A short economic history of the USSR

259 Pages·1968·11.48 MB·English

by  Alexander Mikhailovich Podkolzin

A.PODKOLZIN
A short economic
history
of the USSR
Progress Publishers
Moscow
Translated from the Russian by David Fidion
Edited by G. Ivanov-Mumjiev
A. M. 11OAKOJ13HH
KPATKMH OMEPK SKOHOMLWECKOH MCTOPHU CCCP
Ha aHSAuücKOM ñ3biKe
First printing 1968
Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
CONTENTS
Page
Publishers’ Note........................................................................ 7
Chapter I. THE ECONOMY OF FEUDAL RUSSIA........................ 9
1. The Feudal and Serf System of Economy and Its Distinctive
Features in Russia............................................................. 9
2. Agriculture as the Foundation of Economic Activity ... 13
3. Development of Crafts and Manufactories and Appearance
of the Capitalist Factory.........................................................19
4, Growth of Towns and Expansion of Trade Ties.........................24
5. Abolition of Serfdom in Russia.....................................................28
Chapter II. RUSSIA’S ECONOMY IN THE EPOCH OF
INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM (1861-1900)............................ 33
1. Development of Capitalist Relations.........................................33
2. Growth of Capitalist Relations in Agriculture...............................38
3. Completion of the Industrial Revolution and Rise of
Capitalist Industry........................................................................45
4. Growth of Commodity Circulation. Credit and the State
Finance System........................................................................52
Chapter III. RUSSIA’S ECONOMY IN THE EPOCH OF
IMPERIALISM................................................................................58
1. Characteristic Features of Russian Imperialism .... 58
2. Concentration of Production. Monopolies and Their Place
in Russia’s Economy........................................................................64
3. Situation in Agriculture and Its Reconstruction Along
Capitalist Lines .....................................................70
4. Rise of Finance Capital and Expansion of Domestic and
Foreign Trade............................................................................76
5. Overthrow of Autocracy. The Economic Policy of the
Bourgeois Provisional Government...........................................81
Chapter IV. THE ECONOMY OF SOVIET RUSSIA AT THE
TIME OF THE VICTORY AND DURING THE CONSOLIDA­
TION OF THE SOCIALIST SYSTEM (1917-20)...................86
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1. World Historie Significance of the Great October Socialist
Revolution .................................................................................86
2. Workers’ Control and Nationalisation of Industry ... 93
3. Socialist Revolution in the Village. Agriculture and Food
Situation ...................................................................................102
4. Economic Policy of the Socialist State......................................110
Chapter V. ECONOMIC REHABILITATION (1921-25) .... 116
1. Transition to Peaceful Economic Upbuilding. New Economic
Policy (NEP)...........................................................................116
2. Recovery in Agriculture.............................................................122
3. Rehabilitation of Industry . ....................................................127
4. Trade as the Basic Link of Economic Policy............................133
5. Normalisation of Money Circulation and Finances . . . 136
Chapter VI. LAYING THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIALIST
ECONOMY (1926-32)............................................................ 140
1. Successes and Difficulties of Economic Upbuilding (1926-28) 140
2. Main Political and Economic Tasks of the First Five-Year
Plan (1928-32)........................................................................... 148
3. Transformation of the U.S.S.R. from an Agrarian Country
into an Industrial Power........................................................150
4. Socialist Reconstruction of Agriculture........................... . 156
5. Trade, Finances and Rise of the People’s Welfare . . . 162
Chapter VIL COMPLETION OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIC
RECONSTRUCTION. VICTORY OF SOCIALISM.................166
1. Principal Political and Economic Tasks of the Second
Five-Year Plan (1932-37)................................................... . 166
2. Growth of Socialist Industry and Completion of Its Technical
Reconstruction........................ 169
3. Consolidation of the Collective-Farm System and First
Successes in Agricultural Production................................175
4. Rise in Living Standards. Complete Victory of Socialism . 179
5. Economic Development in the Pre-War Years of the Third
Five-Year Plan Period (1938-June 1941)................................182
Chapter VIII. U.S.S.R. ECONOMY IN THE PERIOD OF THE
GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR OF 1941-45 ................................189
1. Germany’s Perfidious Attack. The Character of the War, Its
Outcome and Significance............................................. . 189
2. Mobilisation of Industry for War Production.......................194
3. Situation in Agriculture and the Problem of Food Supplies 199
4. Wartime Transport..................................... 204
5. Finances During the War . ...................................................207
Chapter IX. POST-WAR ECONOMIC REHABILITATION AND
DEVELOPMENT IN THE PERIOD OF THE FINAL
VICTORY OF SOCIALISM (1946-58)................................ 211
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1. General Situation.........................................................................211
2. Economic Rehabilitation in 1946-48 ....................................... 215
3. Upsurge in Industry in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Five-
Year Plan Periods.................................................................219
4. Successes and Difficulties in Agricultural Development . , 223
5. Development of Science and Culture and Further Improv­
ement of Living Standards........................................................228
Chapter X. SOVIET ECONOMY IN THE PERIOD OF FULL-
SCALE COMMUNIST CONSTRUCTION....................................232
1. Seven-Year Plan as Part of the General Programme of
Creating the Material and Technical Basis of Communism 232
2. The Results of the Seven-Year Plan in Industry and
Transport....................................................................... 236
3. Agriculture in the Seven-Year Plan Period............................242
4. Improvement in Living Standards and Progress in Science
and Culture................................................................................247
5. Prospects for the Creation of the Material and Technical
Basis of Communism ...........................................................249
Publishers’ Note
We have received many letters from abroad requesting the pub­
