Formation of the economy of power. During the years of the first five-year plans in the USSR, the formation of a new economic mechanism was completed. The replacement of market competition with a system of administrative levers takes place in several stages through "trial and error" and numerous reorganizations. Until 1930, various ways of further development were still put forward and discussed in the USSR. economic development and therefore it was theoretically possible to choose from a number of alternatives. But from five-year plan to five-year plan, the tendency towards the creation of an economy of power, the formation of a closed, self-supporting economic complex, becomes more and more irresistible.
The fulfillment of the tasks of the first five-year plan was accompanied by significant difficulties - the industrial plan was not fulfilled in 1929, the construction of numerous facilities was delayed, the funds invested in them did not give a return, since the scale of investments did not correspond to the possibilities construction organizations, nor the state of transport and energy. Under these conditions, in order to solve the problem of savings, the authorities were forced to widely use even those measures that had previously been categorically rejected - first of all, turn to the help of a money machine. If a money issue in 1928 was insignificant, then in 1929 the growth money supply amounted to 800 million rubles, in 1930 and 1931. approximately 1.5 billion rubles each, in 1932 - 2.7 billion rubles. Following the issue, free market prices rise. In the same year, 1932, their level was 8 times higher than the level of 1928. The growth of the money supply, not backed by goods, decreases only by the mid-1930s. Compulsory "industrialization loans" are becoming an important source of additional resources, and the sale of vodka is expanding dramatically. “We must discard false shame,” Stalin advised Molotov in the autumn of 1930, “and directly, openly go to the maximum increase in the production of vodka.”
Drawing lessons from the failures of the "Great Leap Forward", the authorities in 1929-1932. carries out credit, tax and tariff reforms, which ultimately seriously limit the scope of commodity-money relations. Formally economic reforms, initiated by the decree of the CPSU (b) and the Council of People's Commissars of September 5, 1929 "On measures to streamline production management and establish unity of command", were aimed at deepening economic methods management, to cover self-supporting relations at various levels of management: associations - enterprises - workshops - sections - brigades. In accordance with their plan, the enterprise becomes the main production link (under the New Economic Policy it was a trust). By introducing self-financing, the authorities hoped to kill two birds with one stone: to reduce the cost of production and thereby solve the problem of accumulation in industry and at the same time fulfill planned targets at any cost.
In practice, the reforms of the early 30s. lead to the opposite results: the restriction of economic incentives for the activities of enterprises and the strengthening of administrative and coercive measures. Due to the general orientation of the economy towards the priority development of heavy industry at the expense of savings in the industry itself and limiting the consumption of the population, “glaucism” is returning. The number of industrial people's commissariats and central administrations is increasing; they are concentrating all the operational management of enterprises in their hands. At the same time, cost accounting is becoming more and more formal: practically all the profits of enterprises are deducted to the state budget, and only then funds from the budget are centrally allocated to enterprises. At the same time, the amounts contributed to the budget and payments from it are in no way connected with each other. In the early 30s. credit to enterprises is being replaced by centralized financing. Even earlier, independent banks were subordinated to the People's Commissariat of Finance, thus they ceased to be actually credit institutions. With the liquidation of commercial banks credit system in the USSR finally ceases to be a market economy. A few private enterprises remain virtually without credit and cease to be competitive.
In the summer of 1931, Stalin, in order to solve the growing problem of staff turnover and secure workers in enterprises, called for an end to wage equalization. The tariff reform that began after this was designed to strengthen the material interest of workers in heavy industry in increasing labor productivity and reducing production costs and to bring, in comparison with the time of the New Economic Policy, metallurgy, engineering and other branches of heavy industry to the first places in terms of wages (before that, the priority in the growth of wages was given to the textile, clothing and other industries of group "B", which, of course, contradicted the goals of accelerated industrialization). As a result, wages in the heavy and then in the defense industry rise sharply. A new tariff scale is being introduced. At the same time, the main categories of workers are transferred to individual and progressive piece work. As a result, skilled workers began to receive 4–8 times more than unskilled ones. The salaries of the administrative staff increased even more. As for non-priority sectors, such as light industry, trade, the service sector, then here low wages were frozen for a long time. The rapid increase in the wage fund in industries that do not create consumer goods, the separation of wages from its quantity and quality intensify the hunger for goods and give rise to a huge inflationary wave. In turn, the acute shortage of consumer goods and the rationing system that operated until 1935 seriously weaken the role of wages as the most important stimulus for the growth of labor productivity. It is no coincidence that in order to create social guarantees for the working class, the authorities are increasingly using administrative methods of regulating wages.
In the early 30s. private capital is almost completely squeezed out of various sectors of the economy. In 1933, the share of private enterprises in industry is reduced to 0.5%, in agriculture - to 20%, and in retail they do not remain at all. By this time, foreign concessions are also liquidated. As the market collapses, they are exposed weak sides state socialism, and above all the lack of personal incentives to work. Wage due to its rigid decree by the state, as well as interest, profit, land rent cease to play the role of incentives for the efficient distribution of resources.
In search of an adequate replacement of market instruments with administrative ones, the authorities attach great importance to the indoctrination of citizens and the formation of patriotic enthusiasm. As a result, the most important element new system management in the years of the first five-year plans becomes a high labor activity of workers. In the first five-year plan, it was expressed in reciprocal planning, socialist emulation, in the form of a movement of shock brigades. “We will endure everything, if necessary. We have no way back, only forward,” Donetsk miners assured V. V. Kuibyshev, chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, in May 1929.
Largely due to the selfless work of millions of enthusiasts (“the most heroic people,” as the writer A. Platonov called them, who “are building socialism in a poor country, taking the primary substance for it from their bodies”), during the first five-year plan, 1500 new industrial enterprises, a new coal and metallurgical base appeared in the east of the country - Uralo-Kuzbass, tractor and automobile plants. However, the first five-year plan was thwarted. Contrary to official version, it was overfulfilled only by capital investment and for the production of heavy industry products (moreover, in conventional gross units). The planned savings in industry also failed to be achieved, since industrial growth was ensured mainly by increasing the number of employees and with a faster growth in wages. By the end of the first five-year plan, there was a sharp decline in the growth rate in heavy industry: from 23.7% in 1928 to 5.5% in 1933.
According to official data, the national income for 1929-1933. grew only by 59% instead of 103% according to the plan, industrial output - by 102% instead of 130%, and agricultural production even decreased by 14% instead of the planned growth of 55%. Almost two times less than planned was produced steel, oil, electricity, paper. For example, instead of 60 blast furnaces, 32 were put into operation. The program for the construction of new transport routes was also implemented by only a third.
The management practice that developed during the years of the first five-year plan, in general, despite its actual failure, was consolidated in the second five-year plan (1933–1937). He continued to orient the economy towards quantitative growth.
Its main feature is the slowdown in industrialization. At the January Plenum of 1933, Stalin, slyly asserting that there was no longer a need to "whip and spur the country on," proposed to slow down the pace of industrial construction. Taking into account the failures in the new plan, the growth rate decreased to 16.5% against 30% in the first five-year period. The plan also provided for higher average annual growth rates in the production of consumer goods compared to the growth in the production of means of production. To this end, investment in light industry increased several times.
The main task of the new five-year plan was to complete the technical reconstruction National economy. For this reason, emphasis was placed on the development of previously built enterprises.
During these years, economic difficulties forced the government to make more extensive use of economic methods of management, commodity-money relations. However, in the end, the trend towards maximum centralization and strengthening of the planning and distribution mechanism of management prevails: in the conditions of the emerging command economy, self-financing could not but be formal. In the name of "regularity" there is a consistent destruction of the market. Despite the fact that already in the years of the first five-year plan, many negative aspects of planning as the most important element of the new economic mechanism were revealed (planning from what has been achieved, fulfilling the plan at any cost, chasing the "shaft", low quality products, etc.), which eventually became chronic , the second five-year plan is a milestone in the way of general state planning. The construction of administrative coercion into a system contributes to "planned fetishism", its hypertrophy, the transformation of the plan into a universal means of resolving all political and economic problems in the country. The plan is not only a five-year plan, but also the tasks that each enterprise received during the year. Beginning in 1931, everything and everything that determines the center materializes its political will in the form of annual national economic plans, binding on all sectors and regions of the country. The State Planning Commission focuses on the development of structural policy and its investment support through the distribution of state investments. Already in the years of the second five-year plan, planning becomes total - from the State Planning Commission to the individual worker. Enterprises are given not only the main production tasks, but also measures for the development of equipment, the use of reserves, etc. In parallel, a steady expansion of planning objects is taking place. If in 1929 only the wage fund was planned for enterprises, then since 1932 it is planned average salary, and since 1934 - the states. In the same years, agriculture was also intensively involved in the sphere of planning. At first, from the spring of 1930, the state sowing plans included tasks for the time of the sowing campaign; a decade later, the agricultural work plan covered all the main agrotechnical measures. At the same time, planning was carried out from what had been achieved, plans were approved with a great delay. On the eve of the war, scientific activity becomes the object of planned work: in 1941, for the first time, a detailed plan was drawn up to accelerate technical progress in the leading branches of industry.
Failures in the economic mechanism, which have become a common occurrence with the expansion of the scale of planning, are extinguished by the authorities, not without success, by a new mobilization of the working class for shock work. The slogan "Technology decides everything!" did not justify itself. during the years of the second five-year plan is replaced by a new one - "Cadres decide everything!". In the last months of 1935, following the record of A. Stakhanov, the miner of the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine, which on September 1 for a 6-hour shift gave a tenth of the daily coal production of the entire mine, the Stakhanov movement unfolded throughout the country with the approval of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. A few months later, each enterprise had its own Stakhanovite. The highest labor productivity in the world on milling machines was achieved by the worker of the Moscow Machine Tool Plant I. Gudov, who exceeded the norm by 14 times. The weavers of the Vichug textile factory in the Ivanovo region were the first in the world to switch to servicing one hundred looms. The scope of the Stakhanov movement was largely associated with powerful material incentives: Stakhanovites were primarily allocated apartments, they were paid an order of magnitude higher than other workers. Of great importance among the motives for highly productive labor was patriotism, the desire to prove that Soviet workers were in no way inferior to foreigners. Thanks to the Stakhanovite records, the authorities already in the first half of 1936 increased output rates by 13-47%, then in some industries they still increased by 13-18%.
During the years of the second five-year plan, the process of strict administration also intensifies. When creating self-supporting brigades, the principle of voluntariness is increasingly violated. Persons dismissed for violation of labor discipline were evicted from departmental residential buildings without providing other living space. This method was often applied to those who left the enterprise of their own free will without a good reason. The walls of many workshops were decorated with "boards of shame" - satirical wall newspapers, scourging "flyers" and deserters of the labor front. In 1933, political departments were created in the MTS, transport, and fisheries - emergency party and state bodies.
