The Industrialisation Of Soviet Russia 1 Socialist Offensive

By the summer of 1929 Soviet industrialisation was well under way, but agriculture was in a profound crisis: in 1928 and 1929 grain to feed the towns was wrested from the peasants by force, and the twenty-five million individual peasant households lost the stimulus to extend or even to maintain their production. In the autumn of 1929 the Soviet Politburo, led by Stalin, launched its desperate effort to win the battle for agriculture by forcible collectivisation and by large-scale mechanisation. Simultaneously hundreds of thousands of kulaks (richer peasants) and recalcitrant peasants were expelled from their villages. This book tells the story of these events, as momentous in their impact on Russian history at the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, and of the temporary retreat from collectivisation in the spring of 1930 in the face of peasant resistance. The crisis in the Communist Party which resulted from this upheaval, in the months preceding the XVI party congress in June 1930, is described in detail for the first time.

In 1929-30, the 'spinal year' of the first five-year plan, a vast investment programme began the transformation of the Soviet Union from a peasant country into a great industrial power. This book, the third part of The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia, re-examines the breakdown of the mixed economy. In those days of heroism and enthusiasm, hunger and repression, crucial Soviet economic and political institutions were established, and are only now being effectively challenged by Gorbachev's revolution. While complementing the previous two volumes of this author's work, the book is designed to be read independently. It sheds new light on a dramatic moment in Soviet history and in the formation of the Soviet system.

During the events described in The Socialist Offensive the collective farms achieved a commanding position in the Soviet countryside. They were planned as giant, fully socialist enterprises, modelled on the state-owned factories, and employing wage labour. By the summer of 1930 the collective-farm compromise had been introduced. Collective farmers were permitted to retain a personal household plot and their own animals; and a free market continued side by side with state planning. This system continued throughout the Stalin period important features of it remain in the Soviet Union today. The emergence of the collective farm in 1929-30, discussed in detail in the present volume, was thus a crucial stage in the formation of the Soviet system.

The profound economic crisis of 1931-33 undermined the process of industrialisation and the stability of the regime. In spite of feverish efforts to achieve the over ambitious first five-year plan, the great industrial projects lagged far behind schedule. These were years of inflation, economic disorder and of terrible famine in 1933. In response to the crisis, policies and systems changed significantly. Greater realism prevailed: more moderate plans, reduced investment, strict monetary controls, and more emphasis on economic incentives and the role of the market. The reforms failed to prevent the terrible famine of 1933, in which millions of peasants died. But the last months of 1933 saw the first signs of an industrial boom, the outcome of the huge investments of previous years. Using the previously secret archives of the Politburo and the Council of People's Commissars, the author shows how during these formative years the economic system acquired the shape which it retained until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

During the events described in The Socialist Offensive the collective farms achieved a commanding position in the Soviet countryside. The emergence of the collective farm in 1929-30, discussed in the present volume, was a crucial stage in the formation of the Soviet system.

Based on extensive research in formerly secret archives, this volume examines the progress of Soviet industrialisation against the background of the rising threat of aggression from Germany, Japan and Italy, and the consolidation of Stalin's power.