scholarly journals Behind the Five-Year Plan: the Timber Processing Complex of the USSR in Annual Plans for 1935–1937

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177
Author(s):  
Ivan V. Zykin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Target Values ◽  
The Cost

Introduction. The timber processing complex became an important component of the project of “socialist industrialization” of the late 1920s – early 1940s in the Soviet Union. The first five-year plan was not implemented by the industry, despite a significant increase in indicators compared to the period of the “new economic policy”. The development of the forest industry in the second five-year plan should have become more balanced and not lose dynamism. During this period, the economic structure of the industry was relatively homogeneous. An analysis of the indicators of annual national economic plans in the context of the second five-year plan becomes relevant. Historiography of the period of “socialist industrialization” and, in particular, 1933–1937 consists mainly of studies of foreign and domestic scientists on the Soviet economy and works on the history of the forest industry of certain regions. Materials and Methods. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the concept of modernization. Based on the information of the second five-year plan and annual plans, series of data on the development of the timber processing complex of the Soviet Union were formed. Results. At the beginning of the second five-year plan, the industry experienced stagnation of production and financial indicators, failure to fulfill annual plans. Then, as capital investments increased, the construction of enterprises was completed, capacities were developed, new forms of socialist competition developed, the timber processing complex demonstrated a significant improvement in the results of activities. Labor productivity increased at a relatively high rate in the fields of machining and deep processing of wood, but slowly grew in the field of timber harvesting. Unsatisfactory tasks were performed to reduce the cost of production. Conclusions. The main volumes of work in the timber processing complex were carried out by the Narkomles (People’s Committee of Forest Industry) of the USSR. In 1935–1936 it became possible to approach the target values of the second five-year plan, which, however, was not fully implemented due to the beginning of mass repressions and the transfer of part of the enterprises to forced labor camps. Summing up the planned and actual results of the timber processing complex for 1933–1937 showed that the industry fulfilled the five-year plan by 80–90 %, and in some areas surpassed it.

scholarly journals Gross Output and Labour Productivity in the Timber Processing Complex of the USSR in 1927/1928–1937

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-316
Author(s):  
Ivan V. Zykin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
Labour Productivity Growth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Regional Forest ◽  
The Cost

Introduction. The forest industry played an important role in the economy of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union and took a significant place in the project of “socialist industrialization” of the late 1920s – early 1940s. One of the key indicators of the functioning of the industry is the cost of gross products, including per worker. The historiography of this topic consists mainly of studies of foreign and domestic scientists on the Soviet economy and works on the history of the regional forest industry. The idea of the dynamics of the cost of gross output of the forest industry during the period of “socialist industrialization” is not formed, which actualizes the analysis of its functioning during the years of active development. The chronological framework of the study is 1927/1928–1937, the period of implementation of the first and second five-year plans. Materials and Methods. The theoretical and methodological basis is the concept of modernization. The peculiarities of statistical accounting of feasibility indicators in the forest industry, the application of “unchanged” prices 1926/1927 are justified. Results. The conclusion was made about the uneven dynamics of the cost of gross products (including per worker) among the components of the forest industry. At a faster pace, labour productivity increased in the forest chemical, furniture industries, the production of standard houses and building parts. The area of timber harvesting showed the slowest pace. According to the results of two five-year plans, the planned values of gross production and labour productivity in the timber industry were not achieved. Discussion and Conclusions. The first five-year plan outlined a significant increase in the cost of gross output of the forest industry and an increase in their share in the industry of the Soviet Union by this indicator. In the second five-year plan, the pace of development of the complex was assumed to be lower than in the country’s industry. With a significant overall increase in the cost of gross output in 1926–1934, labour productivity increased slowly. The use of data on the Ural Economic Region, one of the leading regional timber complexes in the country, demonstrated the preservation of low rates of labour productivity growth in 1935–1938.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS OF THE TIMBER PROCESSING COMPLEX OF THE URALS DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-126
Author(s):  
IVAN ZYKIN ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Industry Structure ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
The Urals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Fixed Assets ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Cost

During the Great Patriotic War, the forest industry of the Urals played an important role in the economy of the region and the Soviet Union. Based on the statistical data put into circulation by researcher A.A. Antoufiev, an analysis of the dynamics of the cost of production fixed assets and gross products in the forest industry of the Urals, including per worker, was undertaken. Due to the enemy’s seizure of part of the western territories of the country, thanks to the availability of forests available for operation, enterprises built and reconstructed in the years of the first five-year plans, equipment evacuation, and the fulfillment of defense orders, the share of this sector of the Urals in the production and value of the country’s forest industry increased. However, in the cost of gross products of the region, the share of the forest industry decreased due to the active development of engineering, metallurgy, and arms production. In the forest industry structure, the higher values of production funds and products per worker were in the pulp and paper and plywood industries, the lowest in the field of forest resources. Conclusions were made about an increase in the cost of funds in the Ural forest industry, a slight decrease in the cost of gross products, a lag in the actual labor productivity of workers from the indicators of industry in the region and the Soviet Union.