In general, the second five-year plan, like the first, was not fulfilled in most indicators, although it differed from it by more a high percentage fulfillment of planned tasks. Labor productivity doubled (according to official data), gross industrial output increased 2.2 times, and agriculture increased 1.5 times. In 1937, more than 80% of industrial output was obtained from new or completely modernized enterprises. However, the outstripping development of the industries of group "B" did not happen, although the growth rates of the two divisions converged. The relative successes of the second five-year plan are the result of the government's moderate course. During these years, the Stalinist regime was able to successfully use the almost universal desire for stability, for a "prosperous" life, and to stabilize the situation in the country, which had heated up during the years of the first five-year plan and brought society to the brink of collapse.
In March 1939, the Third Five-Year Plan (1938-1942) was approved at the 18th Congress of the CPSU(b). The plan again provided for the priority development of heavy industry, mechanical engineering, energy, metallurgy, and the chemical industry. In the third five-year plan, the line on the militarization of the country was continued. It was planned to accelerate the development of the defense industry, the creation of large state reserves for fuel, electricity, the construction of backup enterprises in the Urals, the Volga region, and Siberia.
During the years of the Third Five-Year Plan, changes in the economic mechanism proceed in several directions. Repressions 1937–1938 negatively affected the fulfillment of planned targets, in connection with which the authorities attempted to use measures of material and moral incentives for conscientious workers.
On December 28, 1938, increments for continuous service were established for pensions and temporary disability benefits. At the same time, mandatory work books were introduced for all workers and employees, in which data were entered on seniority and place of work, about incentives and penalties. At the same time, measures of moral encouragement were also introduced - in December 1938, the honorary title of Hero of Socialist Labor, the medals "For Labor Valor", "For Labor Distinction" were established.
These measures proved insufficient to speed up the defense program. For this reason, there is a curtailment of economic methods and the growth of administrative-compulsory ones. By a decree of June 26, 1940, which prohibited, under threat of criminal punishment (imprisonment by a court sentence for a term of 2 to 4 months), voluntary dismissal from enterprises and institutions and the transfer from one enterprise to another without the permission of the administration, a course was set for open, official attachment of workers and employees to their jobs. By the same decree, the working day was increased from 7 to 8 hours, and the six-day working week was replaced by a seven-day one (seventh day - Sunday - day off). Absenteeism and being late for work were punished criminally. Being late for more than 20 minutes was considered absenteeism and entailed criminal liability. As absenteeism, the appearance at the workplace in a state of intoxication was considered. The decree of July 10 equated the production of low-quality or even incomplete industrial products with "anti-state crimes, tantamount to wrecking."
During the years of the third five-year plan, especially on the eve of the war, the number of industrial people's commissariats grows (3 in 1932, 6 in 1939, 23 in 1940) and the number of enterprises subordinate to them decreases.
Thus, from the second half of the 1930s, especially on the eve of the war, the command style in the management of industry was finally established, and one-man command and the intervention of higher bodies in the work of enterprises took hypertrophied forms.
By the end of the 30s. repressive command system management, or the economy of power, is finally taking shape. Unlike the consumer economy, it was not aimed at meeting the needs of people, but at maintaining a totalitarian political system. Its main features are non-market character, non-economic coercion to work, ignoring the law of value, subordination of economic processes to the political interests of the ruling elite, orientation of the national economy towards achieving political rather than economic results, emphasis on extensive economic growth, impossibility or extreme difficulty in the legal manifestation of personal initiative. .
Violent destruction of foundations market economy in the form of a revolutionary expropriation of property and the destruction of competition led to the super-monopolization of the economy and, ultimately, to a dead end. The tightening of administrative methods of managing before the war did not produce tangible results. Moreover, their effect turned out to be negative: industrial enterprises in 1940 worked worse than in 1938–1939.
From agricultural to industrial. Assessment of the true scale of the industrial growth of the USSR in the 30s. still presents some difficulty. A simple comparison of what was before industrialization with what was obtained as a result, according to the scheme proposed by Stalin, leaves aside many important questions, and above all the questions of the price of the “Great Leap Forward”, as well as the possible results of modernization according to other, non-Stalinist ways.
In order to more impressively represent what was done under his leadership during the years of the first five-year plan, in January 1933 Stalin shamelessly underestimated the initial level of industrialization, arguing that “we did not have ferrous metallurgy, the basis of the country's industrialization, now we have it. We did not have a tractor industry. We have it now. We didn't have an automobile industry. We have it now..." For the same reason, official statistics since 1929 overestimated the rate of economic growth USSR. Alternative assessments carried out abroad and in our country show that in 1928-1941. The GNP of the USSR grew not by 345%, as official statistics claimed, but by 97-150%. The difference is 2.4–3.6 times. In other words, the Stalinist economic model in the pre-war period was able to “squeeze out” the national income growth rate of about 5% annually. The pace is certainly high, higher than the pre-revolutionary market economy (3.4% in 1885-1913), but not a record one. Approximately the same pace developed in these years, the economy of Japan. Below the official estimates of the annual growth in industrial production during the first five-year plans. They fluctuate within the limits of 9-16% growth for 1928-1937. instead of 18.1% according to official data and 8-14% in 1928-1940. (instead of 14.6%). Substantial clarifications, apparently, will still be. However, the magnitude of the changes that have taken place should not be underestimated.
In general, and alternative estimates allow us to say that at the cost of incredible efforts in the shortest historical period, for two and a half five-year plans (1928–1940), an industrial breakthrough was made in the USSR, which created the basis for the transformation of the USSR into a powerful industrial power. In the 30s. to a large extent, it was possible to reduce the qualitative gap between domestic industry and the leading Western powers. The most important industries were created in the country modern industry. The distribution of productive forces has changed significantly. The former national outskirts were drawn into the orbit of industrial progress. Already in 1935, electricity generation exceeded the level of 1913 by 13.5 times and 52 times the level of 1921. In terms of industrial production, the Soviet Union came first in Europe and second in the world. On the eve of the war, the USSR ranked first in the world in the extraction of manganese ore and the production of synthetic rubber. True, Stalin and official propaganda preferred not to talk about the fact that the accelerated growth of industry was achieved through the destruction of the productive forces of the countryside, through a sharp decline in the standard of living of the majority of the population, through profound deformations of the entire reproduction process. The outstripping growth of group "A" was determined by massive capital investments. Of the total amount of 65.8 billion rubles invested in industry during the years of the pre-war five-year plans, 83% of investments were spent on the production of means of production, and only 17% on the production of consumer goods. The entire system of planned management was adapted to the solution of technical and production problems, and not to raising the living standards of the people. It is characteristic that in 1909-1913, at the time of the last pre-revolutionary industrial boom, the share of gross capital investment in GDP was 12-14%, and in 1920-1938. – 25–29% (twice as high). But at the same time, per capita personal consumption grew 3.5 times slower than per capita GDP. Obviously, this is the price for non-complex modernization, which was again paid by the population.
During all the years of industrialization, funds were transferred from agriculture to industry. As a result, in 1928-1940. main production assets industries grew 2.5 times, and agriculture - 1.2 times. Neither in the 30s nor in the 40s. in agriculture, there was no growth in production. On the contrary, the yields of grain and industrial crops decreased. During the five years (1928-1932) the output of animal husbandry and poultry farming was almost halved. The production of meat, milk, eggs in 1934 was lower than in 1919.
The cost of the industrial breakthrough was multimillion-dollar human losses, comparable only to losses in a destructive war. Progress during these years was limited mainly to heavy industry, construction and transport. With the development of the automotive industry, due attention was not paid to the development of the road network, the infrastructure necessary for the normal functioning of production was not created. In the 30s. practically ignored the technical development of light industries.
The recognition by Stalin and his entourage of the inevitability of a military clash with the capitalist world among all the tasks of industrialization brings to the fore the problem of strengthening the country's defense capability. Defense spending in the second five-year plan increased almost fourfold compared to the first. In the summer of 1933, the Labor and Defense Council adopted a program for the construction of warships, including 8 cruisers, 50 destroyers, and 76 large submarines. Already in 1933-1934. New systems of artillery and small arms are being put into service with the Red Army. As a result of the increase in the capacity of the aviation industry, by 1937 the number of aircraft factories reached 57. For this reason, especially fast growth military spending and capital investment. As a result of the revision of the defense construction program of the Third Five-Year Plan, the volume of capital investments in the defense industry increased 6.3 times; respectively, the average annual growth rate of production of military-industrial people's commissariats in 1938-1940. amounted to 141.5% instead of 127.3% provided for by the third five-year plan. The redistribution of material resources in favor of the military industry causes extreme tension with the fulfillment of the plans of enterprises and people's commissariats of the "civilian" industry. In 1939 it was already a quarter state budget went to the defense, in 1940 - the third part, in 1941 - 43.4%. According to Marshal G.K. Zhukov, in the last pre-war years, the development of the defense industry was at the limit of what was possible for peacetime: “An even greater tilt in this direction ... led to a change, a rebirth of the very structure of the national economy.”
Thus, the outcome of Stalin's modernization is highly ambiguous. Thanks to the forced industrialization, the qualitative ordinal lag domestic economy from the West was temporarily overcome. By the end of the 30s. The USSR became one of three or four countries in the world capable of producing virtually any kind of the most modern industrial products. At the same time, something else is also obvious: the modernization processes in the country are acquiring a one-sided, specific character. In the 30s. the Soviet economy takes on a "camp" appearance. At the same time, the trend towards its total militarization, complete subordination to the production of weapons, begins to gain momentum. Repeating only technical achievements and some organizational forms advanced countries West in isolation from the socio-cultural and general civilizational, the Soviet leadership laid the subsequent lag behind the country. The mobilization model of modernization, by virtue of its nature, was not focused on creating a mechanism for self-development and self-regulation; for this reason alone, the entire Soviet economic system remained ineffective.
But even after Stalin's bloody industrialization, the USSR continued to lag behind the developed countries in many respects. The production of the main types of industrial products per capita remained in the country much lower than in most countries of Western Europe and the USA. Thus, electricity generation, steel smelting, coal mining, cement production, textile production per capita accounted for from half to a quarter of the US. The share of manual labor even in the most progressive branches of production exceeded 50% and was the largest in Europe.
