Abstract
The introduction of the First Five Year Plan transformed the policymaking environment in the USSR. It sought to establish a comprehensive plan for the development of the economy, but focused primarily on heavy industry and agriculture. The modernisation of the railway system to meet the expanding needs of the economy and the defence requirements of the country occupied a vital but secondary role. The plan for the railways has to be seen against the background of the recovery staged in the mid-1920s. NKPS’s participation in the formulation and revision of the plan provides a case-study of the impact of institutional lobbies on policy formation within the context of the planned economy.1
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Notes
In this chapter, I have drawn heavily on K. Nagatsuna, ‘A Utopian-Ideologue in Soviet Industrialisation: S. A. Bessonov and Transport Reconstruction Debates, 1928–1930’, paper presented to the Soviet Industrialisation Project Seminar, CREES, University of Birmingham, 1987.
On Sulimov, see Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopaediya (M., 1976), vol. 25, pp. 62–3. The other collegium members were I. A. Grunin, Yu. V. Rudyi, L. P. Serebryakov, E. V. Polyudov, D. V. Poluyan, A. S. Andreichik, A. G. Ishchenko, V. I. Zof, M. E. Bystrov, I. N. Mironov, N. I. Popov and V. N. Chernyi.
J. N. Westwood, et al., ‘The Railways’, in R. W. Davies (ed.), From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy, p. 182. R. W. Davies, The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, pp. 50–1, ft. 10. Ibid., pp. 182, 185, 187; Davies, op.cit., p. 56.
J. N. Westwood, op.cit., p. 182.
See Kaganovich’s comments at the Central Committee plenum in February 1937, Voprosy Istorii, 1993, vol. 9, p. 13.
Ibid., p. 45.
M. Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, pp. 217, 221, 275, cites V. P. Timoshenko, Russia and the Wheat Problem, pp. 332–3, 421, 429.
Planovoe khozyaistvo (hereafter PKh), 1925, no. 5, pp. 78–87.
Stalin, Sochineniya, vii, p. 318.
PKh, 1927, no. 1, p. 94 (Mekk).
E. H. Carr and R. W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy I, pp. 904–7; Industrializatsiya, 1926–1928 (1969), p. 511.
Trans Gaz, 24 May 1928; Trans Gaz., 7 June 1928 (obituary).
ST, 1934, no. 13, p. 17 (Sidorov).
Sovetskaya istoricheskaya entsiklopaediya, (M., 1980), vol. 9, p. 298; Westwood (1982), p. 26.
PKh, 1927, no. 1, pp. 105–6.
Bol’shevik, 1927, no. 7–8, pp. 67–77 (Kalatov); no. 10–11, pp. 90–8 (Nikulkhin).
Ibid., pp. 17–18, 23–8.
ZhT (1970), pp. 39–45; Westwood (1982), pp. 28–9. Trans i khoz, 1930, no. 5, p. 134.
E. Zaleski, Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union, 1918–1932 (Chapel Hill, 1971), pp. 44–5.
Hunter, op.cit., pp. 47–8; Westwood (1982), p. 22.
PKh, 1929, no. 1, pp. 127, 140–1 (B-Kogan).
Tran i khoz, 1928, no. 2, pp. 18–25 (Chekhovskii).
Tran i khoz, 1928, no. 6, pp. 3–6.
On Bessonov’s career, see Nagatsuna, op.cit., p. 6. Trans i khoz, 1928, no. 8. p. 3.
PKh, 1928, no. 8, p. 44 (Strumilin).
PKh, 1928, no. 7, p. 66.
EZh, 2 March 1928; 4, 6 April 1928. PKh, 1928, no. 8, pp. 20–54; PKh, 1927, no. 4, pp. 43–66.
Bol’shevik, 1929, no. 8, pp. 41–50. On Bessonov’s advocacy of rational regionalisation, see PKh, 1928, no. 6, p. 78; Trans Gaz, 29 November 1928.
Ibid., p. 49. See also Trans i khoz, 1929, no. 8, pp. 26–37.
PKh, 1929, no. 1, pp. 127–48 (B-Kogan).
EZh, 1 May 1928; Kommunisticheskaya revolyutsiya, 1929, no. 7, pp. 20–7.
A. Erlich, The Soviet Industrialisation Debate, 1924–1928 (New York, 1960), pp. 26, 63–4, 70.
Nagatsuna, op.cit., p. 22.
Kommunisticheskaya revolutsiya, 1929, no. 10–11, pp. 40–9.
PKh, 1929, no. 8, pp. 235–42.
Nagatsuna, op.cit., p. 16.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 338–41.
Shestnadtsataya konferentsiya VKP(b), stenograficheskii otchet (M., 1962), pp. 481–2.
Ibid., pp. 40, 42. See also Hunter, op.cit., p. 46.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 309, 313–14.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., p. 67, ft. 196.