lication of a book on the history of Soviet economy. They express
admiration for the enormous economic progress made by the Soviet
people in the fifty years since the Great October Socialist Revolution
that has transformed backward tsarist Russia into a highly advanced
country which now ranks second in the world for industrial produc­
tion and has wrought far-reaching cultural and social changes. To­
day, when many countries have thrown off the colonial yoke and have
launched upon independent economic development, they say, Soviet
experience of economic upbuilding elicits universal interest.
It is in compliance with these requests that we are publishing
A Short Economic History of the U.S.S.R. by A. M. Podkolzin.
The book gives a general idea of Russia’s economy before the
revolution, and describes the landmarks in the country’s economic
development following the establishment of Soviet power.
Although it is not a monograph for specialists and does not con­
tain a detailed record of the economic growth of the U.S.S.R., we
hope it will give the reader a fairly comprehensive picture of the
basic problems and stages in the Soviet economic development.
Chapter 1
THE ECONOMY OF FEUDAL RUSSIA
1. The Feudal and Serf System of Economy
and Its Distinctive Features in Russia
The economic foundations of the now mighty Soviet
socialist state were laid centuries ago on the territory of
Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Here, as
elsewhere, different socio-economic formations—primitive-
communal, s*lave-owning, feudal and capitalist—succeeded
one another. Then, as a result of the Great October Revo­
lution, came the victory of socialism which became firmly
established in the country. At present the Soviet Union is
successfully building the material and technical basis of
communism.
It goes without saying that this general law of historical
development takes into account the specific features of
development of a given country. Moreover, there have been
many serious deviations from this general scheme and
even cases of one or another formation falling out of it.
As for the economic development and the social and
political life of the peoples inhabiting the U:S.S.R., the
primitive-communal system prevailed here for thousands
of years. Feudal relations first appeared in Kiev Rus only
in the 9th century.
The growth of the productive forces and the resulting
inequality in property status in the first millennium A. D.
led to the formation of a class society and the state which
was destined to secure the domination of one class over
another.
* The slave-owning system did not spread over the entire territory
of the country.
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The above-mentioned specific features strikingly man­
ifested themselves at that stage of socio-economic devel­
opment in Eastern Europe. The primitive-communal sys­
tem here was supplanted by feudalism and not the slave­
owning form of social o*rganisation
This fact is explained by the country’s specific social and
economic conditions arising from the prolonged prevalence
of communal-patriarchal relations and the clan system in
Rus.
It should be borne in mind in this connection that the
level of production of the Eastern Slavs in the 6th-9th
centuries was incomparably higher than in the ancient
slave-owning countries in the period of state formation.
The general level of production in Rus made slave labour
unprofitable.
State formations evidently appeared in Eastern Europe
as far back as the 8th century. At any rate, ancient writers
mentioned three comparatively small states: Kuyaba, Slavia
and Artania.
A turning point in the history of the Slav peoples was
the formation of the Ancient Russian State on the vast
expanses of Rus, with Kiev as its capital. This took place
in 882, when the Novgorod and Kiev principalities merged
into a state generally known as Kiev Rus.
A study of the socio-economic structure of Kiev Rus, as
described in the written documents of the period (Russkaya
Pravda [Russian Law] and Povest Vremennykh Let,
[Chronicle of Contemporary Years]), shows that it was a
feudal state all through its existence, that is, from the 9th
to the 12th century.
Although feudal relations take on different forms in
different localities and countries, they always presuppose
the dependence of the peasant, the direct producer, on the
feudal landowner as regards land and material welfare.
Since land in those days was the chief means of pro­
duction, the character of landownership was the determin­
ing factor in the system of feudal relations of production.
The ancestral lands of a prince or any other rich land­
owner were usually divided into two parts, the lord’s and
* The slave-owning system on the territory now occupied by the
Soviet Union existed only in the ancient southern states: Urartu in
Transcaucasia, the Central Asian states and the Scythian, Bosphorus
and Greek city-states on the Black Sea Littoral.
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the peasants’. The latter was allotted to the peasants in
remuneration for their labour on the feudal lord’s land.
Working on his strip, the peasant produced the necessary
product; the labour he put in on the feudal lord’s land
yielded the surplus product which the feudal lord appro­
priated.
In agriculture, the surplus product created directly by
the producer (the peasant) and appropriated by the land­
owner is called ground rent.
Under feudalism there were three principal forms of
ground rent, namely, labour rent (corvée), rent in kind
and money rent, which successively replaced each other.
In order to pay labour rent the peasant worked several
days a week for the landowner and the rest on the allot­
ment which was factually his own.
A peasant paid rent in kind, or natural rent, by handing
to the landowner the surplus product in its natural form—
grain, meat, butter, etc.
Money rent, a form of rent in kind, was paid with the
money obtained by the producer from the sale of his
products.
These forms of rent frequently intertwined with one an­
other on account of the prevailing local conditions.
But whatever the forms of ground rent, the land allot­
ted to the peasant served as a form of wages in kind for
the peasant and a means of assuring a landed estate with
labour.
Alongside large feudal property there existed the private
property of peasants and handicraftsmen who owned land
and the implements of production.
To prevail, such a system of economy required, first,
predominance of natural economy whose produce was
intended for inter-economic consumption; secondly, allot­
ment of the means of production in general and land in
particular to the direct producer; thirdly, personal depend­
ence of the peasant on the landowner, that is, existence
of conditions for non-economic coercion of the peasants
(it is clear that without such dependence a peasant pos­
sessing the means of production would not have worked
for the lord). Lastly, this sort of economy could exist only
when primitive implements were used. In conditions of
economic stagnation there was no efficient technical equip­
ment for it requires a large market for its produce,
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