scholarly journals DEVELOPMENT OF THE SETTLEMENT NETWORK IN THE TIMBER INDUSTRY OF THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 1930s

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-14
Author(s):  
Ivan V. Zykin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
European Part ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
Timber Production ◽  
Timber Industry ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
Set Up

The period of "socialist industrialization" of the late 1920s - early 1940s in the Soviet Union was associated with active construction of a settlement network, including in the forest industry. Active development of resources in the northern and eastern regions and in the European part of the country and construction and reconstruction of enterprises gave rise to a large number of working villages, some of which were given the status of town. Extensive operations across forestry areas and crisis in the industry in the last decades of the 20th and early 21st century led to the shrinking of the settlement network, especially in the timber harvesting sector, and the cities and towns for which timber enterprises were or still are a mono-employer have slipped into depression. This calls for turning attention to the experience of locating, planning and building worker villages in the timber industry in the late 1920s and early 1940s. This study of the settlement network revealed that settlements were set up close to timber production sites, worker villages tended to grow into towns, and several attempts were made to construct "socialist cities". Settlements near medium and large timber enterprises and those lying close to transport routes formed the framework of the settlement network of the industry, while the number of timber-logging villages began to decline since the late 1930s.

Russian Protectionism: Problems of Institutional Heritage

2012 ◽  
pp. 96-114
Author(s):  
L. Tsedilin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
State Monopoly ◽  
The Times ◽  
Soviet Experience

The article analyzes the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet experience of the protectionist policies. Special attention is paid to the external economic policy during the times of NEP (New Economic Policy), socialist industrialization and the years of 1970-1980s. The results of the state monopoly on foreign trade and currency transactions in the Soviet Union are summarized; the economic integration in the frames of Comecon is assessed.

SPATIAL LAYOUT OF THE SOVIET UNION TIMBER PROCESSING COMPLEX: THE IDEA BEHIND THE FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLAN

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Ivan V. ZYKIN
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Far East ◽  
Spatial Layout ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Wood Industry ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Regions

During the years of Soviet power, principal changes took place in the country’s wood industry, including in spatial layout development. Having the large-scale crisis in the industry in the late 1980s — 2000s and the positive changes in its functioning in recent years and the development of an industry strategy, it becomes relevant to analyze the experience of planning the spatial layout of the wood industry during the period of Stalin’s modernization, particularly during the first five-year plan. The aim of the article is to analyze the reason behind spatial layout of the Soviet wood industry during the implementation of the first five-year plan. The study is based on the modernization concept. In our research we conducted mapping of the wood industry by region as well as of planned construction of the industry facilities. It was revealed that the discussion and development of an industrialization project by the Soviet Union party-state and planning agencies in the second half of the 1920s led to increased attention to the wood industry. The sector, which enterprises were concentrated mainly in the north-west, west and central regions of the country, was set the task of increasing the volume of harvesting, export of wood and production to meet the domestic needs and the export needs of wood resources and materials. Due to weak level of development of the wood industry, the scale of these tasks required restructuring of the branch, its inclusion to the centralized economic system, the direction of large capital investments to the development of new forest areas and the construction of enterprises. It was concluded that according to the first five-year plan, the priority principles for the spatial development of the wood industry were the approach of production to forests and seaports, intrasectoral and intersectoral combining. The framework of the industry was meant to strengthen and expand by including forests to the economic turnover and building new enterprises in the European North and the Urals, where the main capital investments were sent, as well as in the Vyatka region, Transcaucasia, Siberia and the Far East.

Emancipation and Domesticity: Decoding Personal Manuscript Cookbooks from the Soviet Union

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Anastasia Lakhtikova
Keyword(s):  
Family History ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Ideology ◽  
The Cost

A product of their time and of the internalized Soviet ideology that to a great extent shaped women's gendered self-fashioning as women and mothers, Soviet manuscript cookbooks became popular among Soviet women in the late 1960s. Based on the semiotic reading of two personal manuscript cookbooks in the author's family, this article explores what these cookbooks, in combination with the author's family history, tell about how Soviet women used and reshaped the gender roles available to them in late Soviet everyday life. The author also asks questions about the cost of emancipation in a society that could not truly support such progress socially or economically.

scholarly journals Spatial Location and the State of Timber Industry Enterprises in the Soviet Union by the End of the First Five-Year Plan

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-515
Author(s):  
Ivan Zykin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Timber Industry ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
Industry Location ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Forested Areas ◽  
Wood Machining ◽  
First Time ◽  
Made In

