Industrialization and Collectivization of the Soviet Economy
The Soviet Union adopted a Five Year Plan in 1927 for developing industry. The main focus of the first Five Year Plan was not the production of arms, but rather the creation of an industrial base which was later used to produce armaments. The military emphasis was not so noticeable in these first five years. The Red Army had 79 foreign-made tanks at the beginning of the first Plan; at the end of the first Plan it had 4,538 tanks.
The second Five Year Plan that began in 1932 in the Soviet Union was a continuation of the development of the industrial base. This meant the creation and purchase of furnaces, giant electricity plants, coal mines, factories, and machinery and equipment. In the early 1930s, American engineers traveled to the Soviet Union and built the largest and most powerful enterprise in the entire world—Uralvagonzavod (the Ural Railroad Car Factory). Uralvagonzavod was built in such a manner that it could at any moment switch from producing railroad cars to producing tanks. In 1941, an order was issued to produce tanks, and Uralvagonzavod without any delays began the mass production of tanks. 35,000 T-34 tanks and other weapons where produced in this factory during World War II.
The third Five Year Plan that began in 1937 had as its goal the production of military weapons of very high quality in enormous quantities. The Soviet Union under Stalin was highly successful in achieving its goals, and produced superior military weapons on a grandiose scale. For example, the Chelyabinsk tractor factory was completed in the Urals, and similar to Uralvagonzavod this factory was built in such a way that it could begin producing tanks at any time. The Chelyabinsk tractor factory was called Tankograd during the course of the war. It built not only the medium T-34 tanks, but also the heavy IS and KV tank classes.
A third gigantic factory, Uralmash, was built not far away in Sverdlovsk. This factory is among the top 10 engineering factories in the world. The Soviet net of steel-casting factories was greatly expanded in order to supply these three giant factories in the Urals. Magnitogorsk, a city of metallurgists, was built in addition to a huge plant the main output of which was steel armor. In Stalingrad, a tractor factory was also built that in reality was primarily for producing tanks. Automobile, motor, aviation, and artillery factories were also erected at the same time.
Luke Williams
The most powerful aviation factory in the world was built in the Russian Far East. The city Komsomolsk-na-Amure was built in order to service this factory. Both the factory and the city were built according to American designs and furnished with the most modern American equipment. The American engineers sent to Komsomolsk to install the equipment were astounded by the scope of the construction.
>The Industry of Socialism showing the growth and progress of factories during the 1930s, highlighting the success of the five-year plan.
Parker Scott
One secret of Soviet success in building its military was the use of terror to control the Soviet population. Communists shut down the borders of the Soviet Union, making it impossible to leave the country. Secret police also unleashed a fight against “saboteurs.” Any accident, breakage, or lack of success in a production line was declared to be the result of an evil plot. The guilty and innocent alike were sentenced to long prison terms. Those who were named “malevolent saboteurs” were executed.
The terror improved worker discipline and eliminated any need to fear strikes and demands for higher wages on the part of workers. Also, the terror caused millions of people to be sent to concentration camps. Concentration camp inmates constituted a slave labor force that could be sent anywhere in the country without having to be paid. The development of the remote regions of Siberia and the Far East would have been impossible without the millions of inmates deported to work in these regions.
James Rogers
>Genrikh Yagoda,” the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU’s deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin’s collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system.
The lives of the people in the Soviet Union were not improved with the Soviet industrialization. Basic necessities such as pots and pans, rubber boots, plates, furniture, cheap clothing, nails, home appliances, matches and other goods all became scarce. People had to wait in long lines outside the stores to obtain these items. Stalin let his people’s standard of living drop extremely low to focus practically all of the Soviet Union’s industrial production on military expansion
John Edwards
Not an argument
Lincoln Cooper
Forgot sources >uvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008
>Chuev, Felix, Molotov: Master of Half a Domain, Moscow: Olma-Press, 2002
Connor Wright
Nikolai Ivanov has written some good stuff about anti-national operations of NKVD in 1937-38 but I don't know it's ever been translated.
