Great economy great war
The direct damage inflicted by the Great Patriotic War on the economy of the USSR amounted to almost one third of the total national wealth of the country; nevertheless, the national economy survived. And not only survived. In the pre-war years, and especially in the war years, defining economic decisions were taken, innovative (in many respects unprecedented) approaches to the realization of the goals and urgent production tasks were developed and implemented. They formed the basis of the post-war economic and innovative breakthrough.
Since its inception, the Soviet Union has striven in every way to become a self-sufficient, economically independent country. Only such an approach, on the one hand, contributed to the state's independent foreign and domestic policy and allowed to negotiate with any partners and on any issues on an equal footing, and on the other - strengthened defense capability, increased the material and cultural level of the population. The decisive role in achieving these goals was played by industrialization. The main efforts were directed to it, forces and resources were spent. At the same time, significant results were achieved. So, if in the 1928, the production of means of production (industry group A) in the USSR accounted for 39,5% of the gross output of the entire industry, then in 1940, this figure already reached 61,2%.
They did everything they could
From 1925 to 1938, a whole series of advanced industries were created that produced technically sophisticated products (including defense ones). Received further development (reconstructed and expanded) and old enterprises. Their worn and outdated material and technical base of production was changing. At the same time, not just others were installed in the place of one machine tool. They tried to introduce everything that was most up-to-date and innovative at that time (conveyors, flow lines with a minimum number of manual operations), and increased the power supply to the production facilities. For example, for the first time in the USSR, a conveyor system and the first automatic line in the world from aggregate machines and semi-automatic machines were commissioned at the Stalingrad factory Barricades.
For the purpose of industrial development of the eastern regions of the country and the union republics, these enterprises were replicated - duplicate equipment and part of the workers (mainly engineering and technical managers) were involved in organizing and setting up production in a new place. At certain civilian enterprises, reserve capacities were created for the production of military products. In these specialized areas and in the shops in the pre-war years, technology was worked out and military production was mastered.
During the years of the first five-year plans, and especially the pre-war years, the giant mineral deposits that the country had were explored and began to commercialize. At the same time, resources were not only widely used in production, but also accumulated.
Thanks to the use of a planned economic system, it was possible, firstly, optimally from the point of view of various costs, and secondly, from the point of view of achieving results, it was most advantageous not only to place significant production facilities, but also to create entire industrial areas. In 1938 — 1940 in the USSR State Planning Committee, reviews were prepared on the implementation of plans for economic regions, on the elimination of irrational and excessively long-haul transport, regional balances (fuel and energy, material, production capacities, transport) were developed and analyzed, plans were made for the co-operation of supplies in a territorial context, major regional - complex schemes.
Setting the task of turning the country into an advanced, industrialized power, the state’s leadership at an accelerated pace made the transition to a predominantly urbanized way of life (not only in large cities, but also in rural areas, given that more than 65% of the population lived there) with the creation modern system of social infrastructure (education, training, health, radio, telephone, etc.) that meets the requirements of industrially organized labor.
All this allowed the USSR to ensure high rates of economic development in the pre-war years.
In 1940, compared with 1913, gross industrial output increased 12 times, electricity production increased in 24, oil production increased in 3, iron production increased in 3,5, steel production increased in 4,3 times, production of all types of machine tools increased 35 times, including metal cutting - 32 times.
By June 1941, the country's car fleet grew to 1 million 100 thousand cars.
In 1940, the collective and state farms handed over the state 36,4 million tons of grain to the state, which made it possible not only to fully meet the country's internal needs, but also to create reserves. At the same time, grain production in the east of the country (the Urals, Siberia, the Far East) and in Kazakhstan significantly expanded.
The defense industry grew strongly. The growth rate of military production in the years of the second five-year period was 286% compared to 120% of the growth of industrial production as a whole. The average annual growth rate of the defense industry over 1938 — 1940. amounted to 141,5% instead of 127,3% provided by the third five-year plan.
As a result, by the beginning of the war, the Soviet Union had become a country capable of producing any type of industrial products available to humanity at that time.
East Industrial Area
The creation of the eastern industrial region was due to several tasks.
Firstly, the processing and high-tech industries sought to bring as close as possible to sources of raw materials and energy. Secondly, due to the integrated development of new geographical areas of the country, centers of industrial development and bases for further movement to the east were formed. Thirdly, backup enterprises were built here, and the potential was formed for the possible deployment of evacuated capacities from the territory, which could become a theater of operations or be occupied by enemy troops. In this case, the maximum removal of economic objects beyond the range of the bomber aviation potential adversary.
