Soviet Military Expenditure and the Armaments Industry, 1929-33: A Reconsideration

University of Glasgow

Soviet Military Expenditure and the Armaments Industry, 1929-33: A ReconsiderationAuthor(s): R. W. DaviesSource: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4 (1993), pp. 577-608Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/153165 .

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EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES, Vol. 45, No. 4, 1993, 577-608

Soviet Military Expenditure and the Armaments Industry, 1929-33:

A Reconsideration

R. W. DAVIES*

Previous studies of the armaments industries

THE MASSIVE STUDIES OF Soviet industrial power carried out by American economists in the first two decades after World War II lacked detailed information about the development of the armaments industries' in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1937-40 some official figures had been published for armaments industry production, and for investment in the armaments industry; these proved compatible with the unpublished 1941 plan, acquired by the Americans from the Germans at the end of the war.2 But for the years before 1937 the only available series showed (in current prices) the expenditure of the state budget on the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs (NKVoenMor or NKVMD). The NKVoenMor budget apparently covered munitions procurement as well as pay and maintenance of the armed forces. The published annual figure for budget expenditure on the NKVoenMor increased at a moderate pace in the years 1928/29 to 1933; it then rose by as much as 253% in the single year 1934, the year after Hitler assumed power in Germany, as the following figures show (in million rubles at current prices):

1928/29 1929/30 Oct-Dec 1931 1932 1933 1934 1930

880 1046 434 1288 1296 1424 5019

Source: See Cooper (1976), p. 7.

On the basis of this series, and also of Bergson's estimate of military procurement in 1928, Moorsteen & Powell concluded that armaments production was at a fairly low level and increased only slowly throughout 1929-32.3

More detailed statistics for military expenditure in 1929/30 and 1931 were returned by the Soviet government to the World Disarmament Conference held under the auspices of the League of Nations. These returns, which were compatible with the NKVoenMor budget figures, are summarised in Table 1. They purport to show that expenditure on 'war material', including arms, ammunition, and 'engineer and other warlike stores', amounted to 191 million rubles in 1929/30; the equivalent item for 1931 was only 153 million rubles.4 In his well known study of industrial production Warren Nutter based his estimate for defence production on the figure for 1931,



R. W. DAVIES

assuming that 'war material' was equivalent to military production. Like Bergson and Moorsteen & Powell, he accepted the published NKVoenMor budget figures. On the assumption that military production took the same share of total budget expenditure on the NKVoenMor in 1932 and 1933 as in 1931, he concluded that military production still amounted to a mere 170 million rubles (in current prices) in 1933.

One other piece of information was available at the time when the American studies were prepared. At the XVIII Party Congress in March 1939 M. Kaganovich stated that 'in the period 1933-1938 defence industry grew by 286% (pokazala rost na 286%)'.5 The published figure for gross production of the defence industry commissariats in 1938 was 11 556 million rubles in 1926/27 prices;6 hence the equivalent production in 1933 amounted to some 2944 million rubles (presumably also in 1926/27 prices). This figure was entirely incompatible with Nutter's 170 million rubles in current prices.

Only Moorsteen & Powell noticed the implied figure of 2944 million rubles in 1933. They uneasily reconciled it with the published figure for the NKVoenMor by assuming that most of the defence goods produced in 1933 were not purchased by the Red Army until 1934. Their index for munitions production is as follows (1928 = 100):

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1937 1938

125 150 150 150 400 825 2500 3625

_

They conclude that in 1928-37 there were 'two fairly distinct subperiods, an early one of relative stability in defence outlays and production [1928-32] and a later one of rapid increase'.7

This assessment differs sharply from the non-quantitative evidence which was already available when these American studies were undertaken. In the 1930s well informed journalists, such as W. H. Chamberlin, published accounts of visits to factories and factory sites which emphasised that defence considerations played a major role in industrial planning in the early 1930s, particularly after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931.8 British, French, German and Italian diplomats also reported considerable military construction and arms development during the first five-year plan, much more intensive from the beginning of 1932.9

The last of these major American studies of Soviet economic power was published in 1966. In the ensuing decade new data published in the Soviet Union cast considerable doubt on the conclusion that armaments production was not very significant before 1933 or 1934. In 1969 a collective Soviet economic history claimed that expenditure on armaments increased ten-fold during the years of the first five-year plan.?1 We now know that this claim was based on a statement made by Voroshilov in an unpublished speech to the January 1933 plenum of the party central committee. Voroshilov stated that payments for armaments 'now' (i.e. presumably in 1932) amounted to 1012% of payments in 1927/28.11 Armaments prices may have risen somewhat between 1927/28 and 1932 (though that is uncertain); but Voroshilov's statement is obviously completely at variance with the notion that

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THE SOVIET ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY 1929-33

armaments production increased only at a moderate pace during the first five-year plan.

In 1973 the first volume of the Soviet history of World War II contained further remarkable revelations. It published annual figures for armaments production in physical terms, including tanks, aircraft and artillery. These series showed a rapid rise in production in the early 1930s, particularly in 1932 and 1933.12 Even more sensationally, the Soviet history reported that 8500 million rubles were spent on defence during the first five-year plan (i.e. from 1 October 1928 to 31 December 1932).13 The reported state budget expenditure on NKVoenMor for this period amounted to only 4944 million rubles (see Table 2).

This new information was assembled by Cooper in his discussion paper issued in 1976; he drew the conclusion that 'on the evidence now available one can conclude that the "military burden" during the difficult years of the first five-year plan was greater than was previously apparent, and this fact must be taken into account in any assessment of Soviet economic achievements at this time'.'4

At the end of the 1970s a large number of Soviet statistical bulletins and handbooks issued in the 1930s became available; they were previously classified 'ne podlezhit oglasheniyu' or 'dlya sluzhebnogo pol'zovaniya'-the equivalent of our 'confidential' or 'for official use only'. They did not contain information about military production, but provided much more detail about civilian industry. For the years 1930 and 1931 there was so much detail that it was possible to estimate both capital investment and production in the trusts responsible for armaments production as a residual within the 'machinebuilding and metalworking' and 'chemicals' branches of industry. In a discussion paper issued in 1987 I estimated that the production of the defence industry had increased by some 75% in 1931, and capital investment by more than 63%; more generally, 'the shift of resources towards immediate defence needs, which already began in 1930, was taken much further in the remaining years of the five-year plan'. 5

Shortly after this Wiles, using the new data in physical terms, calculated an ingenious index for weapons production which also showed a much more rapid rate of growth in 1930-32 than in the American studies. Wiles concluded that total weapons procurement in 1933 amounted to 1777 million rubles in current prices, over ten times the figure estimated by Nutter.16

The new evidence brought the quantitative data into line with the observations of contemporary journalists and diplomats, and with our own conclusions from our broader studies of economic policy and development in 1928-33. But much remained obscure. We knew little about how military expenditure, armaments production and investment in the armaments industry were spread between different years. Did they increase steadily throughout the first five-year plan; or was there a sudden jump in 1932? And our knowledge of specific developments in the following year, 1933, was particularly thin; how far had the advent of Hitler to power led to a further increase in resources devoted to defence? We had only a vague knowledge of the share of industrial resources commanded by the armaments industry. We knew almost nothing about the distribution of production and investment between different sub-branches of the armaments industry, and how this changed over time. And our evidence about the role of defence imports was almost entirely anecdotal.

With the partial opening of the archives of central party institutions, and of the

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R. W. DAVIES

Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) and the Central Administration for National-Economic Records (TsUNKhU), some of these questions can now be answered-although the role of imports in this period remains to be studied.

True and false defence budgets

The archival data confirm that all estimates of armaments production which used the published budget figures for the NKVoenMor were based on sand, at least for the years 1931-33. Compare the two series (both are in million rubles at current prices):

Oct Total 1928/ 1929/ -Dec 1928/29 1934

29 30 1930 1931 1932 -1932 1933 (Plan) 1934

Official figurea 880 1046 434 1288 1296 4944 1421 1665 5019

Archival figureb 850 1046 - 1790 4308 7994 4739 5800

Sources: a See Cooper (1976), p. 35. b See Table 2.

The archival figures for the first five-year plan (1928/29-1932), excluding the 'special quarter' October-December 1930, add up to 7994 million rubles. If the special quarter were included, the total would be close to the 8500 million rubles for the first five-year plan reported in the Soviet history of World War II in 1973.

The big jump in expenditure took place in 1932. The jump was partly due to increased costs and prices in that inflationary year. The breakdown of NKVoenMor expenditure in Table 2 shows an increase in expenditure on 'consumption' (presumably armed services' pay and maintenance) which is far greater than the known increase in the size of the armed services at that time. And military orders for armaments in 1932, measured in current prices, as shown in Table 2, increase more rapidly than armaments production measured in 1926/27 prices in Table 6; this is probably mainly due to price increases.17 But the increased NKVoenMor expenditure in both 1931 and 1932 also reflected huge real increases in military construction and armaments production.

The concealed increase in military expenditure in 1931 and 1932 cannot be fitted into those items of state budget expenditure, in the published budget reports, for which no clear purpose is indicated, such as 'reserves' or 'expenditure transferred from previous years'. Even if all available 'spare' items in the state budget reports for these years are assumed to have been redirected to the NKVoenMor, this item could be increased to only 2596 million rubles in 1932.18 A substantial secret extra-budget credit must have been made available to cover much of the concealed expenditure on the NKVoenMor, which amounted to 70% of the NKVoenMor expenditure as recorded in the archives, in both 1932 and 1933.

