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History of the world economy - Polyak GB

33. The change in the social and economic system in Russia, its economic development in 1917-1941

33.1. Revolutionary transformations

October Revolution

In the autumn of 1917, a nationwide crisis ripened in the country. On October 25 (November 7), 1917, an armed uprising took place in Petrograd, and one of the radical parties, the RSDLP (B), came to power with its program of pulling the country out of the deepest crisis. The economic tasks were determined at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (b) and were not of a socialist construction, but of public-state interference in the production, distribution, finance and labor force regulation on the basis of the introduction of universal labor service. In the April theses, Lenin emphasized: "It is not the" introduction "of socialism, as our immediate task, but the transition immediately to only control by SRD for social production and the distribution of products.

* Lenin VI Full. Cob. Op. T.31. - P. 116.

For the practical implementation of state control, the task of nationalization was put forward. But in the understanding of VI Lenshch-nationalization should not be reduced to confiscation, to a change in the forms of ownership. "It is not in the confiscation of the property of the capitalists that there will even be a" nail "of action, namely, in the nationwide, comprehensive workers' control over the capitalists and their possible supporters. With one confiscation, you can not do anything, because it does not have an element of organization, accounting, or correct distribution. "*

* Decree op. T-34. P.309.

Nationalization should not violate capitalist economic ties, but, on the contrary, unite them on a national scale, become a form of functioning of capital under the comprehensive control of workers (primarily the working class) involved in public activity. "It is not enough to" take the capitalists out ", it is necessary (putting away the worthless, hopeless" resistanceists ") to put them on a new state service" *. In the transition period, the duration of which was not determined, the preservation of commodity-money relations was supposed. However, the specific historical conditions of 1917 - 1918. Combined with the revolutionary impatience of the masses of workers and the resistance of the bourgeoisie, "spurred" the maturation of ideas about the possibility of the immediate implementation of communist principles, created the illusion of a natural transition to socialism and communism.

* Decree, op. T-34. C.311.

Measures of the "Red Guard" attack on capital

The main task of the first months of Soviet power was the concentration of commanding heights in the economy in the hands of the dictatorship of the proletariat and at the same time the creation of socialist government bodies. Politics of this period, Lenin called the "Red Guard" attack on capital, based on coercion and violence. It was coercion and violence that determined the specifics of the period under consideration. One should keep in mind the forced nature of this line, provoked by the activities of the bourgeoisie, which has lost political power.

The main activities of this period included the nationalization of banks, the implementation of the Decree on Land, the nationalization of industry, the introduction of the monopoly of foreign trade (April 22, 1918), the organization of workers' control. The State Bank was occupied by the Red Guard on the first day of the October Revolution in accordance with the party's program requirements adopted on the eve of October. However, the actual seizure of the banking business required significant efforts. The officials of the Ministry of Finance sabotaged the decisions of the Soviet government. They refused to issue money on orders, tried to arbitrarily dispose of the resources of the treasury and the bank, provided money for counterrevolution. Therefore, the new apparatus was formed mainly from small employees and recruited personnel from workers, soldiers and sailors who did not have experience in financial affairs. Nevertheless, "mastering the State Bank has created more favorable conditions for conducting workers' control over the financial side of the activities of enterprises" *.

History of the socialist economy of the USSR. T. 1. - Moscow: Nauka, 1976. - P. 91.

Even more difficult was the mastery of private banks. The actual liquidation of private bank cases and their merger with the State Bank continued until 1920.

Work control

The nationalization of banks, as well as the nationalization of industrial enterprises, was preceded by the establishment of workers' control. The conduct of workers' control throughout the country was met with active resistance by the bourgeoisie. Private banks refused to issue money from current accounts to enterprises where operational control was introduced, failed to comply with agreements with the State Bank, confused accounts, filed deliberately false information about the state of affairs, and financed counterrevolutionary conspiracies. Apparently, it was sabotage by the owners of private banks that significantly accelerated their nationalization. December 27, 1917 came Decree of the Central Executive Committee on the nationalization of banks.

The organs of workers' control arose during the February Revolution in the form of factory committees. The new leadership of the country viewed them as one of the transitional steps towards socialism, saw in the practical control and accounting not only the control and accounting of the results of production, but also the form of organization, the establishment of production by the masses of working people, since before the people's control the task was "to distribute labor correctly." Work control was supposed to be carried out for an extended period.

