The problems of mechanization of forest resources removal in the forest industry comlex of the Soviet Union in the 1930s

About the author:

Ivan V. Zykin, Cand. Sci. (Hist.), Associate Professor, Department of Socio-Economic Disciplines, Technological Institute (Branch) of the National Research Nuclear University «MIFI»; zivverh@mail.ru; ORCID: 0000-0002-9994-6036

Abstract:

The research of the problems of the Soviet Union modernization in the 1930s is still relevant. The attention of scientists is attracted by poorly studied questions of a critical era, such as the question of transformations in the forest industry complex, the analysis of which reveals positive and negative sides. Their understanding is necessary also for determination of the prospects and the solution of problems of the industry. One of the poorly studied topics is mechanization in the forest industry complex on which Communist Party and state bodies put their stake in increasing the volumes of logging and removing of forest resources.

The directions of mechanization in the industry, the dynamics of introduction, and the problems of use of the equipment are defined. The rates of mechanization of the wood removal in the civil economic organizations and labor camps are compared. The analysis of the historical sources, the address to the questions of mechanization in the sphere of forced labor, the attitude of the authorities, economic organizations, and workers to the introduction and the use of the equipment allowed investigating in a comprehensive manner the problems of mechanization of the forest industry complex of the Soviet Union. The conclusions about the incompleteness of this process, the failure to follow the plans for the mechanized removal of forest resources, preservation of manual work in the industry in the 1930s are formulated.

References:

1. Aleksandrov V. A. 2009. Mechanization of Logging Operations in Russia. Saint Petersburg: Profi. [In Russian]
2. Andreyev A. V. 1972. “The technical progress and technical and economic indicators in the logging industry”. Izvestiya Tomskogo politekhnicheskogo instituta, vol. 255, pp. 72-82. [In Russian]
3. Antufyev A. A. 1992. The Ural industry on the eve of and during the Great Patriotic War. Yekaterinburg: Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. [In Russian]
4. Gluzman V. L., Maslyukov M. F. 2001. Logging Companies of the Middle Ural.Yekaterinburg: Sokrat. [In Russian]
5. State Archive of the Perm Region. F. r-1086. [In Russian]
6. Yakovlev A. N., Kokurin A. I., Petrov N. V. (eds.). 2000. GULAG: The Main Administration of Camps. 1918-1960. Moscow: MFD. [In Russian]
7. Istoricheskiye materialy. “The history of the USSR industrialization. 1929-1932: documents and materials”. http://istmat.info/node/7684 [In Russian]
8. Hlevnyuk O. V. (ed.). 2004. The History of the Stalinist Gulag. Late 1920s — First Half of the 1950s: Collection of Documents in 7 vols., vol. 3. Economy of the Gulag. Moscow: ROSSPEN. [In Russian]
9. Standartizatsiya i ratsionalizatsiya. 1933. The Results of the Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan of the USSR National Economy. Moscow, Leningrad: Standartizatsiya i ratsionalizatsiya. [In Russian]
10. Zykin I. V. 2015. “The Green Gold” of the industrialization. The forest industry complex of the Ural region at the end of 1929 — the first half of 1941. Nizhny Tagil: Nizhny Tagil State Social Pedagogical Institute (branch) of the Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University. [In Russian]
11. Zykin I. V. 2014. “The forest industry complex of the Ural region (the end of 1929 — the first half of 1941)”. Cand. Sci. (Hist.) diss. Nizhny Tagil. [In Russian]
12. Kuznetsov A. F. 1979. “The struggle of the party organizations for the development of the forest, woodworking, and pulp and paper industry of the Ural in 1933-1937”. Cand. Sci. (Hist.) diss. abstract. Sverdlovsk. [In Russian]
13. Levin V. 1930. “The industry in the plan for 1931”. Planovoye khozyaystvo, no 12, pp. 124-156. [In Russian]
14. Maksimova L. A. 2011. “The role of the repressed population in the economic modernization in the European Northeast”. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference “The History of Stalinism: Repressed Russian Province”, Smolensk, October 9-11, 2009, pp. 274-285. Moscow: ROSSPEN, Fond “Prezidentskiy tsentr B. N. El’tsina”. [In Russian]
15. Istoricheskiye materialy. “On working conditions in forest areas (approved by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviks on 20 February 1931). Appendix no 7 to p. 42/59, pr. PB no 27”. http://istmat.info/node/51570 [In Russian]
16. Suslov A. B. (ed). 2008. Society and Power. The Russian Province. 1917-1940. The Perm Territory: Documents and Materials. Perm: Bank kul’turnoy informatsii. [In Russian]
17. Petrov B. S. 1952. Essays on the Development of the Ural Forest Industry. Moscow, Leningrad: Goslesbumizdat. [In Russian]
18. Istoricheskiye materialy. “Decision of the commission of execution at the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR ‘On the work of the People’s Commissariat of the timber industry in harvesting and transporting timber’. 11 March 1933”. http://istmat.info/node/36009 [In Russian]
19. Russian State Archive of the Economy. F. 7637. [In Russian]
20. Makurov V. G., Filatova A. T. (eds.). 2005. The Soviet Forest Economy. Moscow-North. 1917-1941: Collection of Documents and Materials. Petrozavodsk: Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of Karelian Research Centre Russian Academy of Sciences; State Archive of Social-Political Movements and Formations of the Republic of Karelia; National Archive of the Republic of Karelia. [In Russian]
21. Sushkov A. V., Yarkova E. I. 2013. “Heads of the industrial and transport department of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviks in the 1930s: social and professional portrait”. Proceedings of the 11th All-Russian Scientific Conference “Industrial Ural. Bakunin Readings. Industrial Modernization of the Ural in the 18th-21st Centuries”, Ekaterinburg, September 26-27, 2013, in 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 384-395. Yekaterinburg: Izd-vo UMTS UPI. [In Russian]
22. Tiunov V. 1977. Industrial Five-Year Plan of the Western Ural. Perm: Permskoye kn. izd-vo. [In Russian]
23. Shevyrin S. A. “The development of the forest industry in the Prikamye in the 1930s-1950s”. http://www.politarchive.perm.ru/publikatsii/stati/razvitie-lesnoj-otrasli-v-prikame-v-1930-1950-e-go... [In Russian]
24. Shegelman I. R. 2008. Forest Transformations (15th-21st Centuries). Petrozavodsk: PetrGU. [In Russian]