Jaxson Harris
Many years later, when Molotov was asked how many people were transferred during collectivization, Molotov answered:
>Stalin said that we relocated ten million. In reality, we relocated twenty million
Jaxson Barnes
Not an argument. Stalin isn't every communist
Ayden Garcia
Sweetie, is not about arguments or whether communism is actually good or bad. Its just history... Similar cases did happen in every communist country though
Jose Gonzalez
Absolutely based. If you ever played any strategic game that's what you'd do.
Lincoln Lewis
>whether communism is actually good or bad
These are politically charged posts designed to suppress dissent against the dominant power structure.
Easton Martinez
I'm really curious. Would the Soviets be able to beat Nazi Germany without these factories?
Juan Long
>I'm really curious. Would the Soviets be able to beat Nazi Germany without these factories? No.
>inb4 "well shit snownigger where's your evidence?"
Is that hitler's voice? Is not similar to the one in those speeches he gave, I guess is the age
Nathaniel Jones
"Biggest in the world"
Shows some of the problems with centralized planning in a culture that fetishises industry. Ghana had some similar "biggest in the world projects."
Now, sometimes government serves a role in building shit that otherwise wouldn't get built but are useful. However, if you're too centralized you end up with ego projects.
The USSR might have had more people, more resources, and bigger factories than free market economies like the US, but even with terror and existential threats the US out produced them man for man by a staggering margin. Same for the Germans and UK, and the Nazi economy was run retardedly too.
Bentley Sanchez
Bc it's conversational
Jaxon Thomas
>Nazi economy was run retardedly too.
Josiah Gray
would there have been a nazi germany without these factories?
Michael Jackson
I'll answer. Half the time it wa semi-competent proto-Keynesian controlled market from Schacht and other time it was a war economy which was Goering's initiative. Not a very healthy mix.
Hunter Gomez
There would be no WWII without Stalin's USSR.
Bentley Watson
>proto-Keynesian controlled market from Schacht and other time it was a war economy which was Goering's initiative. >Proto >Speeres program 42-44
Chase Ramirez
British were seriously considering peace hat Hitler offered several times, yet, they wanted USA so bad in the war. So yeah. >not a very healthy mix Because they where at war?
Henry Wilson
>British were seriously considering peace At what point? I always thought that the British just had to fight Germans whether they liked it or not to protect their colonial interests in Asia.
>Because they where at war? Extensive military spending began earlier.
Owen Watson
Shortages of refined flour before the war started. Wide spread shortages of animal fats. They basically did the entire import substitution thing that fucked commie regimes up in Latin America all before the war started because of "much autarky."
They basically took all the wrong lessons from WWI, thinking they had to be more centralized and more autarkic. The result was that the economy was highly leveraged and ready to snap and needed them to declare war. If they had waited for Stalin to attack first:
1. Maybe he doesn't 2. If he does you likely get access to world markets and US goods which is a gigantic advantage
Also, workers' wages plunged in value and a lot of the forced labor schemes were hugely corrupt and built retarded projects no one wanted or needed. Forced farm labor was the most retarded.
The myth of the efficient Nazi economy has been totally debunked in numerous works. Their superior military doctrine in combination with the French blowing it and Stalin leaving the USSR totally unprepared for war, along with massive intelligence faliures early in the invasion of France and Russia is what helped the myth grow. In reality they faced heavy losses against a Poland that was being stabbed in the back and if they had been forced to take Poland and Czechoslovakia by force alone we'd probably all laugh about how Germany went crazy and got fucked up trying to bully their neighbors. It's be like the Winter War.
Jace Ramirez
Myth? How exactly you debunk the historical fact that Germany's economy recovered from the inflation crisis and surpassed most European levels in 4-5 years? By saying it just never happened, or stating that it was a bubble?
Liam King
Yugoslavia and some eastern block countries also had their "miracles" which all had the same results. Economic crisis caused by a large debt. Economy of the III Reich wasn't supposed to last long.
Jace Peterson
The inflationary crisis and the Depression were two different events separated by years. Most people conflate them.
Germany did recover better because it's policies were better than France and the UK (it was not growing faster than the USSR nor did it ever have a larger economy but the Soviets we're larger and had more catch up growth to take advantage of).
