. The release of machinery in the period 1928-1937. grew by an average of 27.4% per year. By 1940, about 9,000 new factories had been built in the country. By the end of the second five-year plan, the USSR took second place in the world in terms of industrial output, second only to the United States. At least there was no open unemployment. For the period 1928-1937. universities and technical schools have trained about 2 million specialists. A great impetus was given to the development of Soviet science, which began to take leading world positions in certain areas. The created industrial base made it possible to carry out a large-scale rearmament of the army. Consumption level from 1928 to 1938 increased per capita by 22%, although this growth had little effect on the vast majority of the rural population, that is, more than half of the country's population.
In general, during the pre-war five-year plans in the USSR, a large-scale industrialization of the country was carried out, a huge increase in production capacities was ensured, especially in the field of heavy industry, which later allowed the USSR to win the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War as a whole. Industrialization is one of the most important achievements of the USSR. Although not without reason, the question of its scope and methods of implementation remains the subject of heated debate and discussion.
Many researchers criticize Stalin's industrialization, primarily because it was largely carried out at the expense of the peasantry, due to low purchase prices for grain and its resale at higher prices, as well as due to overpayments for the purchase of manufactured goods by the population. As a result of this policy, the material situation of the peasantry worsened, which starved and died out. In 1926 - 1939. according to some estimates, the country lost up to 20 million people, mostly the Russian population. This is assessed in modern literature as one of the stages of the Russian genocide.
The negative assessment of Stalin's industrialization also stems from the political repressions that unfolded in the 1930s. A campaign against sabotage was launched in the country, in which thousands and thousands of people were involved in the search for "saboteurs". Any failures or errors in the implementation of the five-year plans were regarded as "wrecking". One of the first trials in the "saboteurs" case was the so-called Shakhty case, and then such "cases" went one after another. There were, of course, real saboteurs and enemies of the Soviet system. But many of the cases were far-fetched and stemmed either from competition, envy, domestic "sitting", or to intimidate the population.
In subsequent years, in the post-war period, the policy of industrialization continued and sometimes took hypertrophied forms. All politicians of the post-Stalin era continued to emphasize high rates of industrialization, while forgetting about the changed conditions and the need to switch to new technologies. Plants no longer needed were being built, defense production was exaggerated, which exhausted the country and undermined the well-being of the population. There was a shift in the territorial distribution of industrial facilities into national republics due to the development of historical Russian regions, which subsequently led to the loss of Russia itself, built mainly at its expense and by its labor and engineering forces, huge industrial and raw materials regions.
Moreover, the transformation of the USSR into a mighty industrial power was regarded by other industrialized countries as a mortal danger to their prosperity. As a result, the West outlined and with the help of the “fifth column”, calling themselves democrats, plans for the collapse and destruction of our country were implemented, which happened during the reign of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. And until now, their followers have not abandoned their attempts to completely destroy our country and its economy, at the same time stealing its wealth, industrial and other objects that remained from the Soviet Union. If at the previous stages the emphasis was placed on the industrialization of the country, sometimes excessive, now the "democrats" are oriented mainly towards the sale of the country's huge raw material wealth abroad, which enriches a handful of oligarchs and creates the danger of Russia turning into a raw material appendage of the West and losing its independence, and and possibly territorial integrity.
In this regard, the Liberal Democratic Party considers it necessary to take into account the lessons of the industrialization of the Soviet period in the history of the country, to extract everything useful and discard the negative consequences of Stalinist industrialization. The party places particular emphasis on the need to develop key sectors of the economy, both in industry and agriculture, with an emphasis on new technologies. Much attention is also paid to the development and support of small and medium businesses, which is especially important in the context of the global financial and economic crisis that began in autumn 2008.

By the end of the 1930s. The USSR became one of the few countries capable of producing any kind of industrial product available at that time to mankind. The country really gained economic independence and self-sufficiency. The victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 was largely due to a more powerful industrial base than that of Germany and all of Europe. This base was created in the USSR under the leadership of Comrade Stalin during the first five-year plans.

