December 30 marks 97 years (1922) from the date of formation under the direction of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the world's first socialist multinational state of workers and peasants, the union of free and equal peoples of the USSR. The I All-Union Congress of Soviets adopted the Declaration and the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR.
The Soviet Union achieved truly world-wide success. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik party, the Soviet people built socialism, defeated fascism in the Great Patriotic War, turned our homeland into a powerful state.
Pre-revolutionary Russia was economically backward and depended on the advanced capitalist states. The country's national wealth (per inhabitant) was inferior to the United States 6.2 times, England - 4.5 times, France - 4.3 times, Germany - 3.5 times. The gap in the economic development of Russia and advanced countries was widening. Its industrial production in relation to the USA in 1870 was approximately 1/6, and in 1913 - only 1/8.
Being the greatest power in terms of territory and natural wealth, the country occupied only fifth place in the world in industrial production and fourth in Europe.
In the agricultural sector, Russia was an ocean of small peasant farms (20 million) with primitive equipment and manual labor.
“After the revolution of 1905, Russia was ruled by 130,000 landowners, ruled by means of endless violence against 150 million people, by means of limitless mockery of them, by compelling the vast majority to hard labor and half-starving existence” (V.I. Lenin).
In pre-revolutionary Russia there were only 91 higher educational institutions, 177 theaters, 213 museums, and 77,767 churches.
“Such a wild country in which the masses of the people were so robbed in the sense of education, light and knowledge - there is not one such country in Europe except Russia” (V.I. Lenin).
The First World War put the country in disaster. The industry fell by 1/3, the collection of bread was reduced by 2 times. Only the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and landlords and its transfer to the hands of the working people could save the country from death.
The victory of the October Revolution opened up great creative prospects to the young Soviet state. The people took control of the basic means of production. Nationalized land (peasants received free of charge more than 150 million hectares of land), factories, factories, all the bowels of the country, banks, sea and river transport, foreign trade.
The Russian economy, undermined by the imperialist war, was severely ruined by the civil war unleashed by the ousted classes of landowners and capitalists and foreign intervention.
By the end of the civil war, large-scale industry produced almost 7 times less production than in 1913. The country was discarded by the end of the 19th century in terms of coal, oil and pig iron production. Compared to 1917, the number of the working class decreased by more than 2 times.
The Soviet country, which had been at war for 7 years, underwent enormous destruction, in a short time already by 1926 managed to restore the pre-war level of the national economy.
Having entered a period of peaceful development, the Country of Soviets began to implement the tasks of building socialism.
Lenin said on the eve of October: "Either death, or catch up and overtake the advanced capitalist countries."
I.V. Stalin said that Russia was always beaten for its backwardness - industrial, agricultural, cultural, military and state. Such is the predatory law of the exploiters - to beat the backward and weak, to rob and enslave them.
The building of socialism began in extremely difficult conditions for the young Soviet republic.
“We are 50-100 years behind advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us ”(IV Stalin).
It was necessary to overcome this lag in the shortest possible time, relying only on our own forces and resources.
Industrialization has become a vital task for the country. A course was taken on the accelerated pace of development of the heavy industry.
In the years of the Stalin five-year plans, the following number of large industrial enterprises were built and reconstructed on a new technical base: in the first five-year plan (1929 - 1932) - 1,500, in the second five-year plan (1933 - 1937) - 4,500, in three and a half years the third five-year plans (1938 - the first half of 1941) - 3,000.
These were the five-year plans for the construction of factories, representing a new technical base for the reconstruction of the entire national economy. These were the five-year plans for the creation of new enterprises in agriculture — collective farms and state farms, which became the lever for the organization of all agriculture.
In the period after the victory of October and before the start of World War II, 11.2 thousand large industrial enterprises were built and restored. The engineering and metalworking industries, the chemical and petrochemical industries, and the electric power industry, which play a key role in the industrialization of the country and the strengthening of its defense potential, developed at a particularly fast pace.
Isthorium has not yet seen such a pace of development. Socialism liberated the dormant productive forces and gave them a powerful forward vector of development.
The development of the national economy of the USSR in 1940 compared with 1913 is characterized by the following data: national income grew 5.3 times, industrial output - 7.7 times, including in engineering - 30 times, in the electric power industry - 24 times, in the chemical industry - 169 times, in agricultural production - 14 times.
The industrial growth rate of the USSR was much faster than the growth rates of the leading capitalist states. If industrial production in the USSR for the period from 1921 to 1939. increased 24.6 times, then in the USA - 1.9 times, Great Britain - 1.7 times, France - 2.0 times, Germany - 2.2 times.
The growth rate of heavy industry during the years of the Stalin five-year plans ranged from 20 to 30 percent per year. For 12 years from 1929 to 1940, the volume of heavy industry output increased 10 times. No country in the world knew such a breakthrough in its development.