In other words, Stalin's modernization, having given its answer to the historical challenge, created serious problems for everything that followed. sustainable development economy, for the country's movement towards post-industrial development.
collective farm system. By the end of 1932 - beginning of 1933, a system of centralized management of collective farms was taking shape, headed by the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR. In order to finally break the peasantry and complete collectivization, in 1933, under the MTS, emergency party bodies were formed - political departments, controlled only by the political department of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR. Thus, the principles of strict centralization, directiveness, leveling, which had previously been established in industry, extended to agriculture. The political departments, endowed with broad powers, ensured the fulfillment of plans for sowing and harvesting, controlled the issuance of workdays, identified "pests", and carried out cleansing of collective farms. Being formally cooperative farms (on such grounds as the election of governing bodies, the convening of general meetings to resolve issues of internal life, the possession of collective property), the collective farms resolved virtually all agrotechnical issues under direct control party and state bodies. They sold most of their harvest through obligatory grain deliveries at prices 10–12 times lower than market prices. Another part of the harvest was in the form of payment in kind by the MTS for the cultivation of collective farm fields. In order to avoid "squandering" all collective farm grain, including the seed fund, was brought to state elevators. Having created a system of forced withdrawal of grain from the countryside, the political departments were liquidated at the end of 1934. By this time, the inefficiency of purely administrative methods of managing collective farms was revealed. The fall in gross grain harvests (the average grain yield in 1932 was only 5.7 centners per hectare compared to 8.2 centners in 1913), as well as the aggravation of the socio-political situation in the country after the famine of 1932–1933, is forcing the party leadership to make certain changes in the management of agriculture.
The new exemplary "Charter of the Agricultural Artel", adopted in 1935 at the II Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers, provided the peasants with "some kind of democracy" in management in deciding questions of exclusion from the collective farm. Stalin, when discussing it, was forced to meet the desire of the majority of the peasants to have a personal subsidiary farm and suggested that the collective farmer be left with his "private farm, small, but personal." The new statute, which assigned household plots of land to collective farmers, gave them the right to keep livestock on them, and allowed the sale of their products on the market, more clearly than the 1930 statute defined the limits of the socialization of the countryside. Until that time, using the imperfection of the old charter of 1930, employees of the land authorities, by hook or by crook, reduced the size of their personal subsidiary plots.
However, many wishes of the peasants were not taken into account. After the introduction of the passport system in the cities, rural residents did not receive passports, thereby not obtaining freedom of movement and choice of occupation. The approximate charter of 1935 fixed the “residual” principle of distributing collective farm products according to workdays only after the collective farm fulfilled the “first commandment” - the priority delivery of grain for obligatory deliveries to the state, the backfilling of seed, fodder and insurance funds, etc. Only this approach created the possibility of guaranteed to pump food and raw materials out of the village in the required quantities. Leaving a minimum for itself, the village ensured the implementation of industrialization programs, the supply of cities and the army.
By 1937, collectivization was actually completed. By this time, 93% of peasant farms were united in 243.7 thousand collective farms. A new type of economy emerged. Two masters appeared on the earth - the collective farm and the state. But the decisive word remained with the state. The rights of collective farmers, fixed in the new charter, were not supported by any guarantees and were constantly violated. The next chairman of the board of the collective farm was usually imposed by the district authorities general meeting. The concentration of machine technology in state ownership (MTS) economically placed collective farms and state farms in a subordinate and dependent position.
Even a slight weakening of the administrative pressure in 1935 had a positive effect on the development of agriculture. Since 1935, agricultural production began to grow, which, together with a reduction in grain exports, made it possible to abolish the card supply system in cities. In 1937, the gross grain harvest reached 97.5 million tons against 73.3 million in 1928. The supply of agricultural machinery and chemical fertilizers to the countryside played an important role in increasing yields and improving the situation of the peasantry. By the end of the 30s. the MTS system had 366,000 tractors. The advantages of concentration of technology and labor, more rational use of land, and the introduction of scientific achievements affected.
Since 1939, in connection with the aggravated military danger and the creation of strategic food reserves, the methods of managing the agrarian sector have been tightened again. For members of collective farms, a mandatory annual norm of workdays is established. For its non-fulfillment, the collective farmer could lose his personal plot - in fact, the only means of subsistence. Thus, the work of the collective farmer finally acquires a dependent, semi-serf character. In the same 1939, a new tax was established: under the Law on Agricultural Tax, collective farmers were obliged to pay the state for each fruit tree and each garden bed of their subsidiary farm, regardless of the harvest. At the same time, the amount of mandatory state deliveries to collective farms increased.
Thus, collectivization and the formation of the collective farm system destroy the entire habitual way of life in the countryside. Moral principles, work ethic, clothing and norms of behavior become different. The system of “organizational recruitment” of the labor force in industry, service in the army lead to a general reduction rural population. As a result of a sharp turn in economic relations and methods of management, the agrarian sector acquires a dependent, secondary character in the Soviet economy, and the peasants themselves become second-class citizens.
The most important directions for the development of the economic mechanism in the education system
Questions for revision and discussion
1. Define the concept of "education".
2. Define a strategic goal public policy in the field of education.
3. List the priority tasks, the implementation of which will allow achieving the strategic goal of the state policy in the field of education.
4. What are the directions of reforming the education system in our country? What target reference points stand out in this case?
5. How is the concept of "education system" revealed in the Law of the Russian Federation "On Education"?
6. Why among constituent parts system of education a special place is given to state educational standards and educational programs?
7. What is the difference between general education and professional programs?
8. Define work activity.
9. Define the concept of "profession".
10. Describe the levels of vocational education in Russia.
11. What does a multi-stage system mean vocational training personnel?
12. What features define education as a branch of the national economy?
Chapter 2. Economic mechanism of the education system
The main problem covered in this chapter is to understand the essence and characteristics of the economic mechanism in the field of education, as well as to identify the main directions of its development.
The economy of any country, as you know, is a complex economic organism, consisting of many enterprises and industries, in connection with this, a mechanism is needed that can organize the functioning of the economic life of both the country as a whole and an individual economic entity.
AT general view economic mechanism can be defined as a way of managing, represented by a set of forms, methods and tools of economic management.
In its composition, the economic mechanism is complex and forms a unity of such interconnected elements (subsystems) as economic, legal and organizational. So, as part of its economic subsystem, such forms as planning, forecasting, financing, pricing, taxation, etc., as well as such tools as plan, price, credit, salary, etc., are distinguished. The legal subsystem includes legislative acts of the state on labor and economic activity, taxation and others regulations and government and local government regulations. The organizational subsystem, which plays a significant role in management, includes the organizational structure of management, the management apparatus, control over economic activity in all parts of the country's economy. Scheme of control at the state and municipal levels and bodies exercising it in public sector and, in particular, in education, can be presented in the following form (Fig. 2.3).
Historically, two polar types of economic management of the economy have developed: administrative-command and market. At the same time, as is known, none of these types was presented in its pure form in any country. AT different countries there is an unequal ratio of market and planned methods of management. Οʜᴎ were used both in the centrally planned and in the market economy, but their ratio was different. So, in a market economy, a decisive role is assigned to economic methods, while in a planned-centralized economy - to command methods of management.
World experience in the development of countries confirms that the mechanism market regulation social production is universal if it is supplemented by state regulation of the economy.
Figure 2.3 - The structure of the bodies exercising budgetary and financial control in Russian Federation
In this case, the balance of interests of producers and consumers is ensured. Thanks to competition and prices, the market is able to quickly change the structure and volume of supply, balance them with demand, quickly respond to the need for new goods and services, which leads to an increase in the efficiency of the economy.
At the same time, with all the positive aspects, the market mechanism is not capable of ensuring the development of education and healthcare, solving the problems of employment, the country's defense capability, space exploration, the development of fundamental science, the creation of an environmental protection system, and much more. For this reason, it is extremely important to apply state regulation of various fields of activity, in which the listed problems would be solved in the interests of society as a whole.
For this reason, the driving force behind the development of society can be a rationally organized economic mechanism that would correspond to state of the art developed countries. In the absence of such a correspondence, the economic mechanism hinders, slows down the development of the education system, and there is a need to reform it.
The program for reforming the economic mechanism of the education system in our country was developed in connection with the transition to market relations. This program took into account the specific historical features of Russia, as well as the objective patterns and trends in the functioning of education in developed countries peace. It includes the following goals:
Ø strengthening and development of the material and technical base of education;
Ø improving the quality of student education and professional training of specialists;
Ø securing highly qualified personnel in educational institutions;
Ø attracting specialists from other sectors of the national economy;
Ø Improving the efficiency of using the creative potential of highly qualified specialists.
The implementation of these goals contributes to the formation of the basic directions of the economic mechanism in educational institutions.
These areas are based on a number of basic principles: legal regulation of economic relations in the education system; development of independence of educational institutions in solving a wide range of production, financial and social issues; regulation of education at the sectoral and regional levels based on targeted programs.
In new economic conditions emerging in Russia, the economic mechanism of the education system provides for a number of areas:
1) the transition from the allocation of funds to educational institutions from the budget for individual items of expenditure to financing according to standards that comprehensively reflect the target orientation of the activities of these institutions;
2) a combination of budgetary or sectoral financing of the activities of educational institutions with the development of various types of paid educational services provided on the basis of contracts with individuals and legal entities. At the same time, there should not be a reduction in budget allocations for financing educational institutions by replacing services not paid by the population with paid services;
3) redistribution and delimitation of managerial functions between educational institutions and higher authorities, the use of predominantly economic methods of managing the financial and economic activities of educational institutions, strengthening in connection with this the planned, economic and financial independence of these institutions;
4) improvement of the organizational structures of education management and the creation in this regard of sectoral and intersectoral, regional and interregional educational, scientific and industrial associations, firms, associations, etc.;
5) development of independence of labor collectives of educational institutions in solving basic issues of their production and economic activities and social development;
6) establishing a close dependence of material and moral incentives for the labor collectives of educational institutions and remuneration of employees on the results, quality and efficiency of their work.
In these areas, the development of the economic mechanism in education is currently taking place, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ corresponds to modern economic conditions.
This economic mechanism made it possible to radically change the economic and organizational activities of educational institutions.
The activities of state and municipal educational institutions are based on multi-level and multi-channel financing.
In the field of education, a non-state sector has been created and is being further developed, represented by non-state educational organizations.
Today, the organizational structures of education management are being improved, which is manifested in the development of the integration of educational and scientific institutions, as well as manufacturing enterprises in educational-scientific-industrial complexes. Such complexes can be formed as a single legal entity, when the educational institution includes universities, scientific departments, colleges, schools and others. educational institutions, as well as in the form of a union legal entities in the form of union, association. When merging educational institutions on a territorial basis, regional educational associations are formed.