This concealment was a deliberate act of state. Parallel decrees were issued. The published decrees on the state budget, and even those marked 'confidential' (ne

580




podlezhit oglasheniyu), gave the false figure for the NKVoenMor, while the more restricted decrees (issued more or less simultaneously) gave the true figure. For example, a decree of Sovnarkom on 16 December 1932 ruled that NKVoenMor expenditure in 1933 should not exceed 5000 million rubles, but on 30 January 1933 a public session of the Central Executive Committee of soviets approved the official state budget for 1933, which listed an appropriation of only 1450 million rubles to the NKVoenMor. Meanwhile, on 29 December 1932, Sovnarkom adopted two decrees relating to the budget for the January-March quarter of 1933. The first, no. 1926 for 1932, and corresponding to the annual budget about to be published, stated that the NKVoenMor appropriation for this quarter would be 325 million rubles; the second, no. 1927 for 1932, stated that it would be as much as 1025 million rubles.19

The Soviet motive for concealing military expenditure at that time seems obvious. Litvinov was a most active participant in the League of Nations disarmament conference at Geneva, and the Soviet authorities did not want to admit that their expenditure on armaments, and on defence activities generally, was rapidly increasing. The subject came before the Politbureau on several occasions. Laconic Politbureau minutes record that on 5 August 1931 Litvinov reported to the Politbureau on 'the exchange of lists with other states on the state of the armed services' ;20 on 8 June 1932 Voroshilov reported 'on the transmission of information about the military budget' ;21 and on 16 June the Politbureau approved by correspondence a resolution on 'data on the 1929/30 military budget for the conference on disarmament'.22 Subse- quently, on 20 November 1932, Sovnarkom approved a decree on the arrangements for financing defence expenditure.23

Even for the year 1929/30, when there was apparently no gap between the published and unpublished appropriations to the NKVoenMor, the return sent to the League of Nations was falsified. The return underestimated expenditure on 'war material', stating that it was 191 million rubles in current prices (Table 1). The equivalent amount for 'military orders' in the archival data, also in current prices, is 347 million rubles (Table 2). The return for 1931 was even more distorted: war material appeared as 153 million rubles (the figure used by Nutter) (Table 1), whereas military orders in fact amounted to 845 million rubles (Table 2).

The decision to conceal the true level of Soviet military expenditure seems to have been an open secret among leading party members. In the verbatim report of the party central committee plenum of January 1933, which was marked 'top secret' but circulated in several thousand copies, Voroshilov displayed a diagram to demonstrate that production of aircraft, tanks and other weapons had grown much faster in the USSR than in other countries, although starting at a lower level. At this point in the debate Ordzhonikidze demonstrated the gulf between Soviet reality as seen in the Kremlin and the propaganda face presented at the League of Nations. He roguishly and cynically interjected: 'Give this to Litvinov, it's suitable for Geneva (Laughter)'.24

The decision to conceal military expenditure so blatantly was short-lived. It was quite at variance with Stalin's public claim in January 1933 that the failure to fulfil the five-year plan target for industrial production in 1932 was due to the switch of a number of factories to armaments production in the course of 1932.25 The official

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R. W. DAVIES

report on the state budget for 1934 publicly revealed that expenditure on the NKVoenMor amounted in that year to 5019 million rubles as compared with the planned figure of only 1665 million rubles.26 In 1935 the People's Commissariats for Defence and Foreign Affairs again discussed the return to be sent to the Disarmament Conference, which was still proceeding. The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs anguished about the sudden jump in military expenditure in 1934, noting that it 'continues to attract attention and is acquiring a certain political significance':

The Armaments Year-Book [of the League of Nations] in a number of cases explains the figures in footnotes. This possibility must also be used by us, in particular in order to explain the growth of our military expenditure in 1934.27

The official report on the state budget for 1934 presented the required explanation: This increase is explained to a considerable extent by the fact that the government, in connection with the preparation for abolishing rationing, as early as 1934 partly increased the very low prices which existed up to that time for supplies to the army of food and materials . .; and is also explained by the increase in the size of the army and the increase in standards of barracks and housing; and also by the successful fulfilment by heavy industry of the plan of technical orders for the army and navy, for which more appropriations were required than those proposed in the budget for 1934.28

This explanation for the jump in expenditure as compared with the budget adopted at the beginning of the year was far from complete: nothing was said about the concealment of the large increases in armaments production and military construction in 1931-33. But at least from 1934 onwards the published figures for military expenditure were much closer to the true expenditure.

It should be added, however, that we do not yet know how far the published figures for 1928/29 and 1929/30, which coincide with the archival figures, incorporate all the expenditure allocated to the NKVoenMor in these years. For both years the value of military orders (Table 3) is substantially higher than the value of that item within the archival NKVoenMor budget figure (Table 2); thus some items may not have been included within the budget appropriation. As for the years from 1934 onwards, while it is certain that a much larger share of the true appropriation to the NKVoenMor is included in the published state budget than in 1931-33, we do not yet know whether the whole appropriation was included.

Even when the major underestimation of the NKVoenMor allocation in 1931-33 is accounted for, a large share of military expenditure has always been covered under other budget heads; the archival figures for 1931-33, and the published figures for other years, do not by any means cover all military expenditure. First, allocations to capital investment, additional working capital, etc. in the armaments industry formed part of the 'national economy' item of the state budget. In the years 1928/29-1933 inclusive these appropriations were published under the heading 'national economy: allocations to other state industry', as follows (in million current rubles):

1928/29 1929/30 1931 1932 1933 Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual

80.0 76.0 124.0 129.7 455.0 587.5 700.0 714.4 630.2 803.6

Sources: 1928/29-1932: see Davies (1987), Table 4(b); 1933: Otchet... za 1933 (1935), p. 71.

582




This allocation largely consisted of capital investment. In the years 1928/29-1933 it was nowhere publicly stated that 'other state industry' referred to the armaments industry; and in 1934 and 1935 this item was concealed within the allocation to the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry.

Second, appropriations to the OGPU and its special armies, and to the convoy armies, were also shown separately (if incompletely) in the state budget.

Third, the archival data have confirmed that budget appropriations to civilian organisations for specific military purposes appeared in the state budget as part of the general budgetary appropriation for the commissariat concerned. This included allocations to the commissariats for the railways and other transport, to communications, to civilian industries, to trade organisations and even to the commissariat for agriculture. These additional appropriations were stated to be for 'narrow defence measures' (uzkooboronnye meropriyatiya) undertaken by the commissariats concerned.

Table 5 shows the state budget allocation for defence in January-March 1933, as it appeared in the budget, and compares this with the true budget appropriations for defence measures in the same period. The total in the first source amounts to only 27% of the true total appropriation for defence purposes. Even in the true budget for January-March 1933 the allocations for defence purposes made to government departments other than the NKVoenMor added a further 40% to the direct defence appropriation. As we have seen, capital investment in the armaments industry and in defence-related industries did not form part of the NKVoenMor budget. But in the four and a quarter years from October 1929 to the end of 1933 2050 million rubles were allocated to capital investment in the armaments industry, 350 million rubles to capital investment in military production by civilian industries, and 1000 million rubles to 'narrow defence measures' in transport and communications (including railways in frontier regions, strategic roads, special telegraph and radio lines). The allocations for these purposes alone totalled 3400 million rubles, adding 27.6% to the direct (true) allocation to the NKVoenMor (at least 12 300 million rubles in the same period).29

In international comparisons, it should of course be borne in mind that in the budgets of other powers some allocations for defence purposes did not appear under the defence heading. Moreover, where armaments factories were privately owned, the investment in their facilities usually did not form part of the budget at all.

The rising burden of the defence sector, 1930-32

Budget expenditure on the NKVoenMor, gross production of armaments, and capital investment in the armaments industry all increased sharply in 1931, and increased again in 1932. The increase in both production and capital investment was much more rapid than the increase for industry as a whole; the defence sector was absorbing a rapidly increasing proportion of industrial resources:30

583



R. W. DAVIES

RATES OF GROWTH: OFFICIAL STATISTICS (% INCREASE ON

PREVIOUS YEAR)

1931 1932

Armaments production (in 1926/27 prices) 77.9 72.2

All large-scale industrial production (in 1926/27 prices) 23.3 13.5

Investment in armaments industry (in current prices) 113.8 57.6

All investment in industry (in current prices) 84.4 41.6

Quarterly investment and production figures make it possible to examine this rapid expansion in some detail. These figures confirm that a substantial defence programme was rapidly developed as early as 1930, and was greatly extended in 1931.

