Terror also meant the forced migration of entire 'enemy' populations, beginning with Ingrian peasants who were designated as 'kulaks' and deported to Murmansk and to Central Asia in 1930. Further deportations, of Koreans, Germans and Poles took place before the Second World War; during the war Crimean Tatars and Chechen and Ingush civilians suffered the same fate. Deportation disrupted and even destroyed viable economic activity. The Soviet occupation of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945 brought forth fresh deportations, notably in the Baltic lands, but these were related to economic development only in so far as they 'encouraged' the incorporation ofhitherto independent states into the socialist economy. Meanwhile, post-war construction in the USSR, such as the creation of the closed city of Krasnoiarsk-26, a major centre of producing weapons-grade plutonium, depended heavily upon forced labour.
The welfare consequences of the Stalinist economic transformation have proved particularly controversial where the interests of nationalities are concerned. During the Second FYP the Soviet leadership sought to reduce the development gap between the more advanced and less-developed parts of the Soviet Union. The main plank in this strategy was to encourage rapid growth by means of investment in production, infrastructure and education. The results were undoubtedly impressive, at least in terms of accelerating the economic development of less-developed regions such as Central Asia, where new factories, power stations and transport links were built, along with hospitals, schools and universities. These policies produced a nationalist backlash. In pre-war Ukraine, for example, the Soviet regime faced accusations ofhaving expanded heavy industry in the eastern region, at the expense oflight industry and agriculture in the ethnically more homogeneous western parts of Ukraine. And in Kazakhstan, the construction of the Turksib railway - achieved in part by the recruitment of native labour - was accompanied by the charge that this grand project had destroyed the 'traditional' Kazakh nomad way of life.
Great leaps forward (iii)
The Second World War left an enduring imprint on the Soviet economy. Economic reconstruction was rendered difficult by the magnitude of wartime devastation and by the shock of sudden famine in 1946-7. Recent work has demonstrated that key industrial sectors, notably coal mining, ferrous metallurgy and construction, experienced a desperate labour shortage that was made good by prisoners (by 1953 the forced labour system incarcerated 5.5 million persons) and by semi-free workers recruited from the village.[11] These workers were bound by the draconian labour legislation introduced in i938 and 1940 that imposed rigorous controls over job mobility. These controls were not lifted until 1951, by which time managers were refusing to enforce them, lest they deprive the enterprise of scarce skilled labour.
The campaign style in Soviet economic policy was reiterated during the 1950s by Nikita Khrushchev, whose regime became synonymous with fresh ideological fervour, such as supporting the ambitious goals of building communism and overtaking the USA. Khrushchev denounced the spread of ownership of dachas and attacked the private plot. None of these campaigns had any pronounced economic impact. Much more consequential was his decision to promote population migration to Siberia and Central Asia, in order to settle new farmland. Constant pressure to maintain sowings on virgin land quickly led to soil erosion. In general, however, the continued de-ruralisation of Russia continued: by 1970 only 44 per cent of households were rural, compared to 66 per cent on the eve of the Second World War. The relatively poor quality of life in villages, particularly in Russia's non-Black Earth region, encouraged rural depopulation, a process that persisted throughout the final quarter ofthe century notwithstanding formal restrictions on rural out-migration.[12] One other campaign attracted enormous international publicity: in i957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite into orbit, heralding the onset of a major space programme. These campaigns went hand in hand with continued economic growth. During the 1950s, according to Khanin, Soviet national income grew at an annual average rate of 7.2 per cent, falling to 4.4 per cent in 1960-5. Further campaigns were launched by Khrushchev's successors to secure improved economic performance by means of institutional reform. In 1965 industrial ministries were empowered to use 'economic levers', such as bonus payments and retained profits, in order to stimulate enterprise performance.
This era was also associated with a renewed emphasis upon consumption. Consumption was in part a purely 'private' matter, but it was also secured by informal social networks (blat) and an extensive range of practices (such as petty pilfering and the theft of state property) that have been grouped together in the term 'second economy' and that enabled consumers to reroute goods from the state to other sectors of the economy. Officialdom frequently turned a blind eye, partly because officials themselves participated in these informal transactions.[13] From one point of view, consumption in its official and unofficial variants helped to cement the legitimacy of the regime. But consumers' access to goods imposed constraints, in that Soviet citizens became accustomed to price subsidies. Consumers were prepared to overlook shortages and poor-quality products provided there were no untoward increases in their price. When working-class consumers went on strike in protest against price increases in Novocherkassk in 1962, they met with brutal state repression. This exceptional episode proved the rule (and helped cost Khrushchev his job): Brezhnev's lengthy tenure of office as General Secretary rested in large part upon the use of retail price subsidies, whereby the state absorbed increases in the procurement prices paid to Soviet farmers during the late i960s and 1970s.[14] At least for a while, the state budget became the opium of the masses.
The post-Stalinist transformation also brought about Soviet exposure to the international economy. In the first instance this meant the creation of closer links with the countries that made up the 'Soviet bloc'. Here the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) promoted socialist economic integration, meaning the transfer of engineering products from Eastern Europe in exchange for cheap energy from Russia. Meanwhile during the 1970s and early 1980s the Soviet Union extended its international profile by importing Western technology (and some consumer goods) and exporting oil during a period of rapidly rising energy prices on the world market. The great oil boom, and its availability at below-market prices, did nothing to discourage wasteful energy consumption. Policies to accelerate technological progress did not improve overall economic performance, partly because Soviet enterprises lacked the ability to assimilate foreign technology. To all intents and purposes the Soviet economy under Brezhnev suffered the same shortcomings as in the era of NEP. In both periods the Soviet Union lagged behind more dynamic economies in the capitalist West.
The reform impulse in Russian economic history (11): perestroika
Perestroika (literally, 'restructuring') was a bold attempt to address economic deceleration and to revitalise Soviet society. In the first instance, perestroika represented the triumph of a generation of reform-minded social scientists, such as Abel Aganbegian and Tat'iana Zaslavskaia, who had been arguing since the 1970s that the socio-economic system was outmoded. Created at a time when factors of production, labour and capital were relatively abundant and when the general level of educational attainment amongst the population was low, they maintained that the 'administrative-command economy' discouraged the kind of energy and enterprise that the modern economy required and whose absence was reflected in the poor level of labour productivity. Long-serving officials, accustomed to interfere in the affairs of firms, were encouraged to devote their time instead to broad strategic issues. Chief amongst these was the need (in the words of Mikhail Gorbachev) for a 'renewal of socialism'.
11
The definition of forced labour is the same as used earlier, comprising those in prison, in labour camps, in labour colonies and in special settlements. By 1953 the latter housed 2.75 million. Gulag workers began to receive wages after 1950, although they were set at no more than half the wages paid to free workers.
12
L.N. Denisova,
13
Gregory Grossman, 'The Second Economy of the USSR',
14
As a result, and taking into account farmers' incomes from their private plots, the disparity between rural and urban incomes that was a feature of the Stalinist economy all but disappeared under Brezhnev.