The successful functioning of these complexes allows us to solve the problems of improving the efficiency and quality of the educational process, the continuity of educational programs at different levels, strengthening the connection between education, science and production, mastering modern technologies for training personnel, as well as more complete and efficient use of available material, human and information resources.
An example of such activity is the educational, scientific and pedagogical complex of the Volgograd State Pedagogical University, which was created more than 15 years ago on a voluntary basis. It includes a male pedagogical lyceum (the only educational institution in Russia that provides pre-professional pedagogical training for future male teachers), a city gymnasium, three pedagogical colleges, an advanced training institute for educators, as well as its structural elements are the Mikhailovsky branch of the university Institute of Problems of Personally-Oriented Education, Institute of Pedagogical Informatics and Information Technologies, Center for Pedagogical Innovations.
Mikhailovskoye Higher Pedagogical School (college) is another educational institution, on the basis of which an educational-scientific-pedagogical complex (UNPK) was created. Today it consists of institutions additional education(Children's Youth Sports School, Center for Culture and Arts), elementary school/ kindergarten, two secondary schools, a pedagogical college, a branch of the VSPU, a center for advanced training. It has a training and production department, a research center, a technical center, an information and analytical center, a trade union center, a sports club "Start", a united methodological room, a socio-psychological service, a corporate information library network, hotel Druzhba, its centralized accounting department.
In the new economic conditions, educational institutions have received a fairly large degree of independence in decision-making when planning their development directions, for example, in choosing specialties for which specialists will be trained in the future. Independence is also manifested in the possibility of developing and approving new curricula, programs of educational work, as well as plans for the socio-economic development of an educational institution.
Introduction
Chapter 1. Fundamentals of the theory and methodology for studying the economic mechanism of society 13
1.1 Theoretical and methodological principles of the study of the economic mechanism 13
1.3 Economic environment for the development of the economic mechanism 52
Chapter 2 Directions for the development of the economic mechanism Russian economy on the present stage 68
2.1 Competitiveness of the subjects of the economic mechanism 68
2.2 Economic integration as the main direction of development of modern forms of management and management 85
2.3 Strengthening the role of the state in the functioning of the economic mechanism of the modern Russian economy 114
Conclusion 146
References 170
Introduction to work
Relevance of the research topic. The economic mechanism is a phenomenon of objective reality. Without disclosing the essence of the economic mechanism, it is impossible to get a correct idea of the structure of economic life, and even more so to ensure the effective participation of a person in the organization of the productive process. Without knowing the economic mechanism, it is impossible to improve, rebuild or rebuild it.
The recent history of the transformation of the Russian economy testifies to two main reasons for the actualization of the problems of the theory and practice of the development of the economic mechanism.
The first is connected with the historical evolution of the forms of organization of production, which led to the emergence of a vertically integrated form of organization of social reproduction, which predetermines the dominance of the state-corporate stage of development of society.
The second reason is related to the transformational processes taking place in the Russian economy, which have qualitatively changed the conditions for managing - a different sphere of life of economic entities has developed, which is characterized by a variety of forms of ownership, market principles management, qualitatively new systems, complexes and forms of management have appeared. This is due to the development of new industries, with an increase in the differentiation and integration of individual industries, with the deepening of the international division of labor, the need for a transition to a post-industrial and information society; the growing dependence of the Russian economy on the world economy; development of economic globalization. These factors have led to an increasing complication of the structural components of the economy, including not just an increase in the number of its elements, but a change in the quality parameters of the latter, as well as the complication of conditions, systems and management mechanisms at various levels. economic system.
All this necessitated a deeper study of the essence, content, forms of economic management and management, the study of trends in the development of the economic mechanism of modern Russia.
The degree of development of the problem.
The basis of the author's concept of the development of the theory and practice of the economic mechanism was the scientific development of Russian and foreign researchers of economic problems at various levels of the economic system, the corporate mechanism of economic management, and the historical development of economic organization.
Management problems in economic science have been relevant since the time of F. Quesnay, A. Smith, K. Marx, A. Bogdanov, K. Bucher, D.M. Keynes, are developed and deepened by Yu.M. Osipov, Yu. Olsevich, A. Buzgalin, V.T. Ryazanov, M.P. Afanasiev, L.I. Abalkin, J. Schumpeter, J. Robinson, F. Hayek, V.I. Cherkovets, D.S. Lvov, O.B. Braginsky, F.I. Shamkhalov, A.S. Marshalova, A.S. Novoselov, V.N. Leksin, A.N. Shvetsov and other scientists. The works of these scientists laid the theoretical and methodological prerequisites for studying the problems of management and the economic structure of the economic system.
The founders of the modern theory of the economic mechanism can undoubtedly be considered domestic scientists, and, above all, Yu.M. Osipov, whose works reveal the features of the economic structure of the economy, present an original concept of the economic mechanism, which combines the study of the economy, the economic economic mechanism, its crises and transformations, and the economic mechanism of neo-industrial society.
Importance for the development of theoretical and methodological foundations The economic mechanism is played by the works of economists who worked in the pre-perestroika period and for a long time dealt with various aspects of the problem under study. These include L.I. Abalkin, E.P. Dunaev, E.S. Gorodetsky, L.B. Reznikov, G.A. Yeghiazaryan, V.M. Ivanchenko, V.N. Cherkovets, S.S. Dzarasov, M.G. Lapusta, V.V. Sheremet, P.G. Bunich and others.
The most developed are the problems associated with the study of the mechanisms of management of individual subjects of the economic system. Management processes at a separate enterprise are studied in the works of S. Avdasheva, S. Bulgakova, V. Dementiev, N. Rozanova, G. Kleiner, A. Alpatov, Yu. Yakutin, A. Yudanov and other scientists. The works of these authors reflect the problems of the evolution of industrial enterprises, the direction of their reform and restructuring, determining the place of enterprises in the system of competitive relations.
Economic management at the regional level is studied by A. Adamescu, V. Kistanov, A. Marshalova, A. Novoselov, A. Granberg, A. Shvetsov, V. Leksin, O. Bogacheva, R. Schniper and others. problems related to the theory and practice of regional management: problems of the functioning of the regional reproduction process, the territorial division of labor and relations of regional ownership, relationships and interdependencies of the regional reproduction process, economic interests regional reproduction, methods of regulation of the regional reproduction process.
New forms of management associated with the integration trends in the development of the Russian economy, the evolution of integration structures, and various forms of corporate structures associated with this (FIGs, TNCs, sectoral interregional corporations, associations municipalities, associations of economic interaction), are studied in the works of Yu. Vinslav, V. Maslakov, M. Glazyrin, G.D. Antonova, O.P. Ivanova, S. Gubanov and others.
At the same time, it should be noted that now, in the context of the transformation of the Russian economic system and individual business entities, new prerequisites have appeared for further development of the problems of theory, methodology and practice of the economic mechanism, this determined the choice of the topic, goals and objectives of the dissertation research.
Purpose and objectives of the study.
The aim of the study is to develop theoretical and methodological foundations for analyzing the conditions, factors and directions for the development of the economic mechanism of the modern Russian economy.
In accordance with this goal, the following tasks are set in the dissertation:
Develop theoretical and methodological principles for the study of the economic mechanism;
Determine and explore the content, functions, structure and features of the economic mechanism of modern Russia;
Reveal the features of the economic environment for the development of the economic mechanism;
To give a scientific justification for modern directions and trends in the development of the economic mechanism of the Russian economy at the present stage;
Investigate the evolution of forms of management and management, determine the correspondence between local and global trends of this evolution;
To clarify the concept of competitiveness in relation to the subjects of the economic mechanism, to identify factors for increasing competitiveness at various levels of the economic system;
Determine the role of the state in the formation and functioning of the economic mechanism of the modern Russian economy.
The subject of research in the dissertation is the evolution of economic relations of the economic mechanism, which have their own characteristics and patterns of development in the complex organization of the post-industrial economy. The object of the study was the economic entities of the Russian economic system and the forms of their interaction.
Methodological and theoretical foundations of the study.
The theoretical basis of the dissertation work was a generalization of the conceptual developments of leading domestic and foreign scientists in the field of economic theory and economic mechanism. In the dissertation, general scientific principles were used in the research process: system analysis, dialectical method, reproduction approach, as well as special methods economic research - factor analysis, method of systematization, etc.
The information base of the study was the legislative and regulatory acts of the Government of the Russian Federation, Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation, data from the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, analytical data, statistical materials published in the press, and the author's own research.
The scientific novelty of the research results is that:
the author's interpretation of the concepts of "economic system" and "economic mechanism" is given, which consists in distinguishing them according to the role of economic entities and the features of their interaction: the economic system is a complex social set of economic entities and economic relations between them, which is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, nonlinearity immanent connections and relationships, as well as general behavior; the economic mechanism should be considered as a way to implement the interaction of economic entities, as a socially recognized mechanism through which it is possible to make decisions in the process of production, consumption, exchange and distribution of goods;
the theory of the economic mechanism has been deepened: on the basis of the theory of decision-making, it has been substantiated that the economic mechanism can be defined as a system of direct and feedback links that are in the nature of information flows, management decisions and organizational and administrative activities based on the distribution of property objects in society, state legislation, state regulation (management, planning, etc.), economic relations, primarily commodity-money, based both on the coordination and subordination of economic interests involved in this system of economic entities that perform the functions of interaction of production, distribution, exchange and consumption on all levels of the economy. In this regard, three subsystems were identified in the economic mechanism: decision-making, informational and motivational;
It is proved that the development of the economic mechanism of Russia corresponds to the progressive global trend in the evolution of economic relations, which manifests itself in the development of vertical integration as the highest form of organization of social reproduction, which predetermines the dominance of the state-corporate stage of development of the modern economic system;
The most effective forms of economic integration for the Russian economy are identified - sectoral interregional corporate mesostructures, their advantage and uniqueness are justified - the freedom of "entry" and "exit" from the "network" of cooperation and cooperative ties; development and strengthening of the most effective cooperative ties; an unlimited number of participants and arbitrarily “long” chains of interconnections (technological, economic, financial), the ability to integrate resources by a different number of participants in the structure for investing in projects to create new and improve existing industries and cooperations; preparation of conditions for the creation of possible future integration formations (corporations, holdings, alliances, etc.) and evaluation of their effectiveness;
The criterion for the formation of integrated structures in the process of evolution of the economic mechanism, which in modern conditions are the technological and financial and economic expediency of joining new assets (enterprises); significantly more high level corporate control of subsidiaries (75% and above); organizational and legal transformation (including mergers, consolidation within and between holdings, transition to a single share in holdings, etc.);
Based on the analysis of modern forms of integrated management, the factors of increasing the efficiency of the functioning of the economic mechanism have been identified. By their nature, these factors are divided into two groups: exogenous (external), characterizing the interaction of vertically and horizontally integrated complexes and the entities that form them with the external environment (they include: the system of state regulation of the economic mechanism, which involves the implementation of an active industrial and investment
policy, strengthening national legislation that provides a favorable environment for the development of the competitiveness of all business entities, the degree of external economic independence and security, as well as internal economic and social stability), and endogenous (internal), determining the relationship of the socio-economic mechanism of actually integrated structures (associated with strengthening the independence and competitiveness of each business entity, as well as the factors that ensure efficient management, primarily at the micro and meso levels - this is an active economic and social policy of regional authorities, improving budgetary and tax relations at all levels of management, increasing the investment attractiveness of regional projects, expanding the infrastructure potential of the regions);
The influence of state institutions on the formation and
the functioning of the modern economic mechanism of Russia, which should be manifested in ensuring the dynamism of the development of the economic system, investment balance, stimulating vertically integrated structures, corporate governance institutions and corporate forms of organizing production, supporting
the competitiveness of the subjects of the economic mechanism at all its levels, the regulation of social and labor relations, through the development of social partnership.