In the period of New Economic Policy in the USSR industrialization issues became very topical. In timber industry complex, the solutions were related to the development of forested areas in Northeastern regions of the country as well as to the construction and reconstruction of enterprises. The article provides the first-time analysis of maps and forest industry location, based on the results of the First Five-Year Plan published in the atlas “The Industry in the USSR and the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan“ and statistical collection materials ”Social Construction of the USSR”. The analysis was made in order to define the situation in the industry, the main directions of production as well as the regional specificities. Using the example of wood machining sphere the author presents the analysis of enterprise groups according to different criteria. The research resulted in conclusions about highest intensity of enterprise reconstruction and construction in timber sawing, in furniture industry and intra-sectoral combination. In timber industry, the majority of enterprises were small and middle companies, which greatly contributed to its development. Regional specificities of timber industry location included concentration of main facilities in northwestern, western and central parts of the country, in the Volga region and in Ural. However only several regions had developed wood machining and deep processing spheres, such as Leningrad oblast, the Gorky Krai, Belarusian and the Ukrainian Soviet Republics.

scholarly journals THE SOVIET MODEL OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE OF THE FATE OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY: THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS

2019 ◽  
pp. 20-27
Author(s):  
V.V. Sukhonos
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Special Groups ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Soviet Model

The article is devoted to the constitutional and legal issues of local government organizations. The main attention is paid to the Soviet model of local government, which, in the period of the industrialization of the country, focused on the further strengthening of the Soviet state apparatus, the deployment of the so-called “Soviet democracy” and the fight against bureaucratic defects. However, such a situation as a whole was not typical of the Soviet system. That is why the Bolsheviks attempts to attract the poor sections of the rural population. However, success in this direction was caused not so much by the strengthening of the Soviet economy as a whole, but by the opportunity for the rural poor to plunder wealthy peasants, which had developed because of the dictatorship of the proletariat existing in the USSR. Subsequently, the Bolshevik Party raised the issue of organizing special groups of poverty or factions for an open political struggle to attract the middle peoples to the proletariat and to isolate wealthy peasants (the so-called “kulaks”) during the elections to the Soviets, cooperatives, etc. With the onset of socialist reconstruction, there was a need to organize poverty, because it was an important element and the establishment of “Soviet democracy in the countryside.” The Stalin Constitution of 1936 transformed the Soviets. From 1918, they were called the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies, and now, with the entry into force of the Stalin Constitution, the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. This transformation of the Soviets reflected the victory of the socialist system throughout the national economy, radical changes in the class composition of Soviet society, and a new triumph of “socialist democracy”. In addition, the “victory of socialism” in the USSR made possible the transition to universal, equal, and direct suffrage by secret ballot. On December 24 and 29, 1939, citizens of the Soviet Union elected their representatives to the local Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. 99.21 % of the total number of voters took part in the vote. The election results are another testament to the growing influence of the Bolshevik Party on the population of the Soviet Union, which has largely replaced the activities of the Soviets themselves, including the local ones. Holding elections to the regional, regional, district, district, city, village and settlement councils of workers’ deputies completed the restructuring of all state bodies in accordance with the Stalin Constitution and on its basis. With the adoption in 1977 of the last Constitution of the USSR, the councils of workers’ deputies were renamed the councils of people’s deputies. In 1985, the last non-alternative elections were held for 52,041 local councils, and in 1988, their structure became more complicated: there were presidencies organizing the work of regional, regional, autonomous regions, autonomous districts, district, city and rayon in the cities of Soviets. People’s Deputies. Within the framework of the city (city subordination), village, and town councils, this work is carried out directly by the heads of the designated Councils. On December 26, 1990, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR introduced regular amendments to the Constitution of the USSR, which formally abolished the Presidencies, but did not prohibit their existence. On September 5, 1991, the Constitution of 1977 was effectively abolished. Finally, it happened after December 26, 1991, when the USSR actually ceased to exist. Thus, existing in the USSR during the period of socialist reconstruction and subsequent transformations that began with the processes of industrialization and ended as a result of the collapse of the USSR, the model of local government organization remained ineffective due to its actual replacement by the activities of the governing bodies of the ruling Communist Party. Keywords: Local Government; the system of Councils; local Councils; Council of Deputies of the working people; Council of People’s Deputies; Soviet local government.

The Human Rights of Foreign Labor

Worldview ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-9
Author(s):  
Steven Charnovitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Labor ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Press ◽  
Developed World ◽  
New Criteria

Little noticed by the press. United States trade policy is undergoing significant changes aimed at promoting the rights of workers in foreign countries—changes achieved through the use of both a carrot and a stick. The carrot, now being offered to the less-developed world, is dutyfree access to the U.S. market for qualifying products exported by countries that meet certain new criteria on bbor. The stick is a ban on imports made by forced labor— something the Reagan administration is under increasing pressure to invoke against the Soviet Union. While it is too early to gauge the success of such attempts at exercising economic leverage, they may yet become a milestone in the march of human rights.

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