Domestic industry was the basis for the transfer of small-scale peasant farming to large collective production. In a short period of time, more than 210 thousand collective farms and 43 thousand state farms were organized, and about 25 thousand state machine and tractor stations were created. By the end of 1932, state farms and collective farms owned 78 percent of the sown area of the country. They provided 84 percent of marketable grain. In the years of the first five-year plan alone, sown areas were increased by 21 million hectares.
Technical equipment of agriculture in 1928 - 1940 characterized by such data: the tractor fleet increased by 20 times (from 27 to 531 thousand), the park of combine harvesters - up to 182 thousand, the truck fleet - up to 228 thousand. During the Great Patriotic War, collective farms and state farms uninterruptedly supplied the army and cities with food, and industry with raw materials.
The Soviet Union has become an industrial power and a country of major advanced agriculture.
As a result of the reforms, unemployment, which is the scourge of the working people in the capitalist countries, was forever eliminated.
The cultural revolution put an end to the almost universal illiteracy of the working people of Russia and created the starting conditions for turning the USSR into the most cultural, educated and reading country in the world.
In 1897, the proportion of illiterate adults made up 71.6%, in 1926 - 43.4, in 1939 - 12.6%. Illiteracy in the USSR was completely eradicated in the first years after World War II.
In 1913, only about 290 thousand people had higher and secondary specialized education. These were representatives of the privileged elite. Among the workers and peasants, there were practically no people with secondary education, and even more so with higher education. And by 1987, out of 1,000 workers, 861 people had higher and secondary education, and 763 out of 1,000 collective farmers. If in 1926, 2.7 million people were engaged in mental work, then in 1987 there were over 43 million
During the period of Soviet society, including from 1937 to 1939, there was a steady population growth in all regions of the USSR. So, from 1926 to 1937, the country's population increased by 11.2 million people, i.e. increased by more than 1.1 million per year. It grew at a faster pace from 1937 to 1939 - an average annual increase of 1.5 million people.
Such a rapid population growth of the USSR more convincingly than any other statistics refutes the speculation about millions of repressions repressed in the so-called years.
Clouds of imminent war began to thicken over the country more and more densely. Thanks to the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty, the Soviet Union gained time, reoriented its resources to military needs, created and launched the latest weapons.
The peaceful creative development of the USSR was interrupted by the treacherous attack of fascist Germany.
Poland was defeated in 35 days, France in 44 days, Denmark in a day. The Soviet Union steadfastly defended itself and attacked 1,418 days and broke the ridge of fascism.
The German economy was raised by investment in the United States and England. The economic potential of all of Western Europe worked for Germany. And the Soviet Union fought on its own and with resources. During the war years, all external supplies to the USSR amounted to only 4% of domestic production, by artillery - 1.5%, by tanks and self-propelled guns - 6.3%, by aircraft - about 10% and by grain - 1.6%.
The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses - about 25 million people, primarily because 18 million people were in the death camps, of which 11 million people were killed by Hitler's executioners. More than one million Soviet soldiers gave their lives in the liberation of the peoples of Europe and Asia. Losses of the USA - about 300 thousand people, Great Britain - 370 thousand, France - 600 thousand
The advantages of the socialist economic system were most pronounced during the war years. It is enough to cite the fact that in the shortest possible time at the beginning of the war more than 1,500 enterprises were evacuated and put into operation from the occupied regions to the East, 145universities, dozens of research institutes.
After World War II, the Soviet Union quickly heals the wounds inflicted by the war and occupies one of the leading places in the world economy.
In the postwar period, the Soviet state carried out a number of unprecedented reforms. The ruble is untied from the dollar and transferred to a gold basis, there is a seven-fold reduction in retail prices for consumer goods while increasing wages, which leads to a significant real increase in the well-being of the people.
In 1954, state retail prices for food products were 2.6 times lower than prices in 1947 and 1.9 times lower for non-food products.
The powerful potential of the economy created during the Stalin period charged the Soviet Union with sustainable development for the next decades.
The pace of economic development of the USSR for 1966 - 1985 was as follows: growth of national income - 3.8 times, industrial production - 4.3 times, agricultural - 1.8 times, investment - 4.1 times, real income - 2.6 times, foreign trade - 4.7 times, almost 3 times increased production of consumer goods.
As a result of market-based Kosygin reforms, the growth rates of the USSR economy are significantly reduced compared to the growth rates of the Stalinist model of the economy and are approaching the level of capitalist countries. Thus, the average annual growth rate of industrial production in the USSR in the prewar years (1928-1940) was 16.8%, in the years of the post-war fifth five-year plan (1951-1955) - 13.1%, and during the years of Kosygin reforms, they sharply decreased by 2-4 times, in the period 1971 - 1975 - up to 7.4%, in the period 1976 - 1980. - up to 4.4% (for comparison: in the USA - 5.1%), in 1981 - 1985. - up to 3.7% (in the USA - 2.7%).