The quarterly figures for investment in 1930 and 1931 reveal that it increased in every quarter except the winter months January-March 1931.31 The production figures display a similar pattern.32 The substantial increase in both investment and production in October-December 1931 represents a further substantial switch to defence, subse- quent upon militaristic Japanese activities in the spring of 1931 and the appointment of Tukhachevsky as deputy head of NKVoenMor with responsibility for armaments in June 1931.33

The preparation of the 1932 plan took place against the background of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931. The 'directives for the control figures' for 1932, approved by Sovnarkom on 13 December 1931, increased planned investment in the armaments industry to 702 million rubles; within this total, the directives specifically stated that capital investment requirements for the 'expanded tasks' of aviation should be 'fully satisfied'. Another clause of the Sovnarkom directives provided that 'production and orders in shipbuilding shall be regrouped so as to secure complete fulfilment of the defence tasks of shipbuilding' (at that time shipbuilding did not form part of the armaments industry).34 Following the approval of these directives, at the end of 1931 and beginning of 1932 the Politbureau adopted a series of measures to increase further the resources devoted to defence, and to strengthen defence in the Far East.35 On 14 January 1932 a commission of Sovnarkom on the defence industry, headed by Kuibyshev, recommended that investment in the industry in 1932 should be increased to 820 million rubles, and that the allocation to 'narrow defence measures' in civilian industry should be increased from 155 to 255 million rubles.36 The capital investment in the armaments industry eventually achieved in 1932, 758 million rubles, was half-way between the plan approved in December 1931 and the increased plan of the Kuibyshev commission.37

The further increase in armaments production in 1932 was all the more remarkable because it took place against the background of the decline in the rate of growth of industrial production as a whole. In 1932 most of the major investment projects of the first five-year plan had not been completed, industry was under acute strain, and food

584




shortages were worsening. The heightened defence effort compounded these difficulties.

By 1932 armaments production by the armaments industry amounted to 3% of all large-scale gross industrial production; and capital investment in the armaments industry amounted to 7.5% of all capital investment in industry. But these figures do not fully reflect the resources commanded by the defence sector. Armaments production largely consisted of end-products-aircraft, tanks, guns and ammunition- comparable with the capital equipment, agricultural machinery, tractors, lorries and rolling stock which were the major civilian products of the producer goods industries. Armaments production was classified as two subsectors within the machine-building and metalworking and chemical industries. A better indication of its role is provided by considering it in relation to these industries. In 1932 the armaments production of the armaments industry amounted to 11% of the total production of the machine- building and metalworking and chemical industries, and the armaments industry employed about 22% of all workers in these industries. The equivalent figure for investment was 24%. The value of the armaments production of the armaments industry in 1932 (1176 million rubles) was almost equal to the combined value of the production of capital equipment for heavy industry, plus tractors (including spare parts) and lorries (1282 million rubles). The value of investment in the armaments industry (758 million rubles) equalled the combined'value of investment in the vehicles, tractor, railway equipment, machine tools and electrical engineering industries (745 million rubles).

These proportions represented a substantial shift as compared with 1930, as the following figures show:

ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY AS A % OF ALL MACHINE-BUILDING AND

METALWORKING AND CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES

1930 1931 1932

Gross production 6.7 7.9 11.1 Capital investment 18.2 21.7 24.0

Source: Data for machine-building and metalworking and chemical industries from Davies, Cooper & Ilic, and (for 1932 capital investment) from Tyazhelaya promyshlennost', 1931-4 (1935), p. 9; data for armaments industry from Tables 6 and 7, and (for investment in 1930) from note 31.

The figures so far cited for the production of the armaments industry refer only to its armaments or military production (voennaya produktsiya). A substantial proportion of its capacity was devoted to the production of equipment and components for civilian industries, and of consumer goods. For certain important civilian items the armaments industry was very significant: thus in 1933 it produced 5096 out of a total production of 18 027 machine tools.38 In 1930 44% of all gross production from the armaments industry was designated as 'peaceful'. The proportion gradually declined, but still amounted to 29% in 1932. (See Table 6)

585



R. W. DAVIES

Civilian industries also manufactured military goods. Raw materials and components supplied to the armaments industry formed part of its costs and so appeared within the figure for total gross production. But any final military products manufactured in factories or industries classified as civilian do not form part of the value of armaments production shown in Table 6. These notably include military products of the shipbuilding industry, which became important from 1933 onwards. The tank industry was reclassified as part of the armaments industry in November 1932 (see note to Table 6), and its production has been retrospectively included in Table 6. However, tanks also continued to be produced outside the factories designated as part of the tank industry. In 1933 the tank industry proper produced 3482 tanks, while civilian industry produced 348 tanks and 119 armoured vehicles.39 Civilian industry also produced clothing and industrial consumer goods of all kinds for the army and navy. No statistics have been available about this production.

The rapid increase in armaments production and in investment in the armaments industry in 1931-32 was accompanied by a huge increase in construction carried out by or on behalf of NKVoenMor, shown in Table 4. Expenditure on the construction of military installations of all kinds thus increased even more rapidly than investment in the armaments industry, rising from 40% of the amount spent on investment in the industry in 1930 (89 million rubles compared with 225 million rubles) to 119% of the much greater amount spent in 1932 (900 compared with 758 million rubles).

Investment for defence purposes in civilian industries and in transport and communications may have amounted to a further 500 million rubles or more. Total investment in the defence sector therefore amounted to some 2150 million rubles, over 10% of the total capital investment undertaken in 1932 (20 500 million rubles).

The Soviet economic crisis and the defence sector, 1932-33

In published sources little was said about the progress of the armaments industry in 1933. With the assumption of power by the Nazis in Germany at the beginning of the year, the commonsense guess was that it continued to expand rapidly. The published data in physical terms for particular weapons show a rapid increase in 1933.40 But the new data about the defence sector fill the blank page in an unexpected way. In 1931 and 1932 the armaments production of the armaments industry had increased far more rapidly than the production of the machine-building and metalworking and chemical industries. But in 1933 it increased by only 10% (Table 6), while the wider group, according to the official figures, increased by 16%.

Moreover, in 1933 capital investment in the armaments industry, measured in current prices, was actually reduced by 30% (Table 7); the reduction was probably a few per cent greater in real terms. Simultaneously, construction work undertaken by the NKVoenMor itself was reduced by 25% (Table 4). The reduction in investment in the armaments industry was proportionately greater than the reduction in the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry as a whole, or in the civilian branches of the machine-building and metalworking and chemical (Group A) industries; while armaments investment declined by 30%, civilian investment in these industries declined by 20%.41 Investment in the armaments industry was reduced to approximately the 1931 level. In contrast, construction work by the NKVoenMor, while it

586




declined to a greater extent than investment in the rest of the economy, remained substantially above the 1931 level, even when the rise in costs in 1931-33 is taken into account.

The context of this remarkable though temporary switch in priorities is the desperate crisis into which the Soviet economy plunged in the course of 1932 and the early months of 1933. The successive changes in the planned allocations to investment in 1932 and 1933 are set out in Table 8. In the first six months of 1932 it became increasingly obvious that the ambitious production and investment plans for industry as a whole could not be fulfilled. But the Politbureau still sought to achieve its plans by further injections of cash. In March the planned capital investment in heavy industry for 1932 was increased from 7250 to 8900 million rubles, and in April to 9995 million rubles. Meanwhile the investment plan for the armaments industry was increased to 1050 million rubles (see Table 8).42

Even dizzier increases took place in the quarterly investment allocations approved in the first six months of 1932 (Table 8(b)). The capital investment plans for April-June and July-September for the whole national economy each amounted to 33% of the investment plan for the whole year; and the two quarterly capital investment plans for the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry each reached over 40% of the annual plan, and over 30% of the revised plan. And these plans were surpassed by the investment plans for the armaments industry, which amounted to an astonishing 57% of the original annual plan and 38% of the revised plan in both the April-June and July-September quarters.

While plans and appropriations were being increased during the first six months of 1932, inflationary pressures were mounting. In response, the government increased retail prices in order to siphon off surplus purchasing power, and sanctioned trade on the collective-farm market at prices reached by supply and demand. But this failed to stabilise the retail market. Prices of food sold by peasants on the collective-farm market (the free market) increased by 63% between 1 January and 1 July 1932, more rapidly than in any previous year except 1930.43

Against this bleak background, the increased investment plans were not fulfilled, even in financial terms. Actual expenditure on capital construction was lower in July 1932 than in the previous month. Currency shortages led to increasing wage debts. And above all the worsening food situation meant that the authorities were unable to honour the food rations of workers in industry and on the building sites. Towards the end of July the Politbureau abruptly changed course. Noting the 'considerable rise' in building costs and 'the excess of financial provision over the physical volume of work accomplished', it reduced the investment allocation to the economy as a whole for July-September 1932 by 700 million rubles, 10% of the planned allocation. A week later the Politbureau accepted a recommendation from a commission headed by Kuibyshev with detailed provisions for putting these cuts into effect. Ironically, Kuibyshev had also been chairman of the commission which had substantially increased investment in the armaments industry six months earlier. According to the Politbureau minutes, the Kuibyshev commission recommended (quite unrealistically) that as much as 405 million rubles of the 700 million rubles should come from the armaments industry and from allocations to the industrial power stations of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry.44 Eventually the armaments industry

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R. W. DAVIES

allocation was reduced by 95 million rubles, from 400 to 305 million rubles, and the remaining cut was taken widely from other sectors within the commissariat.45

Thus the investment plan for the armaments industry, disproportionately increased in the early part of the year, was now disproportionately reduced. While the investment allocation to the People's Commissariat as a whole was reduced by 13%, the allocation to the armaments industry was reduced by 24%, or by 18% if housing is excluded. But even the reduced plan was not achieved. Quarterly figures for investment in 1932 have not been available. But in 1932 as a whole, investment in the armaments industry, while much greater than in the previous year, was far below the extremely ambitious quarterly plans; it amounted to an average of only 190 million rubles in each quarter. This failure of the ambitious quarterly plans for 1932 should be seen in context. Armaments industry investment exceeded the original plan, and its increase by 58% as compared with 1931 far exceeded the increase for the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry as a whole (39%).

