Despite the terrible losses, the economic system of the USSR was able to ensure the Victory
The direct damage caused by the Great Patriotic War to the economy of the USSR was equal to almost a third of the country's total national wealth, nevertheless, the national economy survived. And not only survived. In the pre-war and especially in the war years, decisive economic decisions were made, innovative (in many ways unprecedented) approaches to the implementation of the set goals and pressing production tasks were developed and implemented. It was they who formed the basis of the post-war economic and innovative breakthrough.
From the moment of its foundation, the Soviet Union strove in every possible way to become a self-sufficient, economically independent country. Only this approach, on the one hand, promoted the state's independent foreign and domestic policy and allowed negotiations with any partners and on any issues on an equal footing, and on the other hand, strengthened the defense capability, increased the material and cultural level of the population. Industrialization played a decisive role in achieving these goals. It was on her that the main efforts were directed, forces and resources were spent. At the same time, significant results have been achieved. So, if in 1928 the production of means of production (industry of group "A") in the USSR accounted for 39.5% of the gross output of all industry, then in 1940 this figure reached 61.2%.
Did everything we could
From 1925 to 1938, a number of advanced sectors of the economy were created, producing technically complex products (including those of defense significance). The old enterprises were further developed (reconstructed and expanded). Their worn-out and outdated material and technical base of production was changing. At the same time, not just in place of some machines, others were installed. They tried to introduce everything that was the most modern and innovative at that time (conveyors, production lines with a minimum number of manual operations), and increased the power supply of production facilities. For example, at the Stalingrad plant "Barricades", for the first time in the USSR, a conveyor system and the world's first automatic line of modular machine tools and semiautomatic devices were launched.
With the aim 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 level) were involved in organizing and establishing production at a new location. At some civilian enterprises, reserve capacities were created for the production of military products. In the pre-war years, these specialized areas and workshops were used to perfect the technology and master the production of military products.
During the years of the first five-year plans, and especially the pre-war period, the giant mineral deposits that the country had at their disposal were explored and began to be industrially developed. At the same time, resources were not only widely used in production, but also accumulated.
Thanks to the use of the planned management system, it was possible, firstly, the most optimal in terms of various costs, and secondly, the most profitable from the point of view of achieving results is not only to locate significant production facilities, but also to create entire industrial areas. In 1938-1940.in the USSR State Planning Committee, reviews were drawn up on the implementation of plans for economic regions, on the elimination of irrational and excessively long-distance transportations, regional balances were developed and analyzed (fuel and energy, material, production capacity, transport), plans were drawn up for the cooperation of supplies in a territorial context, large regional -complex schemes.
Setting itself the task of turning the country into an advanced, industrially developed power, the leadership of the state at an accelerated pace carried out 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 of a modern system of social infrastructure (education, training, healthcare, radio equipment, telephony, 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, in comparison with 1913, the gross industrial output increased 12 times, electricity production - 24 times, oil production - 3 times, pig iron production - 3, 5 times, steel - 4, 3 times, production of all types of machine tools - 35 times, including metal cutting - 32 times.
The car park of the country by June 1941 had grown to 1 million 100 thousand cars.
In 1940, collective and state farms supplied the state with 36.4 million tons of grain, 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 (Ural, Siberia, Far East) and in Kazakhstan has significantly expanded.
The defense industry grew rapidly. The growth rate of military production in the years of the second five-year plan was 286%, compared with 120% growth in industrial production as a whole. Average annual growth rate of the defense industry for 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 turned into a country capable of producing any type of industrial product available to mankind at that time.
Eastern industrial area
The creation of the eastern industrial region was driven by several objectives.
First, manufacturing and high-tech industries tried to bring them as close as possible to the sources of raw materials and energy. Secondly, due to the integrated development of new geographic regions of the country, centers of industrial development and bases for further movement to the east were formed. Thirdly, backup enterprises were built here, and a potential was formed for the possible placement of evacuated facilities from the territory that could become a theater of military operations or be occupied by enemy troops. At the same time, the maximum removal of economic objects outside the range of the potential enemy's bomber aviation was taken into account.