The problems came when it never backed off huge state intervention and rapid military build up. It was a bubble. It couldn't have kept on if there wasn't a war. Even capturing all that territory it still sputtered and didn't increase production at near the rate of the UK or US.
Basically, it was never primed for sustainable peace time growth. Once other economies switched to war economies the blew Germany out in efficiency.
Their political system was all fucked up to. Declare war on the USA? They have the economy of all the great powers' combined and a fuck ton of people. Why would you ever do that?
Caleb Nguyen
It was a growth based on government expenditure into capital goods and military expenditure at the expense of consumption, much like the Soviet Union's. The results are illustrated pretty well in War and Economy in the Third Reich, by Richard Overy, pg 263-264: By 1938, investment in consumer industries failed to reach the levels of 1938, while investment in producer goods grew by 172%. The economy was heavily geared to military production, based on large amounts of debt: in 1938, there was 41 billion RM of long term debt and 16 million of short term (mostly Mefo bills), totaling 57 billion and 54% of GDP, compared to the US with a debt of 37 billion USD or 44% of GDP. Adam Tooze in the Wages of Destruction estimates that military spending accounted for nearly 3/4 of growth from 1935. This meant earnings and consumption suffered greatly. Real earnings, after taking account for taxes and party levies, did not recover to the levels of the late 1920s, although real GDP per head grew 31% (one reason why looking at GDP growth as a measure of the standard of living is greatly misleading). Wages were kept tight: they were only 9% above the 1913 level, compared to 53% in the United States, 33% per cent in Britain, and 28% per cent in France. Average per capita incomes in 1939 were 75% of Britain and 46% that of America. Germans spent half of their income on food, while Americans spent 21% and Britons 30%. Private consumption as a share of GDP dropped dramatically from 71% in 1928 to 59% a decade later, a very remarkable drop that signals the nature of the growth. 68% of the industrial workforce was employed in the producer goods sector and earned 3/4 of all industrial incomes. Consumption stagnated: Germans ate more coarse foods like rye bread and potatoes compared to the Weimar Republic, and per capita consumption of meat was 75% of Britain. Children's heights stopped their trend of rising in the 1930s, and vehicles per 1000 people was low compared to others.
Levi Hall
Simply wholesome.
Julian Morris
>zuljan.info/articles/0302wwiigdp.html I think that article overstates Britain's hopelessness in the early stages of the war. If only Britain alone is counted then she did have a more unfavorable position, but in Harrison's book her empire is shown to have a GDP in 1938 of 284.5 billion (no figures for the war) so even in 1941 she would have a combined GDP of 628.5 billion, probably higher, compared to a French+Italian+Austrian+German GDP of 688 billion, or a ratio of 0.91.
Blake Perez
>Their superior military doctrine This has also been debunked numerous times.
Ayden Ortiz
I'm sorry I can't shit post anymore seriously compare Germany 1940 to Germany 1930 or Germany 1925. Nazi's take power in 33 and it's an instant fucking miracle compared to Weimar. Were they a superpower? No, because unlike France, Britain, the USSR, or the USA they didn't have: >vast swathes of land >as long to program the economy >immense pools of manpower to draw from >a cornucopia of raw resources in incredible amounts >a huge complex of alliances or vassals/clients to fall back on
Yes what Germany did was incredible. Also,USSR didn't declare war on Germany at the same time so the excuse the USSR did any heavy lifting at all is ridiculous and the USSR needed help conquering it considering they got blown the fuck out by Poland around 1920 by Pilsudski. Given the Polish military buildup in the same time span as Germany's, the Poles shouldn't have gotten blown out as quickly as they did. The food quality was completely bullshitted and didn't change until the midwar according to Speere's autobiography. The average money Germans earned is irrelevant if they're paying less. Also the Nazi's supported a culture of no debt, so spending less per capita was encouraged.
Aiden Robinson
>borrow a fuckton of money then invest it >pillage your neighbors to pay off the insane debt >"oh wow it's a instant fucking miracle!"
Hudson Long
>the Nazi's supported a culture of no debt While simultaniously getting the government into insane amounts of debt buying weapons
Ayden Jackson
If it works, yes. There was nothing wrong with what you said but you said it sarcastically. What's your point? That keynesian economics suck but work?