Theoretical and practical significance of the work.
This dissertation contributes to the development of both general economic theory and the theory of transformation of economic systems, enriching them with a study of the problems of the content and development trends of the economic mechanism of modern society, expanding knowledge about the processes of management and integration interaction
subjects at various levels and allows you to increase the efficiency of management in the course of the formation of a new economic system corresponding to the post-industrial stage of development of society.
The conclusions and proposals presented in the dissertation can form a theoretical basis for clarifying the concept of transformation of the Russian economic system, and can also be used in business practice: in the development of targeted integrated programs, directions, and models of socio-economic development of individual subjects of the economic mechanism. The materials of the dissertation work can be used in teaching the courses: "Fundamentals of Economic Theory", "Microeconomics", "Macroeconomics", in the development of the course: "Mesoeconomics", as well as special courses: "State Regulation of the Economy", "Institutional Economics", "Theory of the Economic Mechanism" ".
Approbation of the results of the dissertation research.
The main provisions of the work were tested at various International, All-Russian, regional, interuniversity and intrauniversity conferences and seminars, at which the author made presentations and reports. In particular, these are: scientific and practical conference "Regulation of the market economy: methodology, theory, practice" (Saratov, SSEU, 2000); scientific-practical conference "Saratov region on the threshold of the XXI century: state and development prospects" (Saratov, SSEU, 2001); interregional scientific and practical conference "Mechanisms for the development of investment and innovation processes in Saratov: state, prospects, experience" (Saratov, SSTU, 2001); international scientific-practical conference "Mechanisms of structural transformation of the economy in the XXI century" (St. Petersburg, Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg GUEF, 2001), intra-university conference "Socio-economic development of Russia" (Saratov, SGSEU, 2002); international scientific conference "Information technologies in natural sciences, economics and education" (Engels, PKI, 2002).
The most significant provisions and results of the study were reflected in three published works with a total volume of 4.9 printed sheets.
The structure of the dissertation is determined by the goal, objectives and logic of the study, it includes two chapters, six paragraphs, an introduction, and a conclusion. The bibliography includes more than 300 titles.
The transition to market relations posed the problem of self-determination in the general system for economic entities reproductive relations. The desire of subjects for independence is expressed in a trend towards a change in economic relations, common to all countries, including Russia. A way of managing began to be created as an order of interaction between economic entities, on which the main “burden” of market transformations fell. All this has led to the need for a modern understanding of management as one of the most topical issues in economic theory, requiring further study and methodological justification. The theoretical prerequisite for this justification may be the position that one of the significant reasons for the inefficiency of market transformations in the Russian economic system is the underestimation of the specific factors of economic system entities. Therefore, in order for radical economic reforms to really have scientific support, it is necessary to change the content, methodology, and research methods of the specifics of economic entities. According to the author, the modern economic system of Russia should consist of a huge number of different subsystems and elements, formed in a special kind of integrity at its different levels. The functioning of such a complex hierarchy of system formations is ensured by a high degree of consistency between them and the diverse types of integration processes in its individual parts. In other words, we should talk about creating a complex competitive efficient economic mechanism corresponding to the post-industrial stage of the development of society. In recent years, significant changes have taken place in the economy of our country, which have led to the rapid development of economic science and expanded the boundaries of knowledge of economic processes. This circumstance made it possible to significantly enrich the scientific tools, with the help of which it became possible to deeply and comprehensively explore the most important aspects of modern economic life. Thanks to the use of the provisions of a number of modern methodological concepts in scientific research, it is possible to create a fairly holistic view of the economic mechanism, to develop proposals that can be recommended for practice. The study of the economic mechanism of Russia should be based, first of all, on the principle of consistency. A global breakthrough in the knowledge of the economy was an attempt to use the general systems theory to determine economic reality. Theory system analysis, using cybernetic, information and organizational-theoretical principles, has developed a common terminology for the analysis and comparison of economic systems. In the process of economic activity, economic relations between people always function as a certain system, including objects and subjects of these relations, various forms of communication between them. Under the economic system, the theory of system analysis understands the totality of elements that are in a systemic and semantic relationship with each other, as well as the interactions occurring between them and the processes arising from these interactions. This means that in the economic system of management, activity always turns out to be organized, coordinated in one way or another. The economic, or production and economic system serves material base functioning of all other spheres of society. Its main function is to satisfy the material needs of both individual members and society as a whole. It follows from this that the economic system is considered not as a link in a well-known chain of phenomena: productive forces - production relations - superstructure, but as a result of the interaction of autonomous and contradictory forces that reinforce or limit each other. An economic system is, first of all, a certain system for organizing the production, exchange, distribution and use of a social product. At the heart of this organization are the motives, interests and forces of business entities that bring it into action. Each economic entity is a very complex organizational system that has a spatio-temporal embodiment, full of inner life and various contacts with the outside world.
The economic mechanism is a complex, multifaceted concept. Briefly, the economic mechanism can be defined as a system that sets in motion the economy or the system of organization of the social economy. At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of an economic system and an economic mechanism. The economic, or production and economic system serves as the material basis for the functioning of all other spheres of the life of society. Its main function is to satisfy the material needs of both individual members and society as a whole. At the heart of the organization system are the motives, interests and forces of business entities that bring it into action. The economic activity of an individual, their groups and society as a whole is carried out under certain conditions, in a certain environment, economic environment. At the same time, the practical implementation of production by people under a certain productive organization is economic management. Management means the ability to productively organize the interaction of productive forces. In the scientific economic literature of Russia, especially in the works of Yu.M. Osipov, the views were established that a qualitatively defined type of economic activity is embodied in a management system corresponding to this type, i.e. in forming a single functional whole in agents and relationships, principles, means and methods of management. The economic system is an active self-organizing system. It should be considered as complete system . Firstly, because the relations of its subsystems, elements, subjects are determined by interdependence, interpenetration, interdependence, interconnection, interaction. Secondly, system relations are, as a rule, ordered and organized, which, of course, does not exclude the possibility of their non-linear development. Thirdly, the functioning and development of the economic system is increasingly characterized by a focus on achieving system-wide (global) goals, such as systemic survival and development. Fourth, within the framework of the economic system, there is an increasing process of removing spatial and temporal restrictions on the interaction of subsystems, subjects, and elements. Thus, the economic system in its most general form is a complex social set of economic entities and economic relations between them, which is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, non-linearity of immanent connections and relations, as well as general behavior. The economic mechanism should be considered as a way, a mechanism for the implementation of the interaction of economic entities. At the same time, as Yu.M. Osipov, each economic entity has its own economic mechanism, and also focuses on the public economic institutions (customs, rules, laws, administrative norms) that regulate its activities, as a public system of economic entities with their inherent economic mechanisms and the public economic institutions inherent in the entire system that regulate activities of business entities. Therefore, in the most expanded form, the economic mechanism can be represented as an economic system of direct and feedback links, which are in the nature of information flows, management decisions and organizational and administrative activities, based on the distribution of property objects in society, state legislation, state regulation (management, planning, etc.). p.) economic relations, primarily commodity-money, based both on the coordination and subordination of economic interests involved in this system of economic entities that perform the functions of interaction of production, distribution, exchange and consumption at all levels of the economy - micro-, meso- , macroeconomic. To reveal the content of the economic mechanism, it is necessary to investigate its essence, structure, functions, contradictions of development and features that correspond to the realities of today. Let us proceed to a detailed elucidation of the essential characteristics of the economic mechanism.
The most important characteristic of activity, both individual subjects of the economic mechanism, and the whole economic system, is the concept of competitiveness. The problem of competitiveness for foreign and domestic economic science is already sufficiently developed. Among foreign scientists, the American scientist M. Porter, who, starting from the ideas of his predecessors, created an extended theory of national competitiveness, certainly leads the list of competitiveness researchers. The basis of his concept is the efficiency of the use of factors of production (resources). “Success in international competition is determined not so much by the factors themselves as by where and how productively they are applied.” Domestic developments of competitiveness problems are more often related to the study of its individual types. The problem of the competitiveness of goods and firms has been studied the most. Recently, the problems of country (national) competitiveness have been widely discussed26. There is an approach to distinguishing the global competitiveness of the country in world markets and the country's competitiveness in national market, as well as competitiveness at the micro level (company level) in the national and world markets. There are studies of competitiveness in relation to the meso level (industries, regions, corporate systems). However, the author considers it necessary to justify his approach to competitiveness. In this regard, the purpose of this paragraph is to clarify the theoretical approaches to the study of the competitiveness of the subjects of the economic mechanism - the disclosure of its essence, the definition of types, criteria, factors specific to each level of the economic mechanism. First of all, about the concept of competitiveness. Competitiveness is the most important generalizing indicator for assessing the production, economic, organizational, financial activities economic entity, which is also the subject of competitive relations. In foreign and domestic economic literature there is no single, generally accepted definition of competitiveness. Allocate the competitiveness of goods, business entities, industries, regions, countries and, finally, business systems. However, it is possible to define general approaches to the concept of competitiveness and formulate its initial, most general definition. Applied to economic sphere Competitiveness in its most general form can be understood as “the possession of properties that create advantages for the subject of economic competition. The bearers of these properties are competitive advantage- there may be different types of products, enterprises and organizations or their groups forming industry or conglomerate associations and, finally, individual countries or their associations (regional, political, ethno-cultural), competing for leadership in various fields international economic relations» . The concept of competitiveness can have different interpretations depending on which economic entity it is applied (national economy, industry, region, firm, product or service). The difference in the characteristics and criteria of competitiveness at the level of a firm, industry, region, national economy or their grouping (regional, political, ethno-cultural) is explained by the different nature of these objects, the magnitude of the factors affecting them, as well as the difference in the goals and objectives of the study. It is advisable to start the analysis with microcompetitiveness.