In the third five-year plan, 97 enterprises were built in the eastern regions of the USSR, including 38 machine-building enterprises. In 1938-1941. Eastern Siberia received 3.5% of allied capital investments, Western Siberia - 4%, the Far East - 7.6%. The Urals and Western Siberia ranked first in the USSR in the production of aluminum, magnesium, copper, nickel, zinc; Far East, Eastern Siberia - for the production of rare metals.
In 1936, the Ural-Kuznetsk complex alone produced about 1/3 of pig iron smelting, steel and rolled products production, 1/4 of iron ore mining, almost 1/3 of coal mining and about 10% of machine building 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 turned into the most powerful in the country.
In addition to the two railway exits from the Center to the Urals and Siberia, shorter lines were laid through Kazan - Sverdlovsk and through Orenburg - Orsk. A new exit from the Urals to the Trans-Siberian Railway was built: from Sverdlovsk to Kurgan and to Kazakhstan through Troitsk and Orsk.
The placement of backup enterprises in the east of the country in the third five-year plan, putting some of them into operation, creating construction reserves for others, as well as the formation of an energy, raw material, communication and socially developed base allowed 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 regions (only in the Saratov and Stalingrad regions there were more than a thousand industrial enterprises), on the eve of the war, the Central, Northwestern and Southwestern industrial regions remained the basis of the country's industry and agricultural production. For example, the districts of the Center with a population of 26.4% in the USSR (1939) produced 38.3% of the gross output of the Union.
It was them that the country lost at the beginning of the war.
As a result of the occupation of the USSR (1941-1944), the territory where 45% of the population lived was lost, 63% of coal was mined, 68% of pig iron, 50% of steel and 60% of aluminum, 38% of grain, 84% of sugar, etc. etc.
As a result of hostilities and occupation, 1,710 cities and townships (60% of their total number), over 70 thousand villages and villages, about 32 thousand industrial enterprises were completely or partially destroyed (the invaders destroyed production facilities for smelting 60% of the pre-war volume of steel, 70% of coal production, 40% of oil and gas production, etc.), 65 thousand kilometers of railways, 25 million people lost their homes.
The aggressors inflicted colossal damage on the agriculture of the Soviet Union. 100 thousand collective and state farms were ruined, 7 million horses, 17 million heads of cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million heads of sheep and goats were slaughtered or stolen to Germany.
No economy in the world could withstand such losses. How did our country manage not only to withstand and win, but also to create the preconditions for subsequent unprecedented economic growth?
During the war
The war began not according to the scenario and not at the time expected by the Soviet military and civilian leadership. Economic mobilization and the transfer of the country's economic life to a war footing were carried out under the blows of the enemy. In the conditions of the negative development of the operational situation, it was necessary to evacuate a huge amount of equipment, equipment and people, unprecedented in history, to the eastern regions of the country and the Central Asian republics. The Ural industrial region alone received about 700 large industrial enterprises.
The USSR State Planning Committee played a huge role both in the successful evacuation and the speedy establishment of production, minimization of labor and resource costs for its production, and cost reduction, as well as in the active restoration process that began in 1943.
To begin with, factories and factories were not taken out into an open field, equipment was not dumped into ravines, and people did not rush to their fate.
Industrial accounting was carried out during the war in the form of urgent censuses based on operational programs. For 1941-1945. 105 urgent censuses were carried out with the results provided to the government. Thus, the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR State Planning Committee conducted a census of industrial enterprises and buildings intended for the placement of evacuated factories, institutions and organizations. In the eastern regions of the country, the location of existing enterprises in relation to railway stations, water jetties, highways, the number of access roads, the distance to the nearest power plant, the capacity of enterprises for the production of basic products, bottlenecks, the number of employees, and the volume of gross output were specified. A comparatively detailed description was given to each building and the possibilities for the use of production areas. Based on these data, recommendations, instructions, orders and allocations were given for the people's commissariats, individual objects, local leadership, responsible persons were appointed, and all this was strictly controlled.
In the restoration process, a truly innovative, integrated approach was applied, which had not been used before in any country in the world. The State Planning Commission switched to the development of quarterly and especially monthly plans, taking into account the rapidly changing situation at the fronts. At the same time, the restoration began literally behind the back of the active army. It took place right up to the front-line areas, which not only contributed to the accelerated revival of the country's economy and national economy, 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 fail to yield results. 1943 was a turning point in the field of economic development. This is eloquently evidenced by the data in Table 1.
