ON THE ISSUE OF THE DEGREE OF THE ECONOMIC ELITE EFFECT ON THE SOVIET STATE ECONOMIC COURSE DURING THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN
M.A. Feldman
Ural Institute of Management, Branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation
Keywords: Meeting, industry, directors, quality, marriage, economics
Abstract
The historical literature reflects the course and significance of a number of All - Union meetings of business executives in 1931-1936. However, the reasons for convening and analyzing the work of the Meeting of Senior Workers of Heavy Industry (September 20-22, 1934) remained outside the attention of researchers. The tradition of focusing on achievements and successes of the Industrial Project in the 1933-1934 overshadowed the negative phenomena in the Soviet industry, first of all, the scale of producing low-quality products, unprofitability of the heavy industry enterprises’ activity; staff turnover high rates. The country’s leadership understood the danger of maintaining such a situation in industry judging by articles in the Newspaper “Pravda” in September 1934. The precedent of the First All-Union Conference of Workers of Socialist Industry (January 30 - February 4, 1931), initiated by Stalin, suggested the format of using the experience of directors to restore order in the “socialist industry”. The analysis of the Meeting of the Leaders of Heavy Industry proceedings, published in a circulation of 15 thousand copies, allows us to draw a number of important conclusions. Representatives of the top and middle managers of Soviet industry unequivocally spoke out in favor of limiting the interference of party committees in the affairs of enterprises; opposed the assault methods of work generated by voluntarism in planning. Business executives called for expanding the enterprise rights in the fields of wages and technical rationing and establishing material incentives and technical rationing; talked about the need to abandon equalization in the field of wages. “Production commanders” pointed out the connection between the poor quality of manufactured industrial products and the everyday life of representatives of working collectives, engineering and technical personnel who lived, as a rule, in barracks; condemned cases of underfunding of housing construction. In fact, the directors’ requirements formally related to the production process became a challenge to the economic voluntarism course. The Meeting results received the support of the leadership of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry, but, judging by the coverage in Newspaper “Pravda”, drew a cautious response from Stalin.
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