The main trend in the development of modern forms of management and management at the present stage of the evolution of the economic mechanism is associated with the growth of the socialization of the economy and is manifested in the large-scale integration of productive forces, financial and industrial capital. At the same time, it must be taken into account that, according to the objective laws of formational progress, any economic system is developed to the extent that its main production link is developed. The development of the social organization of production is a consequence of its differentiation and integration and depends on the degree of development of the social division of labor, forms of ownership of the means of production, and on the management system. And the stages of the concrete historical development of the economic system are usually distinguished depending on what organizational form the main link of reproduction takes.
The market economic system gives rise to fundamentally new types of integration economic relations41. Until the 1950s, horizontal or sectoral integration dominated, and economic practice really did not know anything higher than sectoral monopoly. However, the subsequent course of socio-economic development led to the emergence of an even higher organizational form - vertically integrated, or intersectoral. Progress will not stop there either, since it is clearly evolving towards structures similar to queuing systems. But in the current conditions, it is vertical integration that embodies the highest form of organization of social reproduction and predetermines the dominance of the state-corporate stage of development of the modern economic system.
The content of integration relations should objectively be the achievement of co-direction in the development of business entities and ensuring the consistency of their economic interests. Integration ties are important both at the micro-, meso-, and macroeconomic levels of the economic mechanism. Let us consider the evolution of these connections and relations for the Russian economy. But first, it is necessary to analyze global trends and prerequisites for the evolution of integration structures.
Analyzing the world experience and systematizing it, we can single out the following main prerequisites for integration at the microeconomic level.
The main reason for the restructuring of enterprises in the form of mergers and acquisitions lies in the desire to obtain and strengthen the synergistic effect, that is, the complementary effect of the assets of two or more economic entities, the cumulative result of which exceeds the sum of the results of the individual actions of these companies. The synergistic effect in this case can arise due to economies of scale, combining complementary resources, minimizing transaction costs, increased market power due to reduced competition, and complementarity in R&D.
The prerequisites for integration are also the desire to improve the quality of management and eliminate inefficiencies, the desire to reduce tax burden, the possibility of diversifying production and using excess resources, the motive for selling "scattered", the desire to increase the political weight of the company's management and the personal motives of managers. Also, the purpose of mergers and acquisitions is to increase the capitalized value of the combined company.
In the studies of foreign scientists, it was emphasized that one of the prerequisites for the vertical integration of enterprises is the desire to minimize transaction costs. The fact that transaction costs can be significantly reduced and even prevented if economic coordination is carried out not with the help of the market, but within the firm where administrative system management is a factor not only in the emergence of firms in general, but also in their growth, including according to the rules of horizontal or vertical integration.
Vertical integration is often driven by technology links between businesses and provides economies of scale, consolidation and effective use resources. A significant source of savings in the implementation of vertical integration is the cost savings on advertising, product distribution, maintaining the optimal size of stocks.
Sidorova, Natalia Alexandrovna
The Soviet Model of Modernization: The Conservative Revolution in the Economy and the Formation of a New Economic Mechanism in the 1930s.
By the spring of 1921, the Soviet republic found itself in a severe crisis. The internal political crisis manifested itself in the emergence of contradictions between the rank and file members of the ruling party and its leadership, in the mass management system, in militarization and bureaucratization, the absence of democracy, which led to a heated discussion about trade unions.
The Soviet state was in economic and political isolation. Russia had to rely only on its own forces, on internal resources.
The political crisis was intertwined with the economic one. The country was in
economic ruin. industrial production fell 7 times, gross agricultural output amounted to 2/3 of the pre-war level. A poor harvest in 1921 exacerbated the situation. Mass famine continued in a number of areas until the autumn of the following year. The fuel crisis paralyzed transport and industry. Inflation has reached alarming proportions.
The peasants were dissatisfied with the surplus appropriation and the whole policy of "war communism". The threat of starvation was becoming imminent.
An attempt to get out of the crisis on the basis of state coercion caused v _ mass peasant uprisings (“Antonovshchina”, an insurrectionary movement in I*^Ch) Ukraine, in the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban, in Turkestan, in Western Siberia), unrest in the cities and in the fleet.
On February 28, 1921, the Kronstadt uprising took place under the slogan "All power to the Soviets, not to the parties!" The demands of the Kronstadters were, in essence, only an appeal to observe the rights and freedoms proclaimed during the revolution. ■ They did not demand the overthrow of the government. The Bolshevik leadership hastened to stigmatize the Kronstadt action as a counter-revolutionary conspiracy instigated by the Entente imperialists. A peaceful outcome of the conflict did not happen, although the Kronstadters sought open, transparent negotiations with the authorities. But the position of the latter was unequivocal: the rebels should be severely punished.
The example of Kronstadt clearly demonstrated how mercilessly any protests against the monopoly power of the Bolsheviks were suppressed.
The most acute crisis at the beginning of 1921 forced Lenin to make an agreement with the peasantry. At the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) (March 1921), a decision was made to replace the surplus appropriation with a food tax - the first step towards the New Economic Policy (NEP). From now on, it was proposed not to take away from the peasant all the "surplus" of the products grown by him, depriving him of an incentive to work, but to establish a firm tax - a percentage of the crop. The place of bare coercion was occupied by material interest. In August-September 1921, free trade in grain was allowed.
The transition to the NEP meant a radical turn from civil war to civil peace, from violent methods in government to peaceful economic leverage in the economy.
In general, the NEP period was assessed by contemporaries as a transitional stage. Some believed that the Bolsheviks, having switched to NET1u, opened the way for the Russian economy to capitalism. Therefore, their next step should be the establishment of a democratic republic. This point of view was expressed most vividly by the "Smenovekhites" - representatives of the ideological trend in the intelligentsia, who received the name from the collection of articles by the authors of the cadet orientation "Change of milestones" (Prague, 1921). Since 1918, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries have been talking about the need for a mixed economy and a certain democratization.
The Bolsheviks (Lenin, Preobrazhensky, Trotsky, and others) adhered to other ideas. They viewed the transition to the NEP as a tactical move, a temporary retreat caused by an unfavorable balance of power. Since the autumn of 1921, the Bolshevik leaders began to lean toward understanding the NEP as one of the possible paths to socialism: after a relatively long period of coexistence of the socialist and non-socialist ways, the gradual displacement of non-socialist economic forms.
Part of the Bolsheviks did not accept the NEP, considering it a capitulation, "Economic Brest".
Unlike his opponents, Lenin believed that socialism could be gradually built, relying on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This plan assumed the strengthening of the regime of the Bolshevik dictatorship * The "immaturity" of the socio-economic and cultural prerequisites of socialism was intended to compensate for terror. Political liberalization was rejected: allowing the activity of socialist parties, a free press, the creation of a peasant union, and so on.
Thus, the model of the NEP organization of society, developed by the Bolshevik leadership, primarily Lenin, in the early 20s. consisted of the following main components:
In the political and ideological field - a tough authoritarian regime
In the economy - an administrative-market system, which included a minimal connection with the world economy (reduced to foreign trade based on state monopoly), state property on a large, significant part of the average industry and trade, on railway transport; cost accounting in state industry, which operated in a limited form not at enterprises, in workshops, but only at the level of trusts; non-equivalent exchange with the countryside (gratuitous alienation of part of its products in the form of a tax in kind);! inhibition of the growth of individual large-scale peasant farming in the countryside.
Already in 1921-1924. reforms are being carried out in the management of industry, trade, cooperation, and the credit and financial sphere. In February 1921, the State General Planning Commission (Gosplan) was created.
As a result of the denationalization of small and, to some extent, medium industry, by the end of 1922, only one-third of the previously nationalized enterprises remained in the hands of the state. The largest and most technically equipped factories and plants were united in state trusts. Yugostal, Khimugol, Donugol, State Trust of Machine-Building Plants (Gomza), Severoles, Sakharotrest, etc. The general management of the trust was carried out by the Supreme Economic Council. He is ne-. redistributed the profits received by the trusts. The management of the trust was assigned only the functions of direct operational management. Equal wages were replaced by tariff wages, taking into account the qualifications of workers, the quality and quantity of products produced. In-kind forms of remuneration (“rations”) were supplanted by cash in the form of wages.
The development of commodity-money relations led to the restoration of the all-Russian internal market. Major fairs are being recreated; Nizhny Novgorod, Ba-urkinskaya, Irbitskaya, Kyiv and others. trading exchanges.. The creation of small private enterprises (with no more than 20 workers), concessions, mixed companies was allowed. than private capital.
Specific work on the implementation of the NEP began with the reform of agricultural production. The tax in kind was less than the allowance, at the same time it was lowered for the poor peasants and middle peasants and increased for the wealthy. The peasant could sell the surplus left after the tax was paid on the market, which interested agricultural producers in increasing it.
A unified agricultural tax was introduced, cooperation expanded, the village began to receive machines and implements, and land cultivation improved.
Already by 1925, the level of agricultural production of 1913 was reached. success of the new economic policy contributed to the monetary reform. In 1922, a stable currency, the chervonets, was put into circulation. Chervonets, which was equal in J, 0 to pre-revolutionary gold rubles,1 was provided with gold and other easily sold valuables and goods.
By 1924, the monetary reform was completed: copper and silver coins and treasury bills were issued instead of depreciated Soviet notes. In the course of the reform, it was possible to eliminate the budget deficit, and since October 1924 budget deficit was prohibited by law.
(The growth of industrial output in the 1920s was carried out at high rates: 1921 - 42%, 1922 - 30.7%, 1923 - 52.9%, 1924 - 14.6%, 1925 -66.1%, 1926 - 43.2%, in 1927 - 14.2%."
At the same time, heavy industry recovered faster than light industry. By the end of the 1920s, the Soviet economy as a whole reached the pre-war level.
Maintaining the indicators of industrial development achieved in the 1920s was problematic. The high growth rates during the NEP years were largely due to the “restoration effect”: equipment that was already available, but idle, was loaded, and old arable lands abandoned during the civil war were put into circulation in agriculture. When in the late 20's. these reserves dried up, the country was faced with the need for huge investments in industry in order to reconstruct old factories with worn-out equipment and create new industries.