Industrialization is the creation and development of large-scale industry, primarily heavy industry, the transformation of the entire national economy on the basis of large-scale industrial production. Industrialization is not a stage inherent only in socialist construction. It is a prerequisite for the modernization of the country. However, by the mid-1920s, it became necessary for the USSR for a number of reasons.

First, by 1925 the recovery period is over. The Soviet economy reached the pre-war level in terms of the main indicators. In order to ensure the growth of industrial production, it was necessary not so much to re-equip existing plants as to build new modern enterprises.

Secondly, it was more rational to decide problems of accommodating the economic potential of the country. In the Central Industrial Region, which occupied only 3% of the territory of Russia, 30% of industrial production and 40% of the working class were concentrated. The country still remained agrarian, peasant. The village was overpopulated. Unemployment grew in the cities, which increased social tensions.

Thirdly, the impetus for speeding up industrialization was economic and political isolation of the country in the international arena. Being in a hostile capitalist environment, the USSR was under the constant threat of war. The agrarian country had no chance to survive in the event of a military clash with the industrialized powers.

The decision to start industrialization was made at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in December 1925. In fact, industrialization was discussed at the congress only in general terms. Here the main task of industrialization was formulated: to ensure the economic independence of the USSR, to transform it from a country importing equipment and machinery into a country producing them. The issues of pace, sources and methods of its implementation were not considered at the congress. After the congress, heated debates broke out on these issues. Two points of view were identified: the left, led by L.D. Trotsky demanded that "super-industrialization" be carried out at the expense of the peasantry, and the right, led by N.I. Bukharin advocated softer transformations and the development of a market economy.

The sources of industrialization were named at the April (1926) Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: income from state enterprises, internal loans from the population, strict economy and frugality in production, socialist competition. Supporters of "super-industrialization" according to Trotsky were subjected to harsh criticism from the Stalinist leadership.

The solution of such a complex problem was impossible without the transition to long-term planning. In December 1927, the XV Congress of the CPSU(b) adopted directives for drawing up the first five-year plan. The decisions of the congress emphasized the need for a balanced development of all sectors of the national economy, maintaining proportionality between accumulation and consumption.

At the suggestion of G.M. Krzhizhanovsky (Chairman of the State Planning Commission), two versions of the five-year plan were developed - the starting (minimum) and optimal. The optimal figures were about 20% higher than the baseline. The optimal version of the plan was taken as a basis. When evaluating the first five-year plan, historians unanimously note the balance of its tasks, which, despite their scale, were quite realistic to carry out. The plan provided for the growth of industrial production by 180%, agricultural - by 55%. The national income was planned to increase by 103%. Labor productivity in industry was to increase by 110%, real wages by 71%, and peasant incomes by 67%. During the years of the first five-year plan (1927/28 - 1932/33) it was planned to build 1,500 industrial enterprises, mainly in heavy industry. Among them are such giants as Dneproges, Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical plants, Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk tractor plants, the Turkestan-Siberian railway (Turksib), etc.

Already in 1929, the country's leadership began to call for speeding up the pace of industrialization. Stalin puts forward the slogan "Five-year plan - in four years!" Planned targets are revised upwards. The country was obliged to produce twice as much as originally planned, non-ferrous and ferrous metals, iron, cars, agricultural machinery, etc. In a number of industries (coal and oil production), the growth rates were even higher. The November Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1929 approved the new control figures for the five-year plan. Heading for the "great leap". This was partly due to the desire of a significant part of the workers to put an end to acute socio-economic problems and ensure the victory of socialism in the USSR by revolutionary methods of the “Red Guard attack”. It should be recalled that by the end of the 1920s, the generation that had grown up during the years of the revolution and the civil war came to production. Revolutionary methods and rhetoric were close and understandable to him. A role was played by the conviction of the Bolshevik-Stalinists that one can act in the economy in the same way as in politics - to organize and inspire the masses with lofty ideas and throw them into a decisive battle for the realization of bright ideals. And so it happened.