As can be seen from the table, the revenues of the state budget of the country, despite the colossal losses, in 1943 exceeded the revenues of one of the most successful in the Soviet pre-war history of 1940.
The restoration of enterprises was carried out at a pace that foreigners do not cease to amaze with until now.
A typical example is the Dneprovsky metallurgical plant (Dneprodzerzhinsk). In August 1941, the workers of the plant 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 rolled on December 12, 1943! By the end of 1944, two blast furnaces and five open-hearth furnaces, three rolling mills were already operating at the plant.
Despite the incredible difficulties, during the war, Soviet specialists achieved significant success in the field of import substitution, technical solutions, discoveries and innovative approaches to labor organization.
So, for example, the production of many previously imported medicines was established. A new method for the production of high-octane aviation gasoline has been developed. A powerful turbine unit for the production of liquid oxygen has been created. New atomic machine tools have been improved and invented, new alloys and polymers have been obtained.
During the restoration of Azovstal, for the first time in world practice, the blast furnace was moved into place without dismantling.
Design solutions for the restoration of destroyed cities and enterprises using lightweight structures and local materials were proposed by the Academy of Architecture. It is simply impossible to list everything.
Science was not forgotten either. In the most difficult year of 1942, the expenses of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for state budget allocations amounted to 85 million rubles. In 1943, academic doctoral and postgraduate studies grew to 997 people (418 doctoral students and 579 graduate students).
Scientists and designers came to the workshops.
Vyacheslav Paramonov in his work "Dynamics of the RSFSR industry in 1941-1945", in particular, writes: "In June 1941, teams of machine tool builders were sent to enterprises of other departments to help transfer the machine tool 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 the hulls of the KV tank. The designers found an original solution to such a problem as the productive processing of especially heavy tank parts. At the factories of the aviation industry, design teams were created, attached to those workshops, to which the drawings developed by them were transferred. As a result, it became possible to conduct constant technical consultations, revise and simplify the production process, and reduce technological routes for the movement of parts. Special scientific institutes and design departments were created in Tankograd (Ural)…. High-speed design methods were mastered: a designer, a technologist, a toolmaker did not work sequentially, as it was done before, but all together, in parallel. The work of the designer ended only with the completion of the preparation of production, which made it possible to master the types of military products within one to three months instead of a year or more in the pre-war time."
Finance and trade
The monetary system demonstrated its viability during the war years. Comprehensive approaches were used here. So, for example, long-term construction was provided, as they say now, "long money". Loans were provided to the evacuated and rebuilding enterprises on preferential terms. The economic facilities damaged during the war were provided with deferrals for pre-war loans. Military costs were covered in part by emissions. With timely funding and strict control over the performing discipline, commodity-money circulation practically did not fail.
Throughout the war, the state managed to maintain firm prices for essential goods, as well as low utility rates. At the same time, wages were not frozen, but increased. In just a year and a half (April 1942 - October 1943), its growth was 27%. When calculating money, a differentiated approach was applied. For example, in May 1945, the average salary of metalworkers in the tank industry was 25% higher than the average for this profession. The gap between the industries with the maximum and minimum wages increased threefold at the end of the war, while in the pre-war years it was 85%. The system of bonuses was actively used, especially for rationalization and high labor productivity (victory in socialist competition). All this contributed to an increase in the material interest of people in the results of their labor. Despite the rationing system, which operated in all the belligerent countries, money circulation played an important stimulating role in the USSR. There were 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 has no precedent in world wars.
Among other things, in order to improve food supply for residents of cities and industrial regions, by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of November 4, 1942, enterprises and institutions were allocated land for allotting workers and employees with plots for individual gardening. The plots were fixed for 5-7 years, and the administration was forbidden to redistribute them during this period. The income received from these plots was not subject to agricultural tax. In 1944, individual plots (a total of 1 million 600 thousand hectares) had 16, 5 million people.
Another interesting economic indicator of the times of the war is foreign trade.