Facing a shortage financial resources for the development of industry and having failed to mobilize domestic and foreign private capital for this, the Bolsheviks naturally took the path of ever greater centralization of the available financial resources, ousting private capital from industry and trade with the help of taxes and raising rents. All this was due to the high degree of nationalization of the NEP economy, since a worker at a private factory produced on average 2 times more products than at a state enterprise.
The rise of industry and the introduction of hard currency stimulated the restoration of agriculture. The sown area began to gradually increase. In 1925, the gross grain harvest exceeded the average annual harvest for the five years 1909-1913 by almost 20.7%.
But in subsequent years, grain production gradually decreased due to the growth in the production of industrial crops. By 1927, the pre-war level was almost reached in animal husbandry.
However, the growth of a large commodity peasant economy was restrained by tax policy / In 1922/23. was exempted from agricultural tax 3%, in 1923/24. -14%, in 1925/26 - 25%, in 1927 - 35% of the poorest peasant farms. - 9.6% of peasant households paid 29.2% of the tax amount.4
As a result of the tax policy, the rate of fragmentation of peasant farms was in the 20s. 2 times higher than before the revolution, which had a negative impact on the development of production and its marketability. By separating the farms, the wealthy villagers tried to escape from the tax pressure.
The low marketability of peasant farms led to understated exports of agricultural products and imports necessary for the modernization of the country.;
During the years of NEP, serious disproportions developed between the development of agriculture and industry, which led to economic crises.
The first crisis of 1923 arose as a result of the appearance of "scissors" in the prices of industrial goods, which were prohibitively high, and foodstuffs. The peasants could not buy the necessary goods, although there were many of them. Workers were often delayed in receiving their wages. A wave of strikes swept across the country, and there were armed clashes.
The second crisis of 1925-1926 befell the country due to the failure of the grain procurement campaign and the export-import plan. Incomplete [harvesting of grain reduced the export supply of grain, which means it reduced the purchase of equipment from abroad, which froze the construction of plants and factories in their own country. Rising prices, unemployment. As a result of the crisis of 1928, the food supply deteriorated so much that a ration card system was introduced in Moscow and Leningrad.
Thus, as the restoration period ended, the contradictions inherent in the NEP intensified. Antagonism between politics and economics grew.
Complete liberalization of market relations in the economy was not offered by any of the influential trends in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party.
At the end of the 1920s. The Soviet economy faced two "real alternatives" for development: either the continuation of the NEP, or a forced transition to "state socialism".
1b. The processes taking place in the world at the end of the 1920s and 1930s had a direct impact on the internal development of the CCCPV, being specifically refracted in it. The unity of the world was expressed in a certain synchronization of the main general civilizational processes.
“The backwardness of the USSR from the advanced states could lead to the loss of economic and political independence. In order to defend its independence, the leadership of the USSR, taking into account the processes of modernization in the capitalist countries, began to develop the issue of the pace and methods of further development of the country.
Industrialization meant the creation of a large machine production in industry and other sectors of the national economy, the transformation of the country from an agrarian to an industrial
The main features of the industrialization policy were recorded in 1920 in the GOELRO plan (State Commission for Electrification in Russia).! The XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) in December 1925 officially proclaimed a course towards industrialization.
Initially, the strategy of industrialization based on the NEP was justified. During the years of NEP, the construction of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station named after V.I.
The need to overcome technical and economic backwardness, in the absence of external sources of accumulation, the potential threat of a new world war, as well as the mobilization of internal resources for accelerated industrialization, the creation of a developed military-industrial complex contributed to a sharp increase in the "transfer of funds" from agriculture to industry, the implementation of policy "belt-tightening" in the social sphere and "tightening the screws" in politics.
The country received the main foreign exchange investments in construction from the export of bread. However, under the NEP, the economic mechanism could not guarantee sustainable grain exports. The pace of industrialization was directly dependent on the development of peasant farms. In the winter of 1927/28 an acute crisis of grain procurement broke out. Cities and the army were threatened with starvation, and the export-import plan failed.
The grain procurement crisis forced the government to switch to non-economic coercion of the peasants, the forcible seizure of grain. The grain deficit was eliminated, but the peasants began to reduce production, which is now unprofitable for them. In the winter of 1928/29 again followed by "extraordinary" measures.
An analysis of the causes of the crisis and ways out of it led to the formation of two main points of view in the party. Stalin considered the crisis to be structural: the insufficient rate of development of the industry gives rise to a commodity hunger, which makes it impossible to get bread from the peasants economic way- through exchange for manufactured goods; in turn, the small-peasant economy is unable to meet the needs of growing industry. The class aspect of the problem was emphasized: the kulak exploiter is sabotaging grain procurements. Stalin proposed concentrating all forces on the main line - in heavy industry (due to the redistribution of funds from other industries), and then, having created their own energy and metallurgical bases, domestic machine tool building, transfer the entire national economy to an industrial basis. In the countryside, it was proposed to rapidly organize large-scale collective farms.
In Bukharin's view, the crisis was caused by subjective causes. absent reserve fund manufactured goods, growth cash income the village was not balanced by taxes, which exacerbated the shortage of goods, reduced the supply of bread by the peasants on the market; the ratio of purchase prices for bread and raw crops was unfavorable for grain producers.
Bukharin put forward the normalization of the market to the forefront: raising the purchase prices for bread, buying bread abroad, raising taxes on the village "tops". He advocated a balanced development of heavy and light industry, the industrial and agricultural sectors, provided for the deployment of large collective farms in the grain regions, the industrialization of agriculture, and the creation of small enterprises for processing agricultural products in the countryside. In his opinion, the basis of the agrarian sector for a long time should have been individual peasant farmers.
Bukharin believed that one of the most important miscalculations was the establishment of an incorrect ratio of purchase prices in agriculture, unfavorable for grain producers. However, a significant increase in the prices of grain and raw materials was difficult to achieve without raising industrial prices in order to compensate the workers for the increase in the cost of products. And this, in turn, would require a new increase in agricultural purchase prices, and so on.
The essence of the problem lay in the fact that a large-scale commodity economy is able to function successfully even with falling purchase prices. It can scale up production through intensive methods and earn significant profits by increasing production volumes. But the growth of individual large-scale peasant farms was hampered in every possible way. The state did not have the means to stimulate the voluntary transition of the poor and middle peasant farms to a large-scale collective commodity economy (credits, equipment, etc.).
Small poor-middle peasant households kept afloat, moving from the commodity production of less profitable to the cultivation of more profitable crops (in response to changes in market conditions).
Disagreements over the choice of a political course ("emergency" Stalin, NEP - Bukharin) led to the formation of the so-called "right deviation" in the Bolshevik Party (1929). The Stalinist concept won, which in fact meant the abandonment of the NEP policy]
The defeat of the Bukharin group was caused not only by Stalin's control over the party apparatus, but also by the great accessibility and attractiveness of his program to the masses. This meant the removal of obstacles to the implementation of the strategy of forced industrialization and the formation of a totalitarian regime.
The transition to an industrial economy was painful. While colonial robbery and a massive influx of foreign capital helped Western countries solve the problem of finance, the USSR did not have these advantages. Nevertheless, the share of savings in the mid-20s. accounted for 10% of the national income, 29% in 1930, 40% in 1931, 44% in 1932. Later, in the 30s, it was 25-30%.
| In the Soviet model of industrialization, the emphasis was on the priority development of capital-intensive industries: energy, metallurgy, chemical industry, engineering.;
Forced industrialization was accompanied by the breakdown of the economic mechanism, which had been created until the mid-1920s. It was the NEP mechanism. It was built on self-supporting "relations, when most of the large industrial enterprises within the trust were on a self-sustaining basis. Specialized associations (syndicates), as well as self-supporting organizations, were engaged in the sale of products. Within the framework of industry, labor productivity grew, the cost of production decreased, monetary accumulations in industry itself increased, which allowed enterprises to carry out repairs, expand production, and conduct new construction.
A certain balance was observed between sectors, between the sphere of industrial construction and industrial production. Particular importance was attached to the use of skilled labor, as product quality was a priority factor. The NEP mechanism was not ideal, having growing monopoly among its main shortcomings. But at the same time, the NEP economy, built on market relations, developed quite successfully.
At the end of the 20s. the created administrative pyramid managed to destroy the NEP undertakings. "Emergency" has become the norm of economic life, a bet was made on unjustified acceleration, orders from above, a complete rejection of democracy.
The course towards "emergency" was clearly manifested during the years of the first five-year plan. The main idea of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy (for 1928/29 -1932/33) was the need for an accelerated but balanced development of the national economy) an optimal combination of accumulation and consumption funds, growth rates of heavy and light industry, industry and agriculture.
However, life violated these idealistic plans.
The scale of the tasks and the extreme limitations of material and financial resources strengthened central planning. Of the 1500 large enterprises - new buildings of the five-year plan, a group of priority (50-60 objects) was singled out. Their value reached half of the total investment in industry. But even among the shock construction projects, the most important 14 were preferred.
From the autumn of 1929, the plan began to be corrected in the direction of "accelerating" the pace of development of the national economy. Those who were against this, I.V. Stalin declared "enemies of socialism" and "agents of capitalism."
Forced industrial growth in the conditions of an acute shortage of capital limited the possibilities of material incentives for labor, led to a drop in living standards, which contributed to the growth of psychological tension in society.
Under these conditions, in late 1929 - early 1930. a course is taken for complete collectivization. The Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective farm construction” of January 5, 1930 aimed at carrying out complete collectivization by violent, command-administrative methods. The role of cooperation in the transformation of agriculture was belittled. The whole country was divided into three regions according to the pace of collectivization.
By the end of 1932, most of the peasant farms began to unite into collective farms and state farms. From limiting and ousting the kulak, they proceeded to liquidate it as a class on the basis of complete collectivization. 15% of households were dispossessed (although there were no more than 3-5% of wealthy peasant households), 25% of peasants were deprived of voting rights. All this caused irreparable damage to agricultural production.
As a result of the forced transfer of funds from the village to the city in 1932/33. famine broke out rural areas North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and claimed a huge number of lives (they give numbers from 3-5 to 8 or more million people)."
The way of life of the villagers with the work ethic of individual farming was destroyed. Collective-farm life with formal democracy, equalization"" in wages, attempts to copy the industrial type of labor organization based on the stereotyped introduction of machine technology came to replace it.
Collectivization created the necessary conditions for the implementation of the industrial leap - this is its main result. The transformation of the agricultural sector has reduced the number of people employed in agriculture in proportion to the demand for labor in industry; supported with a smaller number of employed food production at a level that does not allow long-term famine; ensured the supply of industry with irreplaceable technical raw materials.