The belated efforts of the Politbureau to bring order into the economy, and to stabilise the currency, continued determinedly in the autumn and winter of 1932-33. The Politbureau reluctantly recognised that this meant that the capital investment plan, the mainspring of ambitious planning and of currency inflation, must be curbed to an even greater extent than in summer 1932. On 25 September 1932 a variant of the 1933 plan prepared in Gosplan envisaged that total capital investment would amount to only 17 680 million rubles; within this total, investment in the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry would amount to only 7500 million rubles. Both these figures are substantially below both the revised plan for 1932 and the actual investment expenditure in that year. In the final plan for 1933, adopted at the end of 1932, these figures were increased by a few hundred million rubles, but still remained well below the 1932 level.

The investment to be allocated to the armaments industry as part of this total was at first quite uncertain. The initial draft, prepared before the end of August 1932, proposed a mere 500 million rubles (Table 8(c)). This was increased to 750 million rubles in a further draft presented to Gosplan on 29 August 1932 by its deputy head, Mezhlauk. But the final plan approved by Sovnarkom on 5 January 1933 cut back this figure to 560 million rubles. Eventually, actual investment in 1933, both in heavy industry as a whole and in the armaments industry, was 5% or 6% below the planned level.

How far the defence cuts of 1932-33 were forced by the grim circumstances, and how far they reflected political conflict behind the scenes, remains to be investigated. The spring of 1932 had seen the victory in Moscow of what Haslam describes as 'the more passive line' towards the Far East favoured by Litvinov. This more cautious policy gained credence when on 23 May the Japanese accepted the Soviet offer to sell them the Chinese Eastern Railway.46 With this easing of international tension, Stalin, beset by economic disaster, may have decided, actively encouraged by Kaganovich and Kuibyshev, that it was safe to restrict capital investment in the armaments industry.

These reductions in the ambitious investment plans were hotly contested. When the large cuts in the capital investment plan for heavy industry for July-September 1932 were proposed, Ordzhonikidze, People's Commissar and Politbureau member, who

588




was on leave, sent a telegram of protest; and his deputy, Pyatakov, recorded a protest at the Kuibyshev commission. Kaganovich, who was in charge of the Politbureau in the absence of Stalin, who was also on leave, sent Ordzhonikidze a conciliatory reply:

We were compelled to do this, my friend, the financial situation required it. We already have huge hold-ups in the payment of wages, and the budget deficit has grown more than ever before ... We wrote to our chief friend [i.e. Stalin], and he thought it absolutely correct and timely to make cuts of about 700 million, which we have done... Please don't get upset about it, and especially don't get angry.47

Six months later, at the plenum of the party central committee in January 1933, two incidents revealed that Tukhachevsky, responsible for armaments as deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, was dissatisfied with the reduction in the defence programme. Ordzhonikidze, in his speech to the plenum, emphasised the switch to defence production which had been made necessary from the beginning of 1932 by the 'alarms in the Far East', and praised the quality of the tanks, aircraft and artillery manufactured in Soviet factories and demonstrated at the 7 November parade. At this point Stalin intervened:

Stalin. And to Tukhachevsky it's all very little. (Laughter) Ordzhonikidze. Everything is little to him. But we can say to comrade Tukhachevsky the following: when we need to move these weapons to the front, we will give the Red Army as much as it needs. (Prolonged Applause)4

On the following day Voroshilov revealingly treated his deputy commissar as something like an independent centre of influence. After describing the development of the defence industries at some length in positive terms, he claimed that these successes showed that 'Comrade Tukhachevsky has no grounds to be dissatisfied'.49

The scope of the defence cuts in 1933 was, however, fairly limited. In 1933, although capital investment in the armaments industry as a whole was reduced by 30%, investment in the aircraft industry increased in money terms, and probably remained constant in real terms. And, as we have seen, capital construction financed from the NKVoenMor budget, while reduced by 25%, remained considerably above the 1931 level. And armaments production continued to increase in 1933. While the armaments production as a whole increased by only 10%, tank production increased by over 30%; aircraft production probably increased even more rapidly.50 Simulta- neously, a major submarine programme, directed towards the Far East, was successfully launched.5' Resources were thus concentrated on modem defence technology.52 In the following year, 1934, the cuts in investment were restored.

The first five-year plan in perspective

To sum up. Previously unavailable data confirm that considerable and increasing resources were allocated to the armaments industry during the first five-year plan, far in excess of the amounts shown in the published budget for the People's Commissar- iat for Military and Naval Affairs (NKVoenMor) at the time. In the three years 1930-32 armaments production increased much more rapidly than Soviet industrial production as a whole. By 1932 the armaments industry proper employed nearly half

589



R. W. DAVIES

a million people and armaments production alone (excluding the considerable civilian production of the industry) amounted to 3.1% of gross and 5.7% of net industrial production.

Capital investment in the armaments industry, and military construction for the NKVoenMor, increased even more rapidly. By 1932 they together amounted to over 8% of all capital investment-this percentage excludes the substantial capital investment for defence purposes in other sectors of the economy.

During the economic crisis and famine of 1933 this rapid expansion was followed by a sharp reduction in capital investment and a slow-down in the rate of growth of armaments production.

In Table 9 the years 1929-33 considered here are placed in historical context. In the mid-1920s military expenditure in real terms probably amounted to no more than half that of 1913. The number of personnel serving in the armed forces was less than half the pre-war level, and armaments production was almost certainly lower than in 1913.53

By 1930 employment in the armaments industry had almost doubled as compared with 1913. But armaments production as such apparently did not yet exceed the 1913 level (in 1930 civilian production amounted to as much as 44% of the total production of the industry). The number of servicemen remained much smaller than in 1913. Consequently the defence sector as a whole still absorbed a smaller proportion of the national income than in 1913-4% compared with 5.2%.

As a result of the dramatic increase in the defence burden in 1930-32, by 1932 employment in the armaments industry was four times as large as in 1913; and armaments production constituted a higher proportion of a considerably expanded level of industrial production. By 1932 the defence sector appears to have absorbed a much higher percentage of the national income than on the eve of World War I (Table 9(c)).

The sudden halt in the expansion of military expenditure in 1933 was purely temporary. The data in physical terms show that in 1934-35 production of aircraft and tanks, as well as of artillery and small arms, increased relatively slowly. But naval shipbuilding, relatively neglected during the first five-year plan, developed rapidly. From 1936 onwards armaments production of every kind expanded very rapidly. By 1937 armaments production equalled 10% of net industrial production (see Table 9(b)). The rapid expansion of 1930-32 was merely the first stride along a long road.

Half a century after these developments the Soviet armaments industry of the 1980s, grounded in a much larger industrial base, employed at least five times as many people as in 1940, and 15 times as many as in 1932. The armaments industry absorbed a considerably greater share of total industrial employment in 1988 than on the eve of World War II.54

Table 9 thus illustrates the rising share of resources absorbed by armaments technology in the course of the 20th century. The economic role of armaments, increasingly expensive as well as increasingly lethal, burgeoned throughout the world. But the strain on the Soviet economy was particularly great because of the determined effort of its leaders to equal the armaments of its economically more advanced rivals. Armaments accounted for a mere 3.2% of the gross industrial production of the

590



THE SOVIET ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY 1929-33 591

Russian Empire on the eve of World War I. This proportion was already equalled by Soviet armaments in 1932, before Hitler had come to power in Germany; in absolute terms armaments production in 1932 was probably several times the 1913 level. In 1940, the last year before the German invasion, armaments accounted for as much as 16.4% of gross production. And in the peacetime year 1988, the arms industry was responsible for a larger share of industrial production (9.7%) than in any inter-war year except the three years immediately preceding the German invasion. In 1988 the Soviet armaments industry employed over 60 times as many people as the Russian armaments industry of 1913, 70% more than the total number employed in the whole of tsarist industry.

Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham



Tables

A note on the statistics

The data on the defence industry suffer from the same problems as Soviet production and investment statistics generally.

Production statistics. These are, as usual, gross production, so that inputs purchased from an armaments factory by another armaments factory would count both as the production of the supplying factory and as part of the final production of the purchasing factory. Such intra-branch transfers do not seem to have been very extensive at this period, because the payments for military orders from the NKVMD budget (Table 3), if 'other' and 'shipbuilding' are deducted, are fairly close to the gross production figures in 1929/30 and 1931. The gap is wider, however, in 1932 and 1933. This may be either because current prices (used in the NKVMD budget) were increasing, or because double-counting was increasing as the armaments industry expanded.

Investment statistics. These have a considerable margin of error. One problem was that the gap between finance supplied for investment and sums actually spent could be wide; the sources do not usually make clear the method of computation.

Prices. (i) Production statistics were normally in 1926/27 prices, the problems of which are well known. The archival series sometimes do not state the prices used; we have assumed that they are always 1926/27 prices. The general pattern for machinery was that later prices than 1926/27 were lower for new products (e.g. tanks, aircraft) and higher for already established products (e.g. rifles). But the method of calculation would need to be known in detail before the accuracy of the year-on-year comparisons could be assessed. The figures in 1926/27 prices showing the total annual increase in industrial production are overestimates in the case of industry as a whole; we do not yet know how far this applies to armaments. The difference between current prices and 1926/27 prices in this period is unlikely to be large.

(ii) Capital investment was normally measured in current prices in this period. In 1931 and 1932 prices of building and transport work (as distinct from the price of capital equipment, the other main item in capital investment) increased considerably. According to Soviet estimates, building costs were stable or declined in 1929 and 1930. The increase in building costs in 1931 was in the range of 12-20%, and in 1932 was in the range 21-28%; the increase in 1933 was only a couple of per cent.