However, in practice, the sphere of action of workers' control already narrowed in the first months of Soviet power in the conditions of the nationalization that had begun. On November 14 (27), 1917, the "Regulations on workers' control" were adopted. Its elected bodies were to be set up at all enterprises where hired labor was used: in industry, in transport, in banks, in trade, in agriculture. Control was subject to production, supply of raw materials, sale and storage of goods, financial transactions. The judicial responsibility of the owners of enterprises for failure to comply with the orders of workers' controllers was established. In November-December 1917, workers' control was established at most large and medium-sized enterprises in the main industrial centers.

Workers' control has become a school of training the staff of the Soviet economic apparatus and an important means of establishing state records of resources and needs. But it is also clear that workers' control has greatly accelerated the conduct of nationalization. Future economic executives from the first steps of activity assimilated team-based, compulsory methods of work based not on knowledge of the economy, but on the slogans of the moment.

Nationalization and its stages

The Bolsheviks were conscious of the need for gradual nationalization. Therefore, in the first months after the October Revolution, individual enterprises of great importance for the state passed to the disposal of the Soviet government, as well as enterprises whose owners did not obey the decisions of state bodies. First of all, large military plants were nationalized: Obukhov, Baltic. However, already at this time, on the initiative of the working people, local enterprises were declared to be nationalized. An example is the Likino Manufactory (near Orekhovo-Zuev) - the first private enterprise that has passed into the hands of the state.

The concept of nationalization was gradually reduced to confiscation. And this had a negative effect on the work of industry, as economic ties were broken, and it became difficult to establish control over the country.

From the beginning of 1918, workers' control and local authorities began to act more decisively. The nationalization of industry in the localities took the form of a mass and spontaneously growing movement. Inexperience led to the fact that sometimes enterprises were socialized, to the management of which the workers were not actually ready, and also low-power enterprises. Against this background, the economic situation in the country worsened. Coal mining in the Donbass in December 1917 (67 million poods) was half that of the beginning of the year. In January 1918, 81 million poods were produced, but in connection with the military operations in the south, the export of coal fell sharply (31 million poods against 75 million poods in December 1917). Production of cast iron and steel for 1917 decreased by 24%. Complicating the situation with bread.

The growth of this uncontrolled wave forced the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) to centralize "economic life on a national scale". This left an imprint on the nature of the nationalization of the second stage (spring 1918 - June 28, 1918): the state was already passing over entire branches of production, primarily those where the positions of large financial capital were the strongest. 13 the beginning of May the sugar industry was nationalized, and in June - the oil industry; The nationalization of metallurgy and machine building was completed.

By July 1, 513 large industrial enterprises had become state property. June 28th

In 1918 the Council of People's Commissars "for the purpose of resolutely combating economic and industrial ruin and for consolidating the dictatorship of the working class and the rural poor" adopted a Decree on the general nationalization of the country's large-scale industry. The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the National Economy (December 1918) stated that "the nationalization of industry is basically complete."

In 1918 the 5th Congress of Soviets adopted the first Soviet constitution. The constitution stated that "the Russian Soviet Republic is established on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics." The Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 proclaimed and consolidated the rights of the working people, the rights of the overwhelming majority of the population.

The First Constitution of Russia

Decree on the land

In the sphere of agrarian relations, the Bolsheviks adhered to the idea of ​​confiscating landed estates and their nationalization. The Land Decree adopted at the Second Congress of Soviets the day after the victory of the revolution combined radical measures for the abolition of private ownership of land and the transfer of landed estates, "as well as all lands of specific, monastic, ecclesiastical, with all living and dead implements" Volost land committees and uyezd Soviets of Peasants' Deputies with the recognition of equal rights for all forms of land use (farmstead, farmstead, communal, artel) and the right to divide the confiscated land according to the labor or consumer standard with periodic redistribution.

Law on socialization

Nationalization and division of land were carried out on the basis of the law on the socialization of land (adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 27 (February 9), 1918), which determined the order of division and the labor-and-labor norm of the allotment. In the years 1917-1919. Section was produced in 22 provinces. About 3 million peasants received land. At the same time, military measures were taken: a state monopoly on bread was established; On May 27, 1918, the food authorities received extraordinary powers to purchase bread; The food factories were created whose task was to withdraw surplus grain at fixed prices (in the spring of 1918, money meant little more, and grain was actually taken for free, at best by exchange for manufactured goods). And the goods became less and less. In the autumn of 1918 the industry was almost paralyzed. But even in these conditions Lenin does not raise the question of the expropriation of the kulak, but only about the suppression of his counter-revolutionary encroachments.