In the third five-year period, 97 enterprises, including 38 engineering, were built in the eastern regions of the USSR. In 1938 — 1941 Eastern Siberia received 3,5% of allied investment, Western Siberia - 4%, the Far East - 7,6%. The Urals and Western Siberia took the first place in the USSR in the production of aluminum, magnesium, copper, nickel, and zinc; Far East, Eastern Siberia - for the production of rare metals.
In 1936, only the Ural-Kuznetsky complex produced 1 / 3 smelting iron, steel and rolled products, 1 / 4 iron ore, almost 1 / 3 coal mining, and about 10% engineering products.
On the territory of the most populated and economically developed part of Siberia, by June 1941, there were more than 3100 large industrial enterprises, and the Ural energy system has become the most powerful in the country.
In addition to the two railway exits from the Center to the Urals and to Siberia, shorter lines were laid through Kazan - Sverdlovsk and through Orenburg - Orsk. A new outlet was built from the Urals to the Trans-Siberian Railway: from Sverdlovsk to Kurgan and to Kazakhstan via Troitsk and Orsk.
The placement of doubles in the east of the country in the third five-year period, putting some of them into operation, creating construction reserves for others, as well as forming an energy, raw materials, communication and socially developed base made it possible at the beginning of World War II not only to use these capacities for military production , but also to deploy in these places and put into operation related enterprises relocated from the western regions, thereby expanding and strengthening the economic and military capabilities of the USSR.
The scale of economic losses
Despite all the measures taken, the creation and development of other industrial areas (only in the Saratov and Stalingrad regions there were over a thousand industrial enterprises), on the eve of the war the Central, North-Western and South-Western industrial areas remained the basis of industry and agricultural production of the country. For example, the areas of the Center with the population of 26,4% in the USSR (1939) produced 38,3% of the gross output of the Union.
It was their country at the beginning of the war and lost.
As a result of the occupation of the USSR (1941 — 1944), the territory where 45% of the population lived was mined, 63% coal was mined, 68% pig iron, 50% steel and 60% aluminum, 38% grain, 84% sugar, etc. were produced. d.
As a result of the fighting and occupation, 1710 cities and urban settlements (60% of their total number) were completely or partially destroyed, over 70 thousand villages and villages, about 32 thousand industrial enterprises (the invaders destroyed the production capacity for the production of 60% pre-war steel , 70% coal production, 40% oil and gas production, etc.), 65 thousand kilometers of railways, 25 million people lost their homes.
The aggressors have caused enormous damage to the agriculture of the Soviet Union. 100 thousand collective and state farms were ravaged, 7 million horses, 17 million cattle heads, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep and goats were slaughtered or stolen in Germany.
Such a loss could not withstand any economy in the world. Due to what our nevertheless managed to not only survive and win, but also create the prerequisites for subsequent unprecedented economic growth?
During the war
The war began not according to the scenario and not in the time expected by the Soviet military and civilian leadership. Economic mobilization and the transfer of the economic life of the country into a military manner were carried out under the blows of the enemy. With the negative development of the operational environment, it was necessary to evacuate a huge, unprecedented stories quantities of machinery, equipment and people in the eastern regions of the country and the Central Asian republics. Only the Ural industrial region took about 700 large industrial enterprises.
A huge role in the successful evacuation and early development of output, minimization of labor and resource costs for its production, cost reduction, and in the active recovery process that began in the 1943 year, was played by the State Planning Committee of the USSR.
To begin with, factories and factories were not taken out to a clean field, equipment was not dumped in ravines, and people did not rush to their fate.
Accounting in the field of industry was carried out during the war in the form of urgent censuses for operational programs. For 1941 — 1945 105 urgent censuses were conducted with submissions to the government. Thus, the CSB of the USSR State Planning Committee conducted a census of industrial enterprises and buildings designed to house evacuated factories, institutions, and organizations. In the eastern regions of the country, the location of existing enterprises with respect to railway stations, water piers, highways, the number of access roads, the distance to the nearest power station, the capacity of enterprises for the production of main products, bottlenecks, the number of employees, gross output were specified. Comparatively detailed characterization was given to each building and the possibilities of using production space. Based on these data, recommendations, instructions, orders and a list of the people's commissariats, individual facilities, local management were given, responsible persons were appointed, and all this was tightly controlled.
A truly innovative, not previously used in any country in the world, integrated approach was applied in the recovery process. Gosplan moved to the development of quarterly and especially monthly plans, taking into account the rapidly changing situation on the fronts. In this case, the restoration began literally behind the back of the army. It took place right up to the front-line regions, which not only contributed to the accelerated revival of the economy and national economy of the country, but also was of great importance for the fastest and least costly provision of the front with everything necessary.