In the mid 30s. the situation in the agricultural sector has relatively stabilized. In 1935 the card system was abolished. In the 30s. 15-20 million people were released from agriculture, which made it possible to increase the size of the working class from 9 to 23 million people.
The second five-year plan (1933-1937) set the main economic task: to complete the technical reconstruction in the country. In five years, it was necessary to master modern technical achievements, carry out comprehensive electrification, comprehensive mechanization of production processes, and ensure the widespread development of chemistry.
The plan for the second five-year plan was largely fulfilled. In 1928-1941. about 9 thousand large and medium-sized industrial enterprises were built in the USSR,
In a number of areas, the qualitative lag of Soviet industry was overcome. In the 1930s, the USSR became one of three or four countries capable of producing any kind of industrial product. The economic potential created during this period made it possible on the eve and during the war years to deploy a diversified military-industrial complex (military-industrial complex), whose products in many respects surpassed the German one.
But the leap in the development of heavy industry was bought at the price of lagging behind in light industry, the stagnation of the agrarian sector, the over-centralization of economic life, and the limiting limitation of the sphere of activity of market mechanisms.
Industrial production developed mainly extensively. The increase in the number of employees outpaced the growth in industrial output. The average annual growth rate of national income in 1928-1941. accounted for, according to some estimates, only 1%.
Directive planning has sharply increased. During the period of the first five-year plan, detailed plan assignments were determined for approximately 50 branches of large-scale industry, and during the second five-year period, for 120 each. From 1930, state sowing plans began to be developed, from 1935, state plans for the development of animal husbandry, etc.
As a result, the number of administrative and leading staff of the administrative apparatus from 1926 to 1937. increased by 3.2 times and amounted to 1313 thousand people.
Economic reforms in the early 1930s During the years of the first five-year plans in the USSR, the formation of a new economic mechanism was completed. From the five-year plan to the five-year plan, the tendency to create a specific economy of power, the essence of which is the dominance of politics over the economy and the extraordinary role of the state with its power-coercive methods, becomes more and more irresistible.
The fulfillment of the tasks of the first five-year plan was accompanied by significant difficulties - the plan for the development of industry in 1929 was not fulfilled; the construction of numerous facilities was delayed; the funds invested in them did not give a return, since the scale of investments did not correspond either to the capabilities of construction organizations, or to the state of transport and energy. Under these conditions, in order to solve the problem of savings, the authorities were forced to widely use even those measures that had previously been categorically rejected. And first of all, turn to the help of a money machine.
If the issue of money in 1928 was insignificant, then in 1929 the growth of the money supply amounted to 800 million rubles, in 1930 and 1931. approximately 1.5 billion rubles each, in 1932 2.7 billion rubles. Following the issue, free market prices rise. In the same year, 1932, their level was eight times higher than the level of 1928. The growth of the money supply, which was not secured by goods, decreased only by the mid-1930s. Compulsory "industrialization loans" are becoming an important source of additional state resources, and the sale of vodka is expanding sharply.
In 1929–1932 credit, tax and tariff reforms were carried out, which as a result seriously limited the sphere of commodity-money relations.
Reforms in the early 1930s lead to the restriction of economic incentives for the activities of enterprises and the strengthening of administrative and coercive measures. Due to the general orientation of the economy towards the priority development of heavy industry at the expense of savings in the industry itself and limiting the consumption of the population, “glaucism” is returning. At the same time, cost accounting is becoming more and more formal: practically all the profits of enterprises are deducted to the state budget, and only then funds from the budget are centrally allocated to enterprises. At the same time, the amounts contributed to the budget and payments from it are in no way connected with each other.
In the early 30s. credit to enterprises is replaced by their centralized financing. A few private enterprises remain virtually without credit and cease to be competitive.
In order to solve the growing problem of staff turnover and secure workers in enterprises, in the summer of 1931 Stalin called for an end to wage equalization. As a result, skilled workers began to receive 4–8 times more than unskilled ones. The salaries of the administrative staff have increased even more. As for non-priority sectors, such as light industry, trade, and the service sector, here low wages were frozen for a long time. The rapid expansion of the wage bill in non-consumer goods industries exacerbates commodity hunger and generates a huge wave of inflation. In turn, the acute shortage of consumer goods and the rationing system, which was in effect until 1935, seriously weaken the role of wages as the most important stimulus for the growth of labor productivity. To create social guarantees for the working class, the authorities are increasingly using administrative methods of regulating wages.
In the early 30s. private capital is almost completely squeezed out of various sectors of the economy. In 1933, the share of private enterprises in industry is reduced to 0.5%, in agriculture - to 20%, and in retail they do not remain at all. By this time, foreign concessions are also liquidated. As the market collapses, the weaknesses of state socialism and, above all, the lack of personal incentives to work are exposed. Wages, due to their rigid decree by the state, as well as interest, profit, land rent, cease to play the role of incentives for the efficient distribution of resources.
"Planned Fetishism". In search of an adequate replacement of market instruments with administrative ones, the authorities attach great importance to the indoctrination of citizens and the formation of patriotic enthusiasm. As a result, the most important element of the new economic system during the years of the first five-year plans is the high labor activity of workers. In the first five-year plan, it was expressed in reciprocal planning, socialist emulation, in the form of a movement of shock brigades.
During the years of the first five-year plan, 1,500 new industrial enterprises were put into operation; in the east of the country, a new coal and metallurgical base appeared - Uralo-Kuzbass; tractor and automobile factories. However, the first five-year plan was thwarted. Contrary to the official version, which claimed that the plan was overfulfilled, it was overfulfilled only in terms of capital investments and the production of heavy industry products.
The practice of managing that developed during the years of the first five-year plan was generally consolidated in the second five-year plan (1933-1937). He continued to orient the economy towards quantitative growth. Its main feature is the slowdown in industrialization. At the January Plenum of 1933, Stalin, arguing that there was now no need to "whip up and urge the country on," proposed to reduce the pace of industrial construction. In the new plan, the growth rate decreased to 16.5% against 30% in the first five-year period. The plan also provided for higher average annual growth rates in the production of consumer goods compared with the growth rates in the production of means of production. To this end, investment in light industry increased several times. the main task new five-year plan - the completion of the technical reconstruction of the national economy. For this reason, emphasis was placed on the development of previously built enterprises.
The second five-year plan is becoming a major milestone on the path of general state planning.
The construction of administrative coercion into a system contributes to "planned fetishism", the transformation of the plan into a universal means of resolving all political and economic problems in the country. Planning is becoming total: from the State Planning Commission to the individual worker. Enterprises are given not only the main production tasks, but also measures for the development of equipment, the use of reserves, etc. At the same time, a steady expansion of planning objects is taking place.
In the same years, agriculture was also intensively involved in the sphere of planning. From the spring of 1930, the state sowing plans included tasks for the time of the sowing campaign, and a decade later, the agricultural work plan already covered all the main agrotechnical measures. At the same time, planning was carried out from what had been achieved, plans were approved with a great delay. On the eve of the war, scientific activity becomes the object of planned work: in 1941, for the first time, a detailed plan was drawn up to accelerate technical progress in the leading branches of industry.
"Cadres decide everything!" The slogan "Technology decides everything!" did not justify itself. during the years of the second five-year plan is replaced by a new one: "Cadres decide everything!" During the years of the first five-year plans, material incentives for hard work were significantly expanded, in addition, a system of moral encouragement was introduced (diplomas, benefits, medals, honorary titles and positions).
In the last months of 1935, following the record of Alexei Stakhanov (1905–1977), a miner at the Central Irmino mine, who produced (with two assistants) on September 1 for a 6-hour shift 102 tons of coal, which was 1/10 of the daily coal production of the entire mines, the Stakhanov movement is being developed throughout the country with the approval of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. A few months later, each enterprise had its own Stakhanovite. The weavers of the Vichug textile factory in the Ivanovo region, Evdokia and Maria Vinogradova, were the first in the world to switch to servicing 100 looms.
During the years of the second five-year plan, the process of strict administration also intensifies. They began to apply repressions to truant, late, negligent workers. In 1933, political departments were created in the MTS, transport, and fisheries - emergency party and state bodies.
Features of the third five-year plan. In general, the second five-year plan, like the first, was not fulfilled in most respects, although it differed from the first in a higher percentage of fulfillment of plan targets. Labor productivity doubled (according to official data), gross industrial output increased 2.2 times, and agriculture increased 1.5 times. In 1937, more than 80% of industrial output was obtained from new or completely modernized enterprises. However, the outstripping development of the industries of group "B" did not happen, although the growth rates of the two divisions converged.
In March 1939, the Third Five-Year Plan (1938-1942) was approved at the 18th Congress of the CPSU(b). The plan again provided for the priority development of heavy industry, mechanical engineering, energy, metallurgy, and the chemical industry. In the third five-year plan, the line on the militarization of the country was continued. It was planned to accelerate the development of the defense industry, the creation of large state reserves for fuel, electricity, the construction of backup enterprises in the Urals, the Volga region, and Siberia. During the years of the Third Five-Year Plan, changes in the economic mechanism proceed in several directions. Repressions 1937–1938 had a negative impact on the fulfillment of planned targets. Therefore, an attempt was made to use measures of material and moral incentives for workers.
On December 28, 1938, allowances for continuous service were introduced to pensions and temporary disability benefits. At the same time, mandatory work books were introduced for all workers and employees, in which data were entered on the length of service and place of work, on incentives and penalties.
These measures proved insufficient to speed up the defense program. For this reason, there is a proliferation of administrative-coercive methods. The decree of June 26, 1940, which prohibited, under the threat of criminal punishment, voluntary dismissal and transfer from one enterprise to another without the permission of the administration, began an open, official assignment of workers and employees to their jobs. By the same decree, the working day was increased from 7 to 8 hours, and the 6-day working week was replaced by a 7-day one (seventh day - Sunday - day off). Absenteeism and being late for work were punished criminally. The decree of July 10, 1940 equated the production of low-quality or even incomplete industrial products with "anti-state crimes, tantamount to wrecking."
Thus, from the second half of the 1930s the command style in the management of industry is finally approved, and the one-man command and the intervention of higher bodies in the work of enterprises take exaggerated forms. By the end of the 30s. the command system of management, or the economy of power, is finally taking shape. Unlike the market economy of consumption, it was aimed not at meeting the needs of people, but at maintaining a totalitarian political system. Her main feature- non-market character, non-economic coercion to work, ignoring the law of value, subordination of economic processes to the political interests of the ruling elite, orientation of the national economy towards achieving political rather than economic results, emphasis on extensive economic growth.