Speaking about the reasons for the overestimation of the planned targets of the first five-year plan, one should also keep in mind foreign policy aspects. In the late 1920s, after stabilization, the countries of the capitalist world experienced a severe crisis. The imperialist countries are preparing for a new major war. Under these conditions, the Kremlin believed, an industrial breakthrough was needed. I.V. Stalin said that under these conditions “... to slow down the pace means to lag behind ... We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed.”

The Trotskyists and other wreckers expelled from power are sabotaging industrialization so that the USSR falls behind before the war technically and, on the crest of a wave of future war defeats, the Trotskyists could return to power. In 1928, a trial was held in the so-called "Shakhtinsky case", organized on the eve of the adoption of the five-year plan, the meaning of which was, firstly, to exclude the Trotskyist element from production, and secondly, to show the doubting workers the inadmissibility of skepticism regarding figures five-year plans. In 1928-1929. a broad campaign was launched against the "bourgeois specialists-saboteurs". Under the pretext of belonging to "alien classes", they were removed from their positions or even deprived of civil rights and repressed. At the same time, the creation of a "new technical intelligentsia" from workers and peasants took place. Lacking experience and knowledge, these engineers and technicians supported the radical changes brought about by industrialization because they benefited the most from them.

The country was literally engulfed in industrial fever. Industrial giants were built, cities arose (for example, Komsomolsk-on-Amur). In the east of the country, a new coal and metallurgical base has grown - Uralo-Kuzbass with its main centers in Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk. Entire industries appeared that did not exist in pre-revolutionary Russia: the aviation, tractor, electrical, chemical industries, etc. The USSR really turned into a country that not only imported, but also produced equipment.

Industrialization revealed a number of problems. First, it became obvious that it was impossible to carry out large-scale industrial construction at the expense of the planned sources. In the early 1930s, the pace of industrial development began to fall: in 1933 they amounted to 5% against 23.7% in 1928-1929. Lack of funds led to the “freezing” of almost a quarter of enterprises under construction. There were not enough building materials, transport could not cope with the increased volume of traffic. Socialist enterprises, due to outdated equipment and poor organization of labor, gave little profit. The standard of living of the population was low, so internal loans were not so effective. The low level of the new working intelligentsia, the constant expansion of the working class at the expense of low-skilled peasant youth did not allow increasing labor productivity and reducing production costs. The funds were sorely lacking.

The Trotskyists believed that industrialization should be carried out at the expense of the peasantry. Although in 1927 Trotskyism was ideologically and organizationally crushed, nevertheless this point of view was preserved. In 1928, the Trotskyists organized an offensive against the peasants, demanded that their grain be confiscated, and in order to make this easier, drive them to the collective farms, i.e. carry out the collectivization of agriculture in a short time.

In the conditions of the "great crisis" the countries of the West began vying to offer the USSR on favorable terms to buy equipment from them. A large-scale import of equipment was not provided for by the five-year plan, but the country's leadership did not want to miss the opportunity. In 1931, Soviet purchases accounted for a third of world exports of machinery and equipment, and in 1932 - half. The state received funds for the purchase of equipment from the sale of bread. Agriculture is becoming the main source through which it was possible to carry out the technical re-equipment of industry. To obtain additional funds, the government began issuing loans, carried out issue of money which caused a sharp increase in inflation.

In search of funds, the state goes to extreme measures. In 1927, the "dry law" was canceled and the wide sale of alcohol. The source of obtaining currency for the purchase of equipment becomes, sale of art treasures abroad from the largest museums of the USSR (the Hermitage, the Kremlin, the Tretyakov Gallery, etc.) At that time, the creations of the greatest artists and jewelers, the rarest collections of old manuscripts, books and weapons were taken out of the USSR. Such a measure was justified, as it allowed the creation of a defense industry. Otherwise, having lost the impending war, our Motherland would have lost not part of its cultural values, but all of them.