Such approaches, namely, optimization and innovation, could not help but produce results. 1943 year was a turning point in the field of economic development. This is eloquently shown by these tables 1.
As can be seen from the table, the state budget revenues, in spite of the colossal losses, exceeded the revenues of one of the most successful 1943 years in the Soviet pre-war history in 1940.
Restoration of enterprises was carried out at a rate that foreigners still continue to wonder about.
A typical example is the Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (Dneprodzerzhinsk). In August 1941, plant workers and the most valuable equipment were evacuated. Retreating, the Nazi troops completely destroyed the plant. After the liberation of Dneprodzerzhinsk in October 1943, restoration work began, and the first steel was issued on November 21, and the first rental - December 12 1943 of the year! By the end of 1944, two blast furnaces and five open-hearth furnaces, and three rolling mills were already operating at the plant.
Despite the incredible difficulties, during the war years, Soviet specialists achieved significant success in the field of import substitution, technical solutions, discoveries and innovative approaches to the organization of labor.
So, for example, production of many early imported medical preparations was adjusted. A new method of producing high-octane aviation gasoline has been developed. Created a powerful turbine installation for the production of liquid oxygen. Improved and invented new machine-atoms, obtained new alloys and polymers.
When restoring Azovstal, for the first time in world practice, the blast furnace without dismantling was moved into place.
Design solutions for the restoration of destroyed cities and enterprises using lightweight structures and local materials proposed by the Academy of Architecture. Total is simply impossible to list.
Do not forget about science. In the hardest 1942, the expenses of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on state budget allocations were 85 million rubles. In 1943, academic doctoral and postgraduate studies have grown to 997 people (418 doctoral students and 579 graduate students).
Scientists and designers came to the shop.
Vyacheslav Paramonov in his work “The Dynamics of the Industry of the RSFSR in 1941-1945”, in particular, writes: “In June 1941, machine tool builder teams were sent to enterprises of other departments to help transfer the machine park to mass production of new products. Thus, the experimental research institute of metal-cutting machines designed special equipment for the most labor-intensive operations, for example, a line of 15 machines for processing casings tank KV. Designers have found an original solution to such a problem as productive processing of especially heavy tank parts. At the factories of the aviation industry, design teams were created that were attached to those workshops to which the designs they developed were transferred. As a result, it became possible to conduct ongoing technical consultations, review and simplify the production process, and reduce the technological routes for the movement of parts. In Tankograd (Urals) special scientific institutes and design departments were created. ... High-speed design methods were mastered: the designer, technologist, toolmaker did not work sequentially, as was the case before, but all together, in parallel. The designer’s work ended only with the completion of production preparation, which made it possible to master the types of military products for one to three months instead of a year or more in the pre-war period. ”
Finance and Trade
The monetary system demonstrated its viability during the war years. And here integrated approaches were applied. So, for example, long-term construction was provided, as they say, with “long money”. Evacuated and recovering enterprises on preferential terms were granted loans. Economic objects suffered during the war were deferred on pre-war loans. Military expenses were partially covered by emissions. With timely financing and tight control over the executive discipline, commodity-money circulation practically did not give failures.
During the entire war, the state managed to maintain firm prices for essential goods, as well as low utility rates. At the same time, wages did not freeze, but grew. Only in a year and a half (April 1942-th - October 1943-th) its increase amounted to 27%. When calculating the money used a differentiated approach. For example, in May 1945, the average salary of metalworkers in the tank industry was higher than the average for the profession by 25%. The gap between the sectors with the maximum and minimum wages increased at the end of the war three times, whereas in the pre-war years it was 85%. The bonus system was actively used, in particular for rationalization and high labor productivity (a victory in socialist competition). All this contributed to increasing the material interest of people in the results of their work. Despite the rationing system, which operated in all the warring countries, money circulation played an important stimulating role in the USSR. Worked commercial and cooperative shops, restaurants, markets, where you could buy almost everything. In general, the stability of retail prices for basic goods in the USSR during the war does not have a precedent in world wars.
Among other things, in order to improve the food supply of residents of cities and industrial areas, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of November 4 of 1942 allocated land and enterprises to institutions and offices for individual horticulture. The plots were fixed on 5 — 7 years, and the administration was forbidden to redistribute them during this period. The income received from these plots was not taxed by the agricultural tax. In 1944, individual plots (total 1 million 600 thousand hectares) had 16,5 million people.
Another interesting economic indicator of the times of war is foreign trade.
In the moments of the hardest battles and the lack of the main industrial and agricultural areas, our country managed not only to actively trade with foreign countries, but also to go to 1945 on a surplus foreign trade balance, while surpassing pre-war indicators (table 2).
