R. W. Davies

The Social Context

As far as we can discover, no attempt has been made since the 1920s either in Western or in Soviet literature to assemble and assess the basic data on the major social changes brought about by the revolution. As this knowledge is essential background information for the economic historian, we have hazarded in this chapter a preliminary assessment of the evidence. But for both of the authors this is an ‘auxiliary occupation’; we hope we may inspire others to do the job properly.

Crisis and progress in the Soviet economy, 1931-1933

List of Tables - Preface - The 1931 Plan - The Industrial Conference, January 30-February 4, 1931 - The Struggle for the Plan, January-June 1931 - Stalins Conditions for Industrial Development - Reforms and Plans, July-December 1931 - 1931 in Retrospect - The 1932 Plan - The XVII Party Conference, January 30-February 4, 1932 - Reforms amid Difficulties, January-June 1932 - Crisis and Repression, July-December 1932 - 1932 Results in Retrospect - The January Plenum and the 1933 Plan - From Disaster to Stability: The Political Context of 1933 - The Depths of Crisis, January-March 1933 - The Eve of the Upsurge, April-December 1933 - 1933 in Retrospect - Urban Society in Transition - Conclusions - Tables - Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations used in Text - Abbreviations of Titles of Books and Periodical Publications, etc, used in Footnotes - Bibliography - Name Index - Subject Index

Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932 – 33: A reply to Ellman

Abstract This Reply, while confirming that Stalins policies were ruthless and brutal, shows that there are no serious grounds for Ellmans view that Stalin pursued a conscious policy of starvation of the peasants during the famine. It also rejects Ellmans claim that in their recent book [Davies and Wheatcroft (the authors neglect Soviet policy and leadership perceptions in their account of the famine.

Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933

Most western and all Soviet studies of the Stalinist economy have ignored the role played by the stockpiling of grain in the agricultural crisis of the early 1930s. Thus in his major work on Stalinist agriculture published in 1949, Naum Jasny frankly admitted that data were insufficient to reach a conclusion, merely noting that “stocks from former years probably declined during 1932.” Baykov, Dobb, Volin and Nove said nothing about grain stocks. At the time, western commentators did pay some attention to the possibility that the stockpiling of grain exacerbated the famine. In autumn 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria, and in spring 1932 British diplomats reported that Karl Radek had told them that, owing to the threat of war in the far east, enough grain had been stored to supply the army for one year.

The Soviet military‐economic effort during the second five‐year plan (1933–1937)

In our paper we aim to show the changing economic significance of defence outlays in the period of the second five-year plan (1933-7).1 This period emerges as a time of transition. Rapid rearmament had been begun during the first five-year plan (1928-32), but from a very low base. In terms of the rising volume of activity, the following period was less hectic. However, it was a period of exceptionally rapid change in military technology and the technological level of defence industry products. It was followed by a third period (the third five-year plan of 1938-42, interrupted by war) in which the pace of rearmament was again exceptionally rapid and from a much higher initial base than before. Moreover the renewed acceleration of defence mobilisation began in 1936, when the second five-year plan was still under way. Central to our conventional picture of the Soviet economy in the second fiveyear plan are what Naum Jasny called the ‘three good years’ of 1934-6. These were years of good harvests, rapidly rising production, de-rationing of consumer markets, and rising wages and farm incomes. For the defence sector, in contrast, these emerge as years of struggle and tribulation.

Costs and Efficiency

At the beginning of 1926 an impasse had been reached in the struggle to reduce costs of production in industry. The successes achieved in the winter of 1924–1925, when wages were frozen and productivity rose rapidly, were partly eroded by the renewed rise in wages in the second half of 1925, and by the first unmistakable symptoms of inflation.1 Neither of the two immediate aims of cost reduction — to lower the prices of industrial products and to increase industrial profits — seemed any longer within reach. These developments could not be dismissed merely as temporary mishaps. The ending of the wage-freeze in the spring of 1925 showed that considerable firmness was required if any substantial gap between increases in productivity and increases in earnings was to be maintained. The economic difficulties of the summer and autumn of 1925 showed that the margin of resources available to the central authorities for expansion without inflation was quite small. Rising industrial costs created a financial crisis in such major units as Yugostal and Yuzhmash-trest in the spring of 1926.2 The difficulties were made more acute by longer-term influences which began to be effective at this time.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child

It is fifteen years since the United Nations first adopted and then ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Unicef have just published the first phase of a three year study of 62 countries to evaluate how far the civil, economic, political, social and cultural rights of children have been affected worldwide. The implementation of the Convention is a vast and complex process taking place across the world and is still in its very early stages, but there is already evidence of a unique degree of activity and interest in this area of human rights and the conclusions of the Unicef report so far suggest that there have been many rapid and widespread changes as a result. The study reviews progress to date and among other developments, highlights advances in family law, child health and education and the protection of children from violence, sexual exploitation and abuse.

The Politburo and Economic Policy-making

The modus operandi of the Politburo used to be shrouded in controversy and speculation, but it has been understood much more clearly since the opening of the archives in the early 1990s. Of course, long before this, most historians were agreed about major features of the central power structure — in particular that in the late 1920s and 1930s its control increased inexorably. Agriculture provides an obvious example. Between 1929 and 1932, the agricultural co-operatives were abolished, the administration of agriculture was centralised, and the Machine-Tractor Stations and collective farms were transferred from being semi-cooperative bodies to direct management by the state.1

The Soviet Famine of 1932–33 and the Crisis in Agriculture

Many historians have concluded that the central reason for the Soviet famine of 1932–33 was not the amount of grain available in these years but the distribution of grain. On this basis it is argued that this was an ‘organised famine’ in which Stalin deliberately withheld available grain from the population of Ukraine and elsewhere. An extreme position is taken by Robert Conquest, who argues that ‘the famine of 1933 was deliberately carried out by terror’ and that this was demonstrated by ‘the figures on the millions of tons of available grain reserves’.1

Defence spending and defence industry in the 1930s

In this chapter we aim to show the changing economic significance of defence outlays in the 1930s. This was a decade of rapid rearmament, but its pace and character were highly variable. Phases of rapid progress for the defence sector were interrupted by episodes of difficulty and setback. These phases were not at all synchronised with overall developments in the economy.