Socialist industrialization entered the history of the country as a process of creating a modern industry in it and forming a technically equipped society. With the exception of the war years and the period of post-war reconstruction of the economy, it covers the period from the end of the twenties to the beginning of the sixties, but its main burden fell on the first five-year plans.
The need for industrial modernization
The purpose of industrialization was to overcome the backlog caused by the inability of the NEP to provide the necessary level of technical equipment for the national economy. If there was some progress in such areas as light industry, trade and the service sector, then it was not possible to develop heavy industry on the basis of private capital in those years. The reasons for industrialization included the need to create a military-industrial complex.
Plan of the first five-year plan
To solve the tasks set, under the leadership of Stalin, a five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1928-1932) was developed, adopted in April 1929 at a meetinganother party conference. The tasks assigned to workers in all industries, for the most part, exceeded the real capabilities of the performers. However, this document had the force of a wartime order and was non-negotiable.
According to the first five-year plan, it was supposed to increase industrial output by 185%, and in heavy engineering to achieve an increase in production by 225%. To ensure these indicators, it was planned to achieve an increase in labor productivity by 115%. The successful implementation of the plan, according to the developers, should have led to an increase in the average wage in the manufacturing sector by 70%, and an increase in the income of agricultural workers by 68%. In order to supply the state with food in sufficient quantities, the plan provided for the involvement of almost 20% of peasants in collective farms.
Industrial chaos generated by stormtroopers
Already in the course of implementing the plans, the construction time for most large industrial enterprises was significantly reduced, and the volume of supplies of agricultural products was increased. This was done without any technical justification. The calculation was mainly based on general enthusiasm, fueled by a large-scale propaganda campaign. One of the slogans of those years was the call to complete the five-year plan in four years.
Features of the industrialization of those years were forced industrial construction. It is known that with the reductionDuring the five-year period, plan targets almost doubled, and the annual increase in production reached 30 percent. Accordingly, collectivization plans were also increased. Such storming inevitably gave rise to chaos, in which some industries did not keep pace in their development with others, sometimes adjacent to them. This ruled out any possibility of a planned development of the economy.
The result of a five-year journey
During the period of the first five-year plan, the goal of industrialization was not fully achieved. In many branches of industry, the real indicators in many respects fell short of the planned volumes. This especially affected the extraction of energy resources, as well as the production of steel and iron. But, nevertheless, significant progress has been made in creating the military-industrial complex and all the infrastructure that accompanies it.
Second stage of industrialization
In 1934, the second five-year plan was adopted. The purpose of the industrialization of the country during this period was to restore the operation of enterprises built during the previous five years, as well as to eliminate the results of the chaos that arose in the industry due to the establishment of technically unreasonable high rates of development.
When drawing up the plan, the shortcomings of past years were largely taken into account. Financing of production was envisaged to a greater extent, and considerable attention was also paid to problems related to secondary technical and higher education. Their decision was necessary to provide the national economy with a sufficient number of qualifiedspecialists.
Propaganda campaigns during the five-year plans
Already in these years, the results of the country's industrialization were not slow to affect. In the cities, and partly in the countryside, the supply has noticeably improved. To a greater extent, the need of the population for consumer goods was satisfied. The scale of these successes was largely inflated by the large-scale propaganda campaign conducted in the country, which attributed all the merit exclusively to the Communist Party and its leader, Stalin.
Despite the fact that during the years of industrialization the widespread introduction of advanced technology was carried out, manual labor still prevailed in many areas of production, and where it was not possible to achieve an increase in labor productivity through technological means, propaganda methods were used. An example of this is the well-known Stakhanovite movement developed in those years. The race for record outputs led to the fact that individual drummers, for whose exploits the entire enterprise was preparing, received awards and bonuses, while the rest only increased the norms, while urging them to be equal to the leaders.
Results of the first five-year plans
In 1937, Stalin announced that the goal of industrialization had been basically achieved and socialism had been built. Numerous failures in production were due solely to the intrigues of the enemies of the people, against whom the most severe terror was established. When the second five-year plan ended a year later, evidence of an increase in production was cited as its most important results.cast iron by two and a half times, steel by three times, and cars by eight times.
If in the twenties the country was purely agrarian, then at the end of the second five-year plan it became industrial-agrarian. Between these two stages lie years of truly titanic labor of the entire people. In the post-war period, the USSR became a powerful industrial power. It is generally accepted that socialist industrialization was completed by the beginning of the sixties. At that time, most of the country's population lived in cities and was employed in industrial production.
During the years of industrialization, new industries have emerged, such as the automotive, aircraft, chemical and electrical industries. But the most important thing was that the state learned to independently produce everything necessary for its needs. If earlier equipment for the production of certain products was imported from abroad, now the need for it is provided by our own industry.
