Foundations of a Planned Economy 1926–1929: Volume One — Part I

The present volume and its successor, written jointly by E. H. Carr and R. W. Davies, open the final instalment of E. H. Carr's A History of Soviet Russia . They deal with economic affairs, and the central theme is the replacement of the guided market economy of NEP by direct planning, first predominantly in financial, and later also in physical, terms. The varying fortunes of the struggle between market forces and the aims of the planners are worked out in the spheres of agriculture, industry, management of labour, trade and finance. The volume ends with a study of the build-up of the planning mechanism, culminating in the adoption of the first five-year plan in the spring of 1929. The decision of January 1930 to collectivize agriculture falls outside the period covered, but the conditions and reasons leading up to it are fully discussed. These were the opening years of a tense period of Soviet history, in which extraordinarily rapid expansion of industry was accompanied by increasingly ruthless economic pressures and political repressions Preface The Economic Order Agriculture The Harvest of 1926 The Harvest of 1927 The Harvest of 1928 Land and The Peasant Agricultural Cooperatives Kolkiiozy Sovkhozy Mechanized Agriculture The Contract System Land Consolidation The Eve of the "Break-Through" Industry Industrialization in Progress Industry in 1926 "Smooth and Stahle Growth ", 1926-1927 Under Strain, 1927-1928 Forcing the Pace, 1928-1929 Costs and Efficiency Organization of State Industry Vesenkha and the Glavki Republican and Local Industry Trusts and Syndicates The Factory Non-State Industry Cooperative and Private Census Industry Small-Scale Industry The Reshaping of Industry Self-suffidency New Technology Priority for Producer Goods The Armarments Industry New Construction