At the time of the hardest battles and the absence of the main industrial and agricultural regions at the disposal of our country, our country was able not only to actively trade with foreign countries, but also to enter a surplus foreign trade balance in 1945, while surpassing the pre-war indicators (Table 2).
The most significant foreign trade ties during the war between 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 had especially large and decisive foreign economic relations with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition throughout the war.
In this regard, it should be said separately about the so-called Lend-Lease (the system of transferring the United States to its allies on loan or lease of equipment, ammunition, strategic raw materials, food, various goods and services, which was in effect during the war). Great Britain also carried out deliveries to the USSR. However, these relations were by no means a disinterested allied basis. In the form of a reverse Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union sent to the United States 300 thousand tons of chrome ore, 32 thousand tons of manganese ore, a large amount of platinum, gold, timber. In the UK - silver, apatite concentrate, potassium chloride, lumber, flax, cotton, furs and much more. This is how US Secretary of Commerce J. Jones assesses these relationships: "With supplies from the USSR, we not only returned our money, but also made a profit, which was far from a frequent case in trade relations regulated by our state." American historian J. Herring expressed himself even more specifically: “Lend-Lease was not … the most disinterested act of human history. … It was an act of calculating selfishness, and Americans have always had a clear idea of the benefits they could derive from it."
Postwar rise
According to the American economist Walt Whitman Rostow, the period in the history of Soviet society from 1929 to 1950 can be defined as the stage of reaching technological maturity, the movement to a state when it “successfully and fully” applied a new technology for this time to the main part of its resources.
Indeed, after the war, the Soviet Union developed at an unprecedented pace for a devastated and drained country. Many organizational, technological and innovative projects made during the Second World War have found their further development.
For example, the war largely contributed to the accelerated development of new processing facilities on 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 was developed in the form of academic towns and Siberian scientific centers.
At the final stage of the war and in the post-war period, the Soviet Union for the first time in the world began to implement long-term programs of scientific and technological development, which provided for the concentration of national forces and means in the most promising areas. The long-term plan of fundamental scientific research and development, approved in the early 1950s by the country's leadership, looked decades ahead in a number of its directions, setting goals for Soviet science that seemed simply fantastic at that time. Largely thanks to these plans, already in the 1960s, the project of the Spiral reusable aerospace system began to be developed. And on November 15, 1988, the spaceship-plane "Buran" made its first and, unfortunately, the only flight. The flight took place without a crew, in fully automatic mode using an on-board computer and on-board software. The United States was able to make such a flight only in April this year. As they say, less than 22 years have passed.
According to the UN, by the end of the 1950s, the USSR was already ahead of Italy in terms of labor productivity and was reaching the level of Great Britain. During that period, the Soviet Union developed at the fastest pace in the world, surpassing even the growth dynamics of modern China. Its annual growth rate at the time was at the level of 9-10%, exceeding the growth rate of the United States by five times.
In 1946, the industry of the USSR reached the pre-war level (1940), in 1948 it surpassed it by 18%, and in 1950 - by 73%.
Unclaimed experience
At the present stage, according to the RAS estimates, 82% of the value of Russian GDP is natural rent, 12% is depreciation of industrial enterprises created in the Soviet era, and only 6% is directly productive labor. Consequently, 94% of domestic income comes from natural resources and the consumption of past heritage.
At the same time, according to some sources, India, with its staggering poverty on computer software products, earns about $ 40 billion a year - five times more than Russia from the sale of its most high-tech products - arms (in 2009, the Russian Federation through " Rosoboronexport "sold military products worth $ 7.4 billion). The Russian Ministry of Defense, already, without hesitation, says that the domestic defense-industrial complex is not able to independently produce individual samples of military equipment and components for them, in connection with which it intends to expand the volume of purchases abroad. We are talking, in particular, about the purchase of ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, armor and a number of other materials.
Against the background of military and post-war indicators, these results of reforms and statements 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. Perhaps it is worth recognizing this, and referring to the successful experience of our recent past, where there was a place for both innovations and organizational creativity and a high level of labor productivity. In August last year, information appeared 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 sign, and in the "well-forgotten old" we will find a lot of new and useful things. And the market economy is not a hindrance to this at all.
