Stalin’s
industrialisation - evaluation: |
According to official figures production
in engineering, electrical power, tractors, iron, steel and
chemicals, coal and oil developed dramatically
However,
many of the figures were faked / inflated
Probably:
Coal production: rose from about
40 m. to about 132 m. tons.
Steel production : rose from about
4.9 m. to about 18 m. tons.
Oil production : rose from about
13.8 m. to about 32.2 m. tons.
Industrial production: the true
rate of growth was probably only about 3.5 percent per annum,
about the same as that of Germany over the same span of time.
* Initial enthusiasm
of workers tailed off when targets increased dramatically and
became completely unattainable.
* Gosplan made
no allowance for local conditions and often had no knowledge
of the industries it was dealing with (the planners were only
party officials)
* sometimes the
targets were irrational (not uniform within an industry)
* the first plan
was cut short by one year
* agricultural
production fell disastrously as peasants flocked to cities in
search of higher wages in industry (12.5 million new workers
were reported to have entered urban work, 8.5 million of them
from the countryside)
* these workers
were often poorly educated and were inexperienced at handling
machinery
* many engineers,
technical experts and skilled workers were arrested (eg Donbass
area half of engineers and skilled workers were arrested by
1931 in so called Skakhty Trial)
* the emphasis
was on quality rather than quantity (eg 1928-32 50,000 tractors
built, 50% broke down)
* there was insufficient
investment capital (most of this was supposed to come from increased
production)
* the Baltic–White
Sea Canal, supposedly completed in 1933, employed some 200,000–300,000
forced labourers but proved almost useless
* The characteristic
fault was “giantism”—the party's inclination
to build on the largest and most ostentatious scale. One result
was that there were continual organisational problems.
* maintenance
and infrastructure were neglected, with negative long-term results.
* there was a
40% drop in workers' buying power between 1927/28 and 1930/31,
while at the same time the cost of living went up by 150-200%.
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