The most significant foreign trade relations during the war with the Soviet Union existed with the Mongolian People's Republic, Iran, China, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ceylon and some other countries. In 1944 — 1945, trade agreements were concluded with a number of Eastern European states, Sweden and Finland. But the USSR was with the anti-Hitler coalition countries especially large and determining foreign economic relations throughout the entire war.
In this regard, it should be said separately about the so-called Lend-Lease (the system of transferring the US to its allies to borrow or lease equipment, ammunition, strategic raw materials, food, various goods and services) that operated during the war. Supplies to the USSR were also carried out by the United Kingdom. However, these relations were not at all disinterested allied basis. In the form of reverse lend-lease, the Soviet Union sent 300 thousand tons of chrome ore to the USA, 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, a large amount of platinum, gold, and wood. In the UK - silver, apatite concentrate, potassium chloride, lumber, flax, cotton, furs and much more. This is how US Secretary of Commerce J. Jones evaluates these relationships: “With supplies from the USSR, we not only returned our money, but also made a profit, which was not a frequent case in trade relations regulated by our state.” American historian J. Herring put it even more specifically: “Lend-Lease was not ... the most disinterested act of human history. ... It was an act of prudent selfishness, and Americans always clearly realized the benefits they could derive from it. ”
Postwar rise
According to the American economist Walt Whitman Rostow, the period of the history of Soviet society from 1929 to 1950 can be defined as the stage of technological maturity, the movement to such a state when it “successfully and fully” applied the new technology for the time resources.
Indeed, after the war, the Soviet Union developed an unprecedented pace for a ravaged and bloodless country. Many organizational, technological and innovative achievements made during the Second World War have found their further development.
Thus, for example, the war largely contributed to the accelerated development of new processing facilities at the natural resource base of the eastern regions of the country. There, thanks to the evacuation and the subsequent creation of branches, advanced academic science in the form of campuses and Siberian research centers was developed.
At the final stage of the war and in the post-war period, the Soviet Union was the first in the world to implement long-term programs of scientific and technical development, which provided for the concentration of national forces and resources in the most promising areas. The long-term plan for fundamental scientific research and development, approved by the country's leadership in the early 50s, looked decades ahead in a number of its areas, setting goals for Soviet science that seemed simply fantastic at that time. Largely due to these plans, the Spiral reusable aerospace system project began to be developed in the 1960s. And on November 15, 1988, the Buran spacecraft-aircraft made its first and, unfortunately, only flight. The flight took place without a crew, completely automatically, using an on-board computer and on-board software. The United States was able to make a similar flight only in April of this year. As they say, less than 22 years have passed.
According to the UN, by the end of the USSR 1950, in terms of labor productivity, it was already ahead of Italy and reached the level of Great Britain. At that time, the Soviet Union developed at the fastest pace in the world, surpassing even the growth dynamics of modern China. Its annual growth rate at that time was at the level of 9 — 10%, exceeding the growth rate of the United States five times.
In 1946, the industry of the USSR reached the pre-war level (1940), in 1948-m surpassed it by 18%, and in 1950, by 73%.
Unclaimed experience
At the present stage, according to estimates of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the cost of Russian GDP 82% is the natural rent, 12% is the depreciation of industrial enterprises created during the Soviet era, and only 6% is directly productive labor. Consequently, 94% of domestic income comes from natural resources and eating away from the old heritage.
At the same time, according to some data, India with its afflicting poverty on computer software products earns about 40 billion dollars a year - five times more than Russia from selling its most high-tech products - weapons (in 2009, the Russian Federation through Rosoboronexport "sold military products worth 7,4 billion dollars). The Russian Ministry of Defense, no longer embarrassed, says that the domestic defense-industrial complex is not able to independently produce separate samples of military equipment and components for them, and therefore it intends to expand the volume of purchases abroad. This, in particular, is about buying ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, armor and a number of other materials.
Against the background of military and post-war indicators, these results of the reforms and the statement that the Soviet economy was ineffective look very peculiar. It seems that such an assessment is somewhat incorrect. It was not the economic model as a whole that turned out to be ineffective, but the forms and methods of its modernization and renewal at a new historical stage. Maybe it is worth recognizing and referring to the successful experience of our recent past, where there was a place for innovation, organizational creativity and a high level of labor productivity. In August last year, it was reported that a number of Russian companies in search of "new" ways to stimulate labor productivity began to look for opportunities to revive socialist competition. Well, perhaps, this is the first swallow, and in the “well forgotten old” we will find a lot of new and useful things. And the market economy is not a hindrance at all.
Vadim BONDAR
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