>While simultaniously getting the government into insane amounts of debt buying weapons Look at Japan. They have three times their GDP in debt. Debt is just a meme that exists in memespace.
Oliver Jenkins
>Nazi's take power in 33 and it's an instant fucking miracle compared to Weimar At no point did their regime surpass Weimar's growth rate in the winter of 1926/27 after their first severe recession. >vast swathes of land Neither did Britain or France. Colonies don't really count, we're talking about native economies and populations. >as long to program the economy They had 6 years beginning at the height of the depression. >a cornucopia of raw resources in incredible amounts They all imported large amounts of these resources, Germany could also if they weren't so fixated on autarky. >a huge complex of alliances or vassals/clients to fall back on Maybe France, Britain, and the USA had that but the USSR was very isolated. Germany was also building a network of their own in Europe. >The food quality was completely bullshitted There are studies comparing the average diet in Weimar vs the Third Reich. >according to Speere's autobiography wew >The average money Germans earned is irrelevant if they're paying less Which is why they're spending so much money on food? >Also the Nazi's supported a culture of no debt, so spending less per capita was encouraged While their debt skyrocketed. Sane Keynesianism doesn't lead to you spending 18% of your GDP on the military in 1938, a peacetime year, something even the Soviets didn't achieve until 1940.
Ryan Lewis
They're mostly in debt to their own citizens.
Jason Reyes
>Debt is just a meme
Haha, someone should probably tell greece
Michael Thompson
It's just a social construct.
Hunter Phillips
>At no point did their regime surpass Weimar's growth rate in the winter of 1926/27 after their first severe recession.
So what about that crippling debt? I'm sure that small detail didn't affect anything.
>Colonies don't really count
Alright I'm going to not even bother with you. If you're going to discount the amount of sheer market power that gives Britain and France in terms of number of accessible markets and resource supply, you're not someone who can reasonably be argued with.
>Sane Keynesianism doesn't lead to you spending 18% of your GDP on the military in 1938, a peacetime year
It does when one is surrounded by three massive superpowers with all the advantages I outlined above with a fourth allied to the other two. Geopolitics really isn't this hard user.
>Soviets didn't achieve until 1940.
The same country that recorded 2% GDP growth when it lost 28 million people and started ww2 with the largest tanking force in the world and a significant air force. Sure.
John Sanders
Look at this post here
Angel Jackson
Not wrong, that's why killing everyone who believes that you have debt makes it go away
Thomas King
Soon you'll run out of people to invade.
Camden Stewart
>So what about that crippling debt? I'm sure that small detail didn't affect anything. digizeitschriften.de/download/PPN514401303_1930/PPN514401303_1930___log74.pdf If you can read this, you can see here that the Weimar Republic's debt in 1929 was 20.6 billion Reichsmarks. In 1929 their GDP was 89.7 billion, so debt was 22% of their GDP. If that's crippling debt, then the Third Reich must have been on the verge of collapse. >Alright I'm going to not even bother with you. If you're going to discount the amount of sheer market power that gives Britain and France in terms of number of accessible markets and resource supply, you're not someone who can reasonably be argued with. For resource extraction maybe, for consumption not so much. >It does when one is surrounded by three massive superpowers with all the advantages I outlined above with a fourth allied to the other two. Geopolitics really isn't this hard user. Maybe if they were all hellbent on destroying Germany. That didn't seem to be the case though, in fact they let Germany build up their military, and then gave concessions to them in hope of avoiding war. >The same country that recorded 2% GDP growth when it lost 28 million people and started ww2 with the largest tanking force in the world and a significant air force. Sure. You can choose to believe what you want. Soviet military spending as a percentage of GDP was 17% in 1940.
Matthew Stewart
can't argue with results, from a feudal society with sub 10% literacy to nearly 100% literacy pre-ww2 and the largest military and highest gdp growth in europe.
central planning is a powerful tool in the comminist leaders book, and those that don't cooperate willingly can cooperate forcefully building/maintaining railroads in siberia.
Easton Miller
>Similar cases did happen in every communist country though Not even close. The only other Marxist-Leninist country that came close to the scale of Stalin's ruthlessness was Mao's China.