The lack of funds worsened the unprofitability of enterprises. Initially, it was meant that the purchased equipment in a year or two would make a profit. However, the lack of qualified personnel, poor organization of labor and low discipline did not allow these plans to be realized. The equipment was idle, deteriorated. The percentage of marriage was high: at individual enterprises in Moscow, it reached 65%. It is no coincidence that the slogan “Cadres who have mastered technology decide everything!” appears in the second five-year plan.

The transfer of funds for the creation of heavy industry led to the appearance of serious disproportions in the national economy: almost no light industry developed. In addition, the most heavy industry was dominated by enterprises associated with military production.

The industrial development of new areas required not only large investments, but also increase in labor resources. During the years of industrialization, this problem was solved in several ways. Firstly, through the Komsomol and youth calls for volunteers for the construction of five-year plans; secondly, with the help of wage increases and the provision of various benefits to people working in difficult conditions.

Intensive industrial construction has led to a sharp increase in the urban population. The number of the working class during the years of the first five-year plans increased from 9 to 24 million people. And this, in turn, exacerbated the food problem in the cities and led in 1929 to the introduction of the rationing system. The housing problem is also becoming more acute.

In the first five-year plan, central planning is sharply strengthened and a transition to administrative methods of economic management takes place. This is explained by the fact that the scale of the tasks and the extreme limitation of material and financial resources forced us to count every penny, every machine. In order to concentrate maximum forces and means, tasks, resources and forms of remuneration are strictly regulated. As a result, over the years of the first five-year plans, the number of administrative personnel increased by more than 3 times, which created the basis for establishing a command-administrative system in the country.

The first five-year plan was completed in 4 years and 3 months. The second five-year plan (1933 - 1937) was approved at the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b) in early 1934. It retained the trend towards the priority development of heavy industry. The main economic task was defined as the completion of the reconstruction of the national economy on the basis of the latest technology. Since ultra-high growth rates can be achieved only at the first stage of any process, the average annual growth rate decreased compared to the first five-year period from 30 to 16.5%. The development of light industry was supposed to be faster, and capital investments in it increased several times.

In order to increase labor productivity, it was decided to revive material incentives. I.V. Stalin declares "war on egalitarianism." Payment is introduced depending on working conditions, production and category of the worker. Income inequality is becoming a socialist virtue.

As noted above, the slogan of the second five-year plan was the call "Cadres who have mastered the technique decide everything!" In the autumn of 1933, factory apprenticeship schools (FZU) were reorganized into vocational schools to train workers for mass professions. Refresher courses were opened at factories and factories, conditions were created for workers to be trained in evening schools and universities. The technical minimum becomes the main form of advanced training for workers. Its surrender was mandatory for workers in all branches of industry.

All this gave positive results, and labor productivity doubled over the years of the second five-year plan. The results of the second five-year plan were even higher than those of the first. More than 4,500 large industrial enterprises have come into operation, including the Ural Machine-Building and Chelyabinsk Tractor Plants, dozens of blast and open-hearth furnaces, mines, and power plants. The first metro line was laid in Moscow. The industry of the Union republics developed at an accelerated pace.

Industrialization brought about tremendous changes. During the years of the first five-year plans, the economic level of the USSR rose sharply. A modern heavy industry was created. Despite the huge costs, the percentage of annual growth in production averaged 10 to 16%, which was much higher than in the developed capitalist countries. By the end of the 1930s. The USSR became one of the few countries capable of producing any kind of industrial product available at that time to mankind. The country really gained economic independence and self-sufficiency. The victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 was largely due to a more powerful industrial base than that of Germany and all of Europe. This base was created in the USSR under the leadership of Comrade Stalin during the first five-year plans.