4.10.1. Industrialisation: the advance

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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics

Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

63 ratings

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

63 ratings

The course presents the life and deeds of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 till 1953. It analyses the reasons for his actions and their results, as well as the causes of his popularity in Russia today. It offers an analysis of the phenomenon of Stalinism and of its significance for Russia and beyond. In the late 1920s – early 1930s Stalin directed the massive and rapid industrialisation of the country and the forced collectivisation of its agriculture. The industrialisation was based on forced labour, and collectivisation on repression, but both helped to create the material base for the Soviet defence industry. In the late 1930s Stalin unleashed mass terror against the Soviet people, in which millions perished. In his view this helped to rid the country of any potential internal enemies on the eve of the coming war. The USSR, together with its allies, won the Second World War, but at the cost of dozens of millions of lives. Stalin was instrumental in creating the post-war order. The system which he created in the 1930s shaped the USSR as it was during his lifetime and for decades after his death. It also influenced the lives of millions of people beyond the Soviet borders. The course will enable those who take it to develop an informed understanding of the Stalin era and of the phenomenon of Stalinism.

From the lesson

Stalin's Revolution from Above

Lecture 4 analyses Stalin’s ‘revolution from above’ and the new social and economic order created by Stalin. It outlines Stalin’s reasons for collectivisation and industrialisation and the way in which they were implemented. It analyses the human and economic costs of Stalin’s radical transformation to the country and its people.

4.10.1. Industrialisation: the advance10:04

4.10.2. Industrialisation: the retreat12:11

Meet the Instructors

Irina Filatova
Professor
Faculty of Humanities / School of History

We shall now speak about industrialization.

But I'll have to start industrialization by

returning to collectivization because collectivization was the very center,

the linchpin of industrialization.

Let me explain how.

The reasons for collectivization were that peasants were the majority of the country.

Communists conceded them as backward class.

They had private property which gave them some independence.

But at the same time,

the Bolshevik state depended on them for food,

that had to be changed.

But Stalin's vision was much bigger than just

turning peasants into obedient and dependent laborers in state enterprises.

The purpose of collectivization,

the main purpose of collectivization,

was to channel the human and material resources of

the countryside, to the construction of manufacturing facilities.

This would turn the Soviet Union into a strong industrial power.

Stalin designed this policy

personally and he presented it to the central committee plenum,

on 9 July 1928.

At that plenum, he also said that,

"With the development of socialism, class struggle had to intensify."

This would be very useful for him.

The way to industrialization lay through five-year plans.

It was envisaged that there would be

several five-year plans and they all had to be worked out beforehand.

And here is several posters which show what actually was envisaged.

The poster on the left says,

"Fulfill five-year plan in four years".

The poster on the right says,

"A five-year plan", and a capitalist is laughing at it and says that,

"this is a fantasy."

And then the lower part of the same poster is,

"The plan is fulfilled in four years."

And the capitalist is very unhappy.

What was a five-year plan?

It was a plan which defined targets,

the number and type of industries to be built but there was

no estimate of financial and material resources which were necessary.

The first five year plan was introduced in 1928.

It was very ambitious but

targets were soon rejected as too modest.

So the targets figures were increased by 50% and then doubled and then tripled.

And then the call was that the five-year plan had to be fulfilled in three years.

From 1929, collectivization became a part of industrialization.

Why the haste?

Well, it was natural because revolution in

the West did not happen and this was finally recognized by communists.

There were signs of wars gathering both in the West and in the East.

So Stalin needed a military machine and very fast but he was not an economist.

So for him, industrialization was

a fortress to be captured and his weapons in the fight for that fortress,

were political campaigns and enthusiasm.

The enthusiasm was sincere.

The magnitude of the plans caught the imagination of workers.

Stakhanovites were the workers who exceeded their norms of production.

Shock workers were the workers who worked longer hours and

faster and managed to fulfill their tasks in record time.

One of the main vehicles of industrialization was exports of grain,

because these exports gave the funds for buying the equipment.

A lot of foreign equipment was bought abroad.

The Dneproges for example.

This was the hydroelectric power station,

and it was the pride of Soviet industrialization.

In fact, the machinery for it was supplied by the Germans and the group,

by the United States,

General Motors, by Czechoslovakia.

The whole project cost about $400 million.

Enormous, enormous amount.

So this was all that was produced by the grain which was produced by the kolkhozes.

But there was something else that collectivization gave to industrialization.

This was labor. First of all,

there were many people from villages who either escaped or just came to the cities.

They were not highly qualified workers,

so they were ready to work just for rations.

But more importantly, there was this virtually slave prison labor. It was free.

Socialist construction,

socialist industrialization could not have happened without free labor.

Here you see the pictures of that prison labor and one example of that was that,

the workers who built

the Moscow Volga Canal were all prisoners.

The camp was specifically created for them to work on this project.

In 1936, it housed 192,000 prisoner workers.

But the result of socialist construction were enormous.

They were really impressive.

Metallurgical, automobile factories, chemical factories,

look at the map.

The whole of the European part of Russia and even some parts of southern Siberia,

are covered with these construction sites of Soviet industrialization.

There were such proud projects as Dneproges,

which I mentioned earlier.

There was Magnitogorsk metallurgical factory,

there was Nizhni Novgorod automobile plant.

All these plants and factories were very well advertised in the newspapers and on film.

The growth of production was incredible.

The production of cast iron increased from 1928 to 1932 by 188%.

Automobile production increased by 3,000%.

The production of steel increased by 137%.

Incredible. There's no doubt that

both investment of capital and the sacrifice had to produce such results.

Yet Stalin said, industrialization was a fortress.

They say that communists, particularly,

communist workers in industry,

cannot master chemical formula and technical knowledge generally.

This is not true. There are no such fortresses

in the world that Bolsheviks cannot capture.

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