Kosygin reforms led to a significant slowdown in scientific and technological progress and a decrease in the growth rate of labor productivity. During the years of the Stalin five-year plans, labor productivity in industry grew on average by 10.8% per year, and during the years of Kosygin transformations, the pace fell to 5.8 - 6.0% (1966 - 1975) and 3.1 - 3.2 % (1976 - 1985).
Despite this, in the years called by liberals and foreign Sovietologists “stagnant,” the growth rate of the USSR economy was ahead of or at the level of growth rates of the leading countries of the world. The average annual growth rate of national income for 1961 - 1986 in the USSR amounted to 5.5% and per capita - 4.9%, in the USA - 3.1 and 2.1%, in the UK - 2.3 and 2.7%, in Germany - 3.1 and 3, 4%, in Italy - 3.6 and 3.1%, in Japan - 6.6 and 5.5%, in China - 5.5 and 4.1%.
Thus, the Soviet Union had a powerful economy, provided with all kinds of resources, sufficient to meet all the challenges of the time.
If the share of the USSR in the world production of industrial products in 1913 was a little more than 4%, then in 1986 it was 20% (from the US level - more than 80%). In 1913, industrial production per capita in Russia was 2 times less than the world average, and in 1986 - 3.5–4 times more.
By 1985, the USSR in terms of production of the main types of products of industry, agriculture, transport and communications occupies all the first places in Europe. For many positions, the USSR ranks first in the world, yielding in some positions to the United States and several other countries.
In world culture, the USSR is gaining a leading position. In terms of the number of school and university students, including engineering, the number of cinemas, the circulation of newspapers and books, the USSR ranks first in the world.
As a result of the defeat of the bloc of fascist states by the forces of the Soviet Union, socialism is turning into a world system. The potential of the economy of the socialist countries by the beginning of the 80s. approaching the level of potential of the capitalist countries. Socialist countries covered more than 40% of world industrial production. The products of the socialist countries accounted for more than 3/4 of the products of the developed capitalist countries.
The national wealth of the USSR during the years of Soviet power compared with 1913 increased by more than 50 times. About 20% of all the fuel and energy resources of the world were concentrated on the territory of the USSR. Almost all the elements contained in the periodic table were mined in the USSR. The USSR ranked first in forest areas and hydropower resources.
Not by chance I.V. As far back as 1937, Stalin warned that “having these successes, we turned the USSR into a richest country and at the same time a tidbit for all predators who won’t calm down until they tried all the means to snag it off something".
In the USSR, all national income was used to increase the well-being of workers and the development of the national economy. Four fifths of the national income was directed to public welfare, including housing and socio-cultural construction. In the USSR were provided: free education, free medical care, free housing, decent pensions, scholarships for students, payment of annual leave, free and at preferential pricestraining in sanatoriums and rest homes, free maintenance of children in preschool institutions, etc. The rent amounted to only 3% of the population’s budget. Retail prices remained stable with wage growth. In the USSR, the right to work was really guaranteed, everyone had to work.
There is nothing like this in capitalist countries.
In the United States, 1% of the wealthiest families own wealth, which is almost one and a half times the total income of 80% of families at the bottom of the social pyramid. In the UK, 5% of owners own 50% of the country's wealth. In “prosperous” Sweden, the income of 5% of families is equal to the income of 40% of families below the social ladder.
After the collapse of the USSR, the country's economy faced a catastrophe. The country was plundered by the mafia bourgeoisie that came to power.
In modern Russia, 62% of its wealth falls to the share of dollar millionaires, 29% - to the share of billionaires. In other words, 10% of the wealthy own almost 90% of the country's wealth.
During the period of capitalist reforms, more than two-thirds of the country's enterprises and entire advanced high-tech sectors of the national economy were destroyed.
The share of companies with foreign capital is now 56% in mining, 49% in manufacturing, 75% in communications.
Russia is losing its economic independence and is falling into the sphere of pressure of the leading imperialist states. Only the country's oil and gas resources, as well as advanced military and nuclear technologies of the Soviet Union period, pull the country from the edge of the abyss.
The forcibly privatized private capitalist ownership of the instruments and means of production destroyed the unified economic relations of the country and led to the collapse of a great power unprecedented in history.
Like 97 years ago, in order to save the country, the Russian people are faced with the task of uniting the peoples of the ex-USSR, replacing the leading to the collapse of the now prevailing liberal economic structure of capitalism and the entire socio-political system from capitalism to socialism through the socialist revolution. In other words, we are talking about the historical need for the revival of the USSR.