G. T. Grinko, The Five Year Plan of the Soviet Union (London, 1930), p. 205.
Trans Gaz, 1 June 1929; Iz, 2 June 1929; Westwood (1982), pp. 112, 115.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 332, 371, 374, 338–40.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 332, 371, 374, 338–40; R. W. Davies, The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, p. 379, fn. 8.
R. W. Davies et al., Soviet Government Officials, 1922–41: A Handlist (CREES, Birmingham University, 1989), p. 99. TPG, 21 September 1929. The commission membership as established in September was D. E. Sulimov (chairman), M. A. Chernov, P. S. Shushkov, G. I. Blagonravov, N. A. Uglanov, V. I. Mezhlauk, I. N. Mironov.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., p. 371.
Ibid., p. 90.
Hunter, op.cit., pp. 51–2; B. P. Orlov, Razvitie transporta SSSR, 1917–1962 (M., 1963), pp. 133–4; K. N. Tverskoi, Za Bol’shevistskie Tempy Sotsialisticheskoi rekonstruktsii transport (M-L, 1931), pp. 37–9.
Nagatsuna, op.cit., p. 25.
G. T. Grinko, The Five Year Plan of the Soviet Union (London, 1930), p. 190.
Trans i khoz, 1929, no. 10–11, pp. 12–20.
Trans i khoz, 1929, no. 12, pp. 12–42.
Trans Gaz, 28 December 1929. Trans i khoz, 1929, no. 12, p. 29.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 119, 382.
Trans i khoz, 1929, no. 8, p. 38 (Ruzdit). Trans Gaz, 7 March 1929.
See Bessonov article in Tran i khoz, 1929, no. 12, pp. 12–42. See also Tran i khoz, 1930, no. 5, pp. 11–15 (M. P. Belousov).
EZh, 31 May 1930; 1, 4, 7 June 1930; Pr. ek., 1930, no. 4–5, pp. 122–44.
Materialy zheleznodorozhnoi komissii, komanderovannyi v SShA, fevral’-mai 1930 g. (M., 1931) the report was edited by I. N. Mironov and K. B. Lauer, with a foreword from D. E. Sulimov. Trans i khoz, 1930, no. 1, pp. 5, Westwood (1982), pp. 76–7.
Ibid., pp. 214–28. E. H. Carr and R. W. Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy 1 (Harmondsworth, 1974), pp. 465–74.
E. Gardner, Clark, The Economics of Soviet Steel, p. 215. On Weber, see Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopaediya, vol. 4, p. 347.
Ibid., p. 215.
SZ, 1930, ii, 194–5. For Rukhimovich’s biography, see Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopaediya (M., 1975), vol. 22, p. 435. G, 12 June 1930. In July 1930 A. M. Postnikov was made deputy narkom of NKPS and A. M. Arnol’dov, P. B. Bilik, A. V. Sevryugin and V. V. Fomin were appointed to NKPS’s collegium — see SZ, 1930, art. 243, 272.
I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya (M., 1955), xii, pp. 337, 347–8.
XVI s”ezd VKP, stenograficheskii otchet (M., 1930), pp. 273–5.
Shestnadtsatayi S”ezd Vsesoyuznoi Kommunisticheskoe partii (b) (M., 1931), pp. 360–7, 322 (Ordzhonikidze). G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Sta’ti i rechi, pp. 200–5.
Ibid., pp. 381–3.
Ibid., pp. 273–5.
Bol’shevik, no. 14, 1930, pp. 47–63; no. 22, 1930, pp. 63–78; Pr. Ek., no. 7, 1930, pp. 75–92; see also Dokukin’s article in Trans Gaz, 25 July 1929. R. W. Davies, The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929–30, pp. 366–7.
Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi Akademii, 1930, xxxix, p. 90.
Bol’shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopaediya, vol. 24 (1932), column 779.
Pr. ek., 1930, no. 8–9, pp. 141–5.
R. W. Davies et al., Soviet Government Officials, 1922–51: A Handlist, pp. 104–5.
SZ, 1930, no. 52, art. 601; for the abolition of the previous one, see E. H. Carr, Foundations of a Planned Economy, vol. 2, p. 353, ft. 3.
E. Zaleski, op.cit., pp. 371, 374, 332.
H. Hunter, op.cit., p. 393.
Shestnadtsataya konferentsiya VKP(b), pp. 151–2. (Osinskii and Sulimov); KPSS v rez., v, pp. 301–2; S. M. Kirov, Tri boevykh zadachi sotsialisticheskoi rekonstruktstii (Leningrad, 1931), p. 15.
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Rees, E.A. (1995). The Years of Forced Development, 1928–30. In: Stalinism and Soviet Rail Transport, 1928–41. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23763-0_2
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