An incomplete Soviet estimate of the cost of capital investment as a whole is as follows (1929 = 100):

1932 1933 1930 1931 Jan-June Jan-Sept

102 115 141 142

Capital investment costs are further discussed in Davies, Cooper & Ilic (1991), pp. 9-13.

(iii) State budget. This was always given in current prices.

592 R. W. DAVIES




TABLE 1 SOVIET DEFENCE EXPENDITURE REPORTED TO LEAGUE OF NATIONS FOR THE

YEARS 1929/30 AND 1931 (MILLION CURRRENT RUBLES)

1929/30 1931

I. Pay and allowances 210.9 254.2 Maintenance of personnel 343.3 443.2

II. Maintenance of horses and other animals 59.4 93.3 Fuel and other transport costs 66.1 113.7

III. Defence construction 6.5 3.0 Construction of barracks, etc 218.7 230.1

IV. War material 190.9 152.6a

Total 1096.0 1290.0

Sources: 1929/30: League of Nations Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, National Defence Expenditure Commission, Report of the Technical Committee, ii (1933), pp. 154, 159, 164. 1931: League of Nations, Armaments Year-Book (Geneva, 1933), cit. Nutter (1962); Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, xiv (1968), p. 281. Notes: This is a summary of more detailed figures, given separately for land forces, naval forces and air forces in the original source. a Given as 'war material' in Armaments Year-Book, 'military property' in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki.

TABLE 2 STATE BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS TO THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT FOR MILITARY AND NAVAL AFFAIRS

(NKVOENMOR OR NKVMD), 1928/29-1934 (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

1934 1928/29 1929/30a 1931 1932 1933 (Plan)

I. Archival data Consumption 425 502 591 1077 1497 1740 Military orders (zakazy) 291 347 845 2206 2014 2494 Construction work 60 89 258 900 673 812 Exploitation 36 59 55 60 128 296 Training 27 35 25 95 99 197 (Other) (11) (14) (16) (-30)b (327) (261) Total 850 1046 1790 4308b 4738 5800

II. Published total 880 1046 1288 1296 1421 1665

Sources: Archival data from RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 56-5 (Gosplan report dated 31 January 1934). Published totals: see Cooper (1976), p. 35. Note: The ruble figures for the sub-totals have been worked out as rough approximations from percentages given in the original source. The figures for 'Other' have been obtained as a residual. a The archival source gives no information for the 'special quarter', October-December 1930. The published figure for this quarter is 434 million rubles. b Percentages in original source add up to 100.7.

593



R. W. DAVIES

TABLE 3 MILITARY ORDERS FINANCED FROM THE STATE BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS TO NKVOENMOR (MILLION

RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

1934 1928/29 1929/30 1931 1932 1933 (Plan)

Artillery 135 238 332 645 478 567 Vehicle-armour-tank 10 40 80 360 334 340 Aviation property 54 71 173 325 412 505 Military-technical 17 20 50 145 159 152 Military-chemical 14 19 33 83 45 47 Shipbuilding 42 41 84 384 335 550 Other 76 94 101 255 224 321

Total 348 522a 852 2197 1988 2480

Total as estimated in Table 2 291 347 845 2206 2014 2494

Source: RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 52. Note: a May include 'special quarter', October-December 1930.

TABLE 4 CAPITAL INVESTMENT (CONSTRUCTION WORK) FINANCED FROM THE STATE BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS TO

NKVOENMOR, 1928/29-1934 (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

1934 1928/29 1929/30 1931 1932 1933 (Plan)

Defence work na 12.0 16.0 164.3 119.0 166.8 Aviation construction

(airports, etc.) na 8.4 43.0 228.0 193.5 171.0 Naval construction

(ports, etc.) na 5.0 30.0 46.0 115.2 Other

(barracks, housing, etc.) na (84.9) (196.0) (475.7) (319.5) (347.0) Total (87)' 105.3 260.0 898.0 678.0 800.0

Total as estimated in Table 2 60 89 258 900 673 812

Source: RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 51. Notes: These figures are stated to be 'volume' (ob"em) of capital investment. na = not available. aOriginal source states that 1929/30 appropriation is 21.2% greater than 1928/29 appropriation.

594




TABLE 5 OFFICIAL AND TRUE DEFENCE ALLOCATIONS FROM THE STATE BUDGET,

JANUARY-MARCH 1933 (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

Official' True2

NKVoenMor Special armies OGPU organs Convoy armies Military industry

Military measures on White Sea Canal

Military measures: Civil aviation

Military measures: other government departments: People's Commissariat for Railways Central Administration for Road Transport People's Commissariat for Water Transport People's Commissariat for Communications People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry People's Commissariat for Light Industry People's Commissariat for Timber Industry People's Commissariat for Agriculture People's Commissariat for Supplies

( = Internal Trade) Committee of State Reserves:

mobilisation stocks

Total allocation

325 25 30

8 (138)a

1025 78 42

8 138a

2

25

20 10 8 4

40 1 4 1 2

25

(388)c (1433)b

Sources: ' GARF, 5446/1/70b, 301-4 (decree no. 1926 dated 29 December 1932). 2 GARF, 5446/57/21 (decree no. 1927 dated 29 December 1932). Notes: aReferred to as 'other state industry' in source 1, 'military industry' in source 2. b In addition, allocations to housing via Central Municipal Bank amounted to 25.3 million rubles. c 526 million rubles including 'other state industry'.

595



TABLE 6 GROSS PRODUCTION OF ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY, 1930-33 (MILLION RUBLES AT 1926/27 PRICES)

1930 1931 1932 1933

Military Peaceful Total Military Peaceful Total Military Peaceful Total Military Peaceful Total

Tanks1 44 44 57 46 103 175 26 201 230 45 275 Aircraft 502 (30) 833b 732 83 1563 2024a (133) 3353 (958) (369 460

Guns, ammunition, etc. (262) (157) (416) (443) (180) (623) (679) (161) (840) (867) Total classified

as machine building 312 231 543 573 309 882 1056 320 1376 1188 414 1602 Chemicals 72 66 138 110 117 227 110 156 266 101 204 305

Totald 384 297 680 683 426 1109 1176c 476 1652 1289 617 1906

Sources: RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 33, except where otherwise stated. RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 17, 17ob.

2 RGAE, 4372/91/871, 99-8 (Vesenkha report dated 10 February 1932). 3 RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 11. 4 RGAE, 4372/91/1050, 217-6 (report dated 17 November 1932). Notes: a Preliminary figure. b Source 2 gives 63. c Total adds up to 1166, but is given as 1176 in original source. d In addition, the armaments industry produced 'mass consumer goods' amounting to 17 million rubles in 1930 and 124 million rubles in 1933. Total production in 1930 was given as 817 million rubles, leaving a residual of 120 million rubles unaccounted for; the total for 1933 was given as 2,091 million rubles, leaving 61 million rubles unaccounted for (RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 37-6). Substantially higher figures for peaceful production appear in other sources:1930 373 (RGAE, 4372/91/871, 99-8); 1931 656 (loc.cit.); 1932 (prel.) 949 (RGAE, 4372/91/1050, 217-6). General note: The data refer to trusts or corporations (ob "edineniya) specifically designated as military industry (voennaya promyshlennost' ), and do not include military production of civilian industry. In the standard sources, military or defence production of military industry (voennaya produktsiya voennoi promyshlennosti) and civilian or peaceful production of military industry (mirnaya produktsiya voennoi promyshlennosti) are recorded separately. At this time shipbuilding did not form part of military industry. A specialised tank trust was not organised until 1 November 1932 (Trest spetsial'nogo mashinostroeniya); I have assumed that the total figures in the Table include the tank industry for all four years.




TABLE 7 CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN THE ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

October- December 1933 19343d

1929/30 1930 1931 1932 (prelim.) (prelim.)

Aircraft industry c.22.0a 10.3' 111.52 203.42 218.02 238

Guns, ammunition, tanks, etc.b (c.105) (38.7) (242.1) (396.7) (226.4) 412

Total classified as machine-building 127.2 49.0 353.6 600.1 444.4 650 of which reconstruction 120.5 45.6 303.3 482.0 325.1

new construction 2.6 2.1 41.8 90.6 118.3 (other) (4.1) (1.3) (8.5) (27.5) (1.0)

Total chemical 75.4 26.3? 127.7 158.0 88.8 106 of which reconstruction 54.3 19.8 96.3 114.5 64.3

new construction 10.6 6.1 24.5 29.1 24.5 (other) (10.5) (0.4) (6.9) (14.4) (0)

Total armaments industry 202.6 75.3 481.3 758.1 533.2 756 of which reconstruction 174.8 65.4 399.6 596.5 389.4

new construction 13.2 8.2 66.3 119.7 142.8 (other) (14.6) (1.7) (15.4) (41.9) (1.0)

Sources: RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 34 (Gosplan report of 31 January 1934) unless otherwise stated. RGAE, 4372/91/871, 67 (Vesenkha report of 2 February 1932).

2RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 11. 3RGAE, 1562/329/32, 2-4 (report dated 23 April 1935). Notes: 'Reconstruction' normally meant capital investment in already existing factories. 'New construction' normally meant capital investment in new factories. A third heading, capital repair, normally also formed part of capital investment, but the residual 'other' seems too small to include all capital repair, part of which may have been included in 'reconstruction'. a Capital investment in January-September 1930 was given as 19.0 in source 1; this is a rough guess based on that figure. bEstimated as residual, except for 1934. c Given as 25.3 in original, but not consistent with sub-totals or overall total for armaments industry. d Estimate prices of 1932, which are somewhat lower than current prices of 1934 (1933 investment, 533 million rubles in current prices, is given in Source 3 as 476 million rubles in 1932 estimate prices). These figures are January-October 1934 (actual) plus November-December (planned) and may therefore be somewhat too high.

597



TABLE 8 INVESTMENT IN THE ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY, 1932-33 (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

(a) Annual allocations, 1932

'Narrow defence':

People's Commissariat Armaments civilian National economy of Heavy Industry industry industry

1931 (actual) 15681' 6113' 4812 1932 (plan) 13/xii/31 204303 72503m 7023 1554a 1932 (plan) 14/i/32 8204 2554 1932 (plan) 19/iii/32 89005 1932 (plan) 16/iv/32 99956 10506 3014n 1932 (actual) 200861 8505' 7582

(b) Quarterly allocations, 1932

Jan-Mar (plan) i/32? 21856 1746 58c

Apr-June (plan) 19/iii/32 25505b Apr-June (plan) 16/iv/32 67966 31096 4036 10520 July-Sep (plan) vi/1932 68007 (2900)C July-Sep (plan) 17/vi/32 70507 30508C 4009 869 July-Sep (plan) 21/viii/32 (6350) ld (2645)lld 3059 519 Oct-Dec (plan) < 26012'o

(c) Annual allocations, 1933

1932 (actual) 200861 85081 7582 1933 (plan) viii/32 730013e 50013e 1933 (plan) 29/viii/32 796413f 75013f 1933 (plan) 4/ix/32g 1887614 808614 1933 (plan) 25/ix/32g 1768014 750014 1933 (plan) 5/i/33h 1804515 788715 56015 1933 (actual) 19707"i 74201 5332

(d) Quarterly allocations, 1933

Jan-Mar (plan) i/33 321016k 1430l6k 80-10017j Apr-June (plan) 20/iii/33 434116 181116 July-Sept (plan) 8/vi/33 611118 270018 19019'

Sources: 1 Sots.str. (1935), 466-7. 2 RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 34. 3GARF, 5446/57/16, 152-5 (art. 281). 4GARF, 5446/8/172, 3. 5RGAE, 4372/30/25, 82, 85. 6 GARF, 5446/1/67, 75-81. 7RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/889, 13. 8 GARF, 5446/1/69, 114. 9 GARF, 5446/57/20, 133-52 (art. 1294/278). o0 RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/893, 2. " RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/894, 1, 12. 12 GARF, 5446/57/21, 5. 13 RGAE, 4372/31/24, 20-1. 14 RGAE, 4372/31/24, 165, 63. 15 GARF, 5446/1/71, 50-1, 62-3 (art. 23); RGAE, 4372/30/28, 46-8. 16 GARF, 5446/57/23, 177-80 (art. 520/95); these figures were approved by the Politbureau on the previous day CRTsKhIDNI, 17/3/918, 43-4). 17 GARF, 5446/57/21, art. 1927 (29 December 1932). 18 GARF, 5446/57/24, 162 (art. 1970/254). 19 GARF, 5446/57/24, 206-13. 20 GARF, 5446/8/7, 2.

598 R. W. DAVIES



THE SOVIET ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY 1929-33 599

Notes: a Given in later source, presumably for same date as directives for 1932 control figures (Source 3). b May exclude 'other state industry' (i.e. armaments industry), and therefore comparable figure would be 2950 million rubles. c Increased by 150 million rubles by Politbureau decision of 17 June 1932 (see Source 7). d Total figure for national economy reduced by 700 million rubles, figure for heavy industry reduced by 405 million rubles, by Politbureau decisions of 23 July and 1 August 1932 (RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/893, 2 and 17/3/894, 1, 12). eDraft preceding that presented to Gosplan on 29 August 1932. f Presented to Gosplan at meeting with Mezhlauk. g Gosplan variants. h Presented by Gosplan to Sovnarkom and STO on 31 December 1932; approved by Sovnarkom, 5 January 1933. May not be comparable with plans owing to different coverage of agricultural investment. Without

agriculture, plan of 5 January amounts to 16 087 million rubles; actual expenditure to 16 005 millions. J Capital investment 80; 'outlays' 100. k These figures are given in a later source, but were presumably approved at beginning of quarter. 'Approved 17 June 1933. m This figure is for Vesenkha industry, and therefore includes light and timber industry; but the Sovnarkom decree comments that it needs to be increased. At the end of January 1932 the plan for heavy industry amounted to 8372 million rubles, excluding military industry (Itogi... VSNKh (1932), p. 199). nDate of adoption not stated; appears in document of early July 1932. o Total budget allocation to 'other' industry, includes subsidies and additional working capital.



R. W. DAVIES

TABLE 9 SHARE OF DEFENCE SECTOR IN GENERAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.

(a) EMPLOYMENT (thousands)

1913 1930 1932 1940 1988

Armaments industry 120la 242b 4805 12066f 75009g All industry 44102a 45543c 67293C 109677h 3737610? Armaments as % of all

industry 2.7 5.3 7.1 11.0 20.1 Armed services 14301 5624d 8554e 42008

Sources: 1 Gatrell, The Last Argument of Tsarism (forthcoming). 2 From Tsarism to NEP (1990), p. 253 (Gukhman's estimate; hired labour only). 3Trud (1936), pp. 10-11. 4See Tupper (1982), pp. 19-20. 5RGAE, 4372/91/1735, 15. 6 RGAE, 4372/41/553, 108, cit. Harrison (1992b), pp. 38-9. 7 Nar.khoz. (1956), p. 190. 8 See Harrison (1991), pp. 62, 63. 9

Cooper (1991), p. 12. 1 Nar.khoz. 1988 (1989), p. 366. Notes: a Russian Empire. b Number of manual workers 176 000; the number of manual workers in 1932 was 349 000 (RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 33); I have assumed that the total employment rose at the same rate as manual workers in 1930-32. c Excludes members of artels; and timber-cutting and hauling. d1928. e1933. f Probably includes commissariats of aircraft, ammunition, armaments and ship-

building industries; refers to second quarter of 1940. Figures for 1930 and 1932 (but not 1913) exclude shipbuilding. g Excludes independent research and development organisations, and health workers, etc. employed in armaments industry. h Excludes members of artels but includes timber-cutting and hauling. Equivalent figure for 1932 is 8 000 000. 'Includes members of artels, and timber-cutting and hauling. Equivalent figure for 1940 is 13 079 000.

600





(b) ARMAMENTS PRODUCTION (MILLION RUBLES)

1913b 1930c 1932 1937C 1937d 1940c 1940d 1988

Gross production of armamentsa 233' 3844 11764 84727f 66008e 227507f 162008e 8800010

Total gross production of industry 73582 313375 378035 955325 1385009 9030001

Total net production of industry 43343 148006 206006 654009 737008

Armaments as % of total gross production 3.2 1.2 3.1 8.9 16.4 9.7

Armaments as % of total net production 5.4 2.6 5.7 10.1 22.0

Sources: l Estimated by P. Gatrell (private communication). 2 Dinamika, i, iii (1930), pp. 176-177. 3 Falkus (1968), p. 55. 4 RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 33. 5 Buzlaeva (1969), p. 111. 6 Sots. str. (1935), p. xi/v. 7

Cooper (1976), p. 51. 8 Harrison (1991), p. 52. 9 Industrializatsiya, 1938-1941 (1973), p. 128. '0 Cooper (1991), pp. 12-13. " Nar. khoz. 1988 (1989), p. 330. Notes: As different prices have been used for different columns, these figures do not show the change over time of armaments production in real terms. a These figures exclude civilian production of armaments industry except where otherwise stated. b1913 prices; Russian Empire.

1926/27 prices. d1937 prices. eNet production in Harrison's table was obtained as 50% of gross production, and excludes inputs into defence industry. f Total production of defence industry commissariats, including civilian production.

601



R. W. DAVIES


(C) STATE BUDGET EXPENDITURE (MILLION RUBLES AT CURRENT PRICES)

1913b 1928/29 1929/30 1932 1940

War Ministry/Commissariat 824' 8563 10464 43084 568005 Other military expenditure 135' (342)c (418)C (1732)C (13200) Total defence sector 9601 (1198)c (1464)C (6031)C 700006 Total national incomea 185002 29200d 36300d (66000)e 3680006 Defence sector as % of

national income 5.2 4.1 4.0 9.0f 19.0

Sources: ' Gatrell (1982), p. 105. 2 Falkus (1968), p. 55. 3 Otchet... za 1928-1929g (1930), pp. 62-63, 85-86. 4 RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 56-5. 5 See Harrison (1991), pp. 78-79. 6 Memorandum by Gosplan official Sukharevsky, cited Harrison (1992a), p. 28. Notes: a Soviet definition-excludes services, so is slightly incompatible with military expenditure, which includes some allocations to training, etc. b Russian Empire. c Total defence sector obtained by adding 40% 'other' to allocations to Peoples Commissariat for Army and Navy. This is obtained from size of additional expenditure for January-March 1933 (See Table 5). In 1928/29 stated additional items included: military-sanitary administration 24; special armies 56; OGPU 51; convoy armies 9; 'other industry' as part of national economy expenditure (i.e. investment, etc. in armaments industry) 76. This is the equivalent of an addition of 25.2% to the War Commissariat expenditure compared with the stated expenditure for the same items amounting to 26.0% in January-March 1933, so it seems realistic to apply the January-March 1933 40% mark-up to the earlier years. d Obtained from national income in current prices in 1928, 1929 and 1930 given in Materials (1985), p. 155 (25% of 1928 and 75% of 1929 for 1928/29; same procedure for 1929/30). eRough estimate: capital investment plus retail trade including bazaar trade (investment 18600-Sots. str. (1935), pp. 464-465; retail trade 47800 from Sovetskaya torgovlya v 1935 (1936), pp. 59-61-organised retail trade-and Malafeev (1964), p. 131-bazaar trade). In 1931 these two items approximately equalled national income in current prices (see Wheatcroft & Davies, eds (1985), p. 95). f This is a very rough figure, owing to the preliminary nature of the national income figure. I suspect that it is too high.

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APPENDIX

Glories and humiliations of the residual

Before the onset of glasnost', Julian Cooper and I painfully struggled with the accessible Soviet data in the hope of discovering the unpublished figures about defence expenditure and the defence industries. The sudden availability of these previously inaccessible figures provides a unique opportunity to check the reliability of indirect estimates.

Defence expenditure (expenditure on the NKVoenMor). As explained above, Cooper noticed that a figure in a Soviet source for defence expenditure during the first five-year plan was far higher than the total annual state budget expenditure on the NKVoenMor for these years, as listed in the reports on the state budget. Data for these years in physical terms about both armaments production, and defence activities generally, led him to the correct conclusion that the higher figure was probably about right. He then hunted for the missing sums under other state budget headings and concluded that these headings might contain the missing amounts. He tentatively suggested the following division by years (million rubles):55

Oct-Dec 1928/29 1929/30 1930 1931 1932 Total

1008 1602 1059 2160 2596 8425

As we have seen, the 'true' figures now published for the whole period except October-December 1930 (for details see Table 2) confirm the higher total figure. But the distribution between years was much more skewed towards 1932 than Cooper anticipated. In 1932 most if not all of the hidden expenditure of the NKVoenMor was provided by some kind of extra-budget credit (presumably in order to assist the cover-up). This crude device was also used to conceal the true level of defence expenditure in the Brezhnev years.

Armaments production. As explained above, I used detailed figures for civilian industry and investment production in 1930-31 in order to obtain the size of the armaments industry as a residual. Comparing alternative series for 1930 and 1931, and noting earlier statements about the coverage of published industrial statistics, I came to the correct conclusion that the armaments industry was included in statistics published after the end of 1931, but not in statistics published earlier. By deducting the known items, I reached what has proved to be an accurate figure for the total production of the armaments industry (million rubles at 1926/27 prices):56

1930 1931 Machine Machine

building and building and Metalworking Chemical Total Metalworking Chemical Total

'Defence production residual' (my estimate) 555 120 675 966 220 1187

Armaments industry (archival data) 543 138 681 882 227 1109

Alas, this triumph was overshadowed by a major error. I knew that 'the defence combines and factories included in the residual items produced some civilian production (perhaps a substantial amount); this probably appears as part of the residual'. But in practice I assumed that it was small enough to be ignored, and in my text I rashly referred to the residual simply as 'defence production' or 'armaments production'. In fact, the civilian production of the armaments industry was very substantial indeed, and armaments production was only 56% of armaments industry production in 1930, and 62% in 1931. The archival figures for armaments production by the armaments industry (excluding shipbuilding and other activities undertaken by trusts classified as civilian) were much lower than my estimate, as follows (gross production, million rubles at 1926/27 prices) (see Table 6):

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R. W. DAVIES

Machine building and

1930 1931 Machine

building and Metalworking Chemical Total Metalworking Chemical Total

My estimate 555 120 675 966 220 1187 Archival data 312 72 384 573 110 683

The capital investment residual did not suffer from this defect. But I could not reach an accurate figure because I lacked data for investment in republican industries, and the residual was too large by this amount. My estimate of the maximum figures compares with the archival figures as follows (million rubles at current prices):57

1930 1931 Machine Machine

building and building and Metalworking Chemical Total Metalworking Chemical Total

My estimate 187 131 318 328 191 519

Archival data 144 83 227 354 128 481

*The author is most grateful for their substantial advice and assistance to E. A. Tyurina (RGAE) and the archivists of RGAE, GARF and RTsKhIDNI, and to O. Khlevnyuk, N. Simonov, J. Cooper, M. Harrison and P. J. D. Wiles; and to the British Economic and Social Research Council for financial support.

The terms 'defence industry' and 'armaments industry' are used interchangeably in this article, and include the military chemical industry. In the Soviet literature of the time, the armaments industry was generally referred to as voennaya promyshlennost' (military industry), and its armaments production (as distinct from its production for civilian purposes) as voennaya produktsiya (military production). The term 'oboronnaya promyshlennost" (defence industry) was used less frequently.

2 For these figures, see Cooper (1976), p. 51, column A. 3 For Western estimates of armaments procurements and production, see Bergson (1961), pp.

362-377; Nutter (1962), pp. 318-325; Moorsteen & Powell (1966), pp. 622-624, 628-634. 4The 1931 item appears as 'war material' in the League of Nations Armaments Year-Book

(Geneva, 1933), cited by Nutter; in Russian the term used is 'military property' (Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, xiv (1968), p. 281).

5 XVIII s"ezd (1939), p. 435. 6 Planovoe khozyaistvo, 1, 1940, p. 10. 7 Moorsteen & Powell (1966), pp. 622, 633; I have calculated the above series from their Table

P-l, line 2b. 8 See Chamberlin (1934). 9 For a sample of such reports see Haslam (1983), pp. 84, 147; and Haslam (1992), pp. 27-30. '0 Leninskii plan (1969), p. 202. " RTsKhIDNI, 17/2/514, i, 126 (10 January); this figure excluded 'capital investment in new

production bases'. 12 For these figures see Harrison (1985), pp. 250, 252. 3 Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny, i (1973), p. 213, citing the central state archives of the Soviet

Army. 14 Cooper (1976), p. 38. 15 Davies (1987), p. 14 and Tables 3 and 4. A slightly revised version of this discussion paper

was published in Edmonson & Waldron, eds (1992). 16 Wiles (n.d. [?1988]), especially Tables 17.II1 and 17.VI; see also note 52 below. 17 Military orders, excluding shipbuilding and 'other' orders, roughly correspond to the main

items covered by 'defence production', which in 1932 excluded shipbuilding. They increased by 133.6% (calculated from Table 3), but gross military production by the defence industry increased by 72.2%. Note that military orders also include imports of armaments, which were probably quantita- tively very small, but about which we have at present no precise information.

18 See Cooper (1976), p. 34; and Appendix to the present article. 19 GARF, 5446/57/21. The decree of 16 December is art. 1854/384; the decrees of 29 December

are arts 1926 and 1927/404. Decree no. 1926 may also be found in GARF, 5446/1/70b, 301-4. The

604




two decrees of 29 December also gave different totals for other defence-related items (million rubles) (see Table 5).

20 RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/840 (item 12). 21 RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/887, 7 (item 32). 22RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/888, 14. 23 Listed in the index to GARF, 5446/57/21; I have not seen this decree. 24 RTsKhIDNI, 17/2/514, i, 126 (session of 10 January). 25 Pravda, 10 January 1933. 26 Otchet. . . za 1934 (1935), p. 7. 27 V. Egorov, senior consultant of USSR at Disarmament Conference, letter to A. A. Langovoi,

military expert of People's Commissariat of Defence, 29 March 1935, published from the archives in Vestnik MID, 3, 61 (1990), pp. 76-77; I am grateful to Julian Cooper for drawing my attention to this source.

28 Otchet ... 1934 (1935), p. 171; an explanation in similar terms appeared in Ekonomicheskaya zhizn', 9 February 1935.

29 Estimated by the present author from data in RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 53-45, 40 (Gosplan report of 31 January 1934); the published NKVoenMor allocation for October-December 1930 has been added to the archival data for the other years. All these figures are in current prices. 30 For armaments data see Tables 6 and 7; for data for all industry, see Sots. str. (1935), pp. 3, 464. There are some discrepancies between these figures and the quarterly data in the following two notes; these come from a different source and exclude the tank industry.

31 The following figures (in million rubles at current prices) exclude the tank industry; they appear in a report dated 10 February 1932, so the data for October-December 1931 are preliminary:

Jan- April- July- Oct- Whole Mar June Sept Dec year

1930 30 38 82 69 219 1931 50 67 111 152 381

(RGAE, 4372/91/871, 67). 32 The following figures (gross production in million rubles at 1926/27 prices), taken from the

same report, also exclude tank production: Jan- April- July- Oct- Whole Mar June Sept Dec year

1930 67 70 94 119 350 1931 115 136 122 214 588

(RGAE, 4372/91/871, 99-8). The 1931 (plan) figure for defence production of the defence industries-760 million rubles-represented an increase of 117%, whereas the planned increase for machine building and metalworking and chemicals Group 'A' was 'only' 78% (estimated from data in Narodnokhozyaistvennyi plan .. 1931 (1931), pp. 93-94).

33 See Haslam (1992), pp. 25-26. 34 GARF, 5446/57/16, 152-5. 35 These measures will be discussed in Davies, Crisis and Progress (forthcoming); on defence

in the Far East see Haslam (1992), pp. 27-28. 36 GARF, 5446/8/172, 3. 37 Increased construction costs meant, however, that in real terms the plan approved in December

was not fulfilled. 38 RGAE, 4372/91/1735, 16 (report dated 28 May 1934); Sots. str. (1935), p. 47. 39 RGAE, 4372/91/1824, 16, 16ob.; the civilian factories producing tanks were the Gor'ky

vehicle works and the Putilov works in Leningrad. 40 See Harrison (1985), pp. 250, 252. In my discussion paper I rashly stated that 'armaments

production expanded rapidly in 1933' (Davies (1987), p. 21). 41 Estimated from data in Tyazhelaya promyshlennost', 1931-1934 (1935), p. 9; I have deducted

investment in the defence industry from the totals for machine building and metalworking and chemicals Group 'A'.

42 Investment for 'narrow defence measures' in civilian heavy industry was increased from 255 to 301 million rubles (Table 8); military investment in transport and communications was planned at a further 483 million rubles (GARF, 5446/8/72).

605



43 Itogi ... po torgovle, November 1932, p. 81. These measures will be discussed in Davies, Crisis and Progress (forthcoming).

44 RTsKhIDNI, 17/3/893, 2 (session of 23 July, item 4), 17/3/894, 1, 12 (session of 1 August, item 3).

45 GARF, 5446/57/20, 133-52 (decree of 21 August); housing accounted for 45 million rubles of the reduction of 95 million within the total for investment in the armaments industry.

46 See Haslam (1992), pp. 18-19. 47 Cited from the archives by O. Khlevnyuk, in Svobodnaya mysl', 17, 1991, p. 80. 48 RTsKhIDNI, 17/2/514, i, 107-8 (9 January). 49 Ibid., 123 (10 January). 50 See Table 6. Total production of the aircraft industry (including peaceful production) increased

by 37%. 51 The construction of 19 medium and large submarines started in 1932, and a further 16 were

started in 1933, compared with only 13 in 1929-31 (Dmitriev (1990), pp. 240-255). It will be noted, however, that shipbuilding orders paid for by the NKVoenMor declined in 1933 (Table 3).

52 It will be seen from our Table 3 that Wiles's estimate for 1933 (1777 million rubles) was quite close to the true figure. However, his weapons' index exaggerated the rate of growth of armaments production, both for 1930-32 and for 1932-33:*

1932 1933

Wiles's index (1930 = 100) 383 595 Index based on archivest 304 336

*Both indexes exclude shipbuilding. tBased on our Table 6; measured in 1926/27 prices.

Wiles's index considerably overvalued tanks, and in consequence undervalued weapons production in 1929/30, when no tanks were produced, and overvalued the rate of growth. But 1933 remains a puzzle. Excluding tanks, Wiles's index seems plausible. According to the data in physical terms, production of aircraft and traditional weapons (except machine guns) grew substantially in 1933; and this is reflected in Wiles's index based on these data. The production data in physical terms can be reconciled with the archival data in value terms in Table 6 only if there was a substantial fall in production of items for which we do not have data in physical terms.

53 See Davies (1989), pp. 20 (n. 83), 44, 441. 54 Note, however, that a larger proportion of the production of the armaments industry consisted

of civilian goods in 1988 than in 1940 (total production of the armaments industry amounted to 140 thousand million rubles, 15.5% of gross industrial production-Cooper (1991), p. 12). 55

Cooper (1976), p. 34, where the details of his estimates are set out. 56 Davies (1987), Table 3; for archival data see Table 6. 57 Davies (1987), Table 4(a); for archival data see Table 7 (1930 obtained as 75% of 1929/30

plus October-December 1930).

References

Archives

GARF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii), formerly TsGAOR. RGAE (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki), formerly TsGANKh. RTsKhIDNI (Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniya i izucheniya dokumentov noveishei istorii), formerly TsPA. Archives are referred to by initials of name of archive, followed by fond/opis'/delo, list.

Unpublished works in English

J. M. Cooper, 'Defence Production and the Soviet Economy, 1929-1941', CREES Discussion Papers, University of Birmingham, SIPS No. 3 (1976).

R. W. Davies, 'Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy, 1931-1933' (in preparation). R. W. Davies, 'Soviet Defence Industry during the First Five-Year Plan', CREES Discussion Papers,

SIPS No. 27 (1987). P. Gatrell, 'The Last Argument of Tsarism' (forthcoming).

606 R. W. DAVIES




M. Harrison, 'Soviet National Accounting for World War II: an Inside View', unpublished working paper (1992a).

M. Harrison, 'The Soviet Defense Industry Complex, 1937-1945', Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Warwick, No. 9253 (1992b).

M. Harrison, 'New Estimates of Soviet Production and Employment in World War II: a Progress Report', CREES Discussion Papers, University of Birmingham, SIPS No. 32 (1991).

S. Tupper, 'The Red Army and the Soviet Defence Industry, 1934-1941', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham (1982).

P. J. D. Wiles, 'Appendix 17: Two Early OBDAs and an Early Deception', unpublished Working Paper (n.d. [?1988]).

Works in English

Armaments Year-book (Geneva, League of Nations, 1933). A. Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia since 1928 (Cambridge, MA, 1961). W. H. Chamberlin, Russia's Iron Age (Boston, MA, 1934). J. Cooper, The Soviet Defence Industry, Conversion and Reform (London, 1991). R. W. Davies, The Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929-1930 (Basingstoke and London, 1989). R. W. Davies, ed., From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy: Continuity and Change in the

Economy of the USSR (Basingstoke and London, 1990). R. W. Davies, J. M. Cooper & M. J. Ilic, Soviet Official Statistics on Industrial Production, Capital

Stock and Capital Investment, 192841 (Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, SIPS Occasional Paper No. 1 (1991)).

L. Edmondson & P. Waldron, eds, Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860-1930 (Basingstoke and London, 1992).

M. E. Falkus, 'Russian National Income, 1913: a Reevaluation', Economica, 35, 1968. P. Gatrell, 'Industrial Expansion in Tsarist Russia, 1908-14', Economic History Review, 2nd series,

xxxv, 1982. M. Harrison, Soviet Planning in Peace and War, 1938-1945 (Cambridge, 1985). J. Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930-33: the Impact of the Depression (Basingstoke and London,

1983). J. Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Threatfrom the East, 1933-41 (Basingstoke and London, 1992). League of Nations Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, National Defence

Expenditure Commission, Report of the Technical Committee, ii, 1933. R. Moorsteen & R. P. Powell, The Soviet Capital Stock, 1928-1962 (Homewood, IL, 1966). G. W. Nutter, Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union (Princeton, NJ, 1962). S. G. Wheatcroft & R. W. Davies, eds, Materials for a Balance of the Soviet National Economy,

1928-1930 (Cambridge, 1985).

Periodical publications in Russian

Nezavisimaya gazeta. Pravda. Svobodnaya mysl' (formerly Kommunist). Vestnik MID.

Works in Russian

A. I. Buzlaeva, Leninskii plan kooperirovaniya mel'koi promyshlennosti (Moscow, 1969). Dinamika rossiiskoi i sovetskoi promyshlennosti v svyazi s razvitiem narodnogo khozyaistva za sorok

let (1887-1926gg.), Vol. I, iii (Moscow, 1930). V. I. Dmitriev, Sovetskoe podvodnoe korablestroenie (Moscow, 1990). Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR, xiv (Moscow, 1968). Gosudarstvennyi plan razvitiya narodnogo khozyaistva SSSR na 1941 god (Moscow [1941], reprinted

Baltimore, MD [1951]). Industrializatsiya SSSR, 1938-1941gg.: dokumenty i materialy (Moscow, 1973). Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny, ii (Moscow, 1973). Itogi raboty promyshlennosti VSNKh za 1931g. i perspektivy tyazheloi promyshlennosti na 1932g.

(Moscow, 1932).

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608 R. W. DAVIES

Itogi vypolneniya narodno-khozyaistvennogo plana po torgovle i snabzheniyu, Byulleten' 11 (Noyabr' 1932 goda (TsUNKhU, Moscow, 1932).

Leninskii plan sotsialisticheskoi industrializatsii i ego osushchestvlenie (Moscow, 1969). A. N. Malafeev, Istoriya tsenoobrazovaniya v SSSR (1917-1963gg.) (Moscow, 1964). Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1988 godu (Moscow, 1989). Narodno-khozyaistvennyi plan SSSR na 1931 god (Moscow, 1931). Otchet Narodnogo Komissariata Finansov Soyuza SSR ob ispolnenii edinogo gosudarstvennogo

byudzheta Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, za 1928-1929g. (Leningrad, 1930); za 1933g. (Leningrad, 1935); za 1934g. (Leningrad, 1935).

Sotsialisticheskoe stroitel'stvo SSSR: statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow, 1935). 3 sessiya Tsentral'nogo Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta SSSR 6-go sozyva (Moscow, 1933). Trud v SSSR: statisticheskii spravochnik (Moscow, 1936). Tyazhelaya promyshlennost' SSSR za 1931-34gg.: materialy k dokladu Narodnogo Komissara

Tyazheloi Promyshlennosti S. Ordzhonikidze VII s"ezdu sovetov SSR (Moscow, 1935). XVIII s"ezd Vsesoyuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii(b), 10-21 marta 1939g.: stenograficheskii otchet

(Moscow, 1939).



Documents

Soviet Military Expenditure and the Armaments Industry, 1929-33: A Reconsideration