THE FIVE YEAR PLAN

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 13, 9 October 1931, Page 7

THE FIVE YEAR PLAN

By

G.

LAWN

MA,

Being the second of a series of talks from 3YA on "Russia To-day." Few countries are so little understood as modern Russia. Yet that vast country teems with interest. Its development is vital to the modern world, for tt has set upon a plan that is steadily evolving a new and better Russia. Now when the wheels of industry are retarded by one of the worst trade depressions of modern times, Russia alone provides employment for her millions without artificial methods. What is her secret? Mr. Lawn, in his timely series of talks, explains.

FORTNIGHT ago I spoke about the remarkable changes that are taking place in .Soviet Russia. Since then I have read two very interesting books about that country. One, "The Soviet Five-Year Plan," by H. R. Knickerbocker, is a description of the progress of industrialisation in Russia and its possible ‘effects on world trade. The other is "The Challenge of Russia," by Sherwood Eddy, a writer who has qnade several visits to Russia before and after the revolution, knows the country well, and gives most in-

A teresting accounts of the industrial, social and religious developments there. I shall quote freely from this book in the course of this talk in which I propose to deak with some aspects of the now famous Five-Year Plan. As you probably know, the whole economic organisation of the U.S.S.R. is controlled by the Supreme Economic Council. The various industries are managed by trusts or boards responsible to this Central Council. The Gosplan or State Planning Commission set out to transform the whole economic life of this vast country-to organise on up-to-date "lines all industries, including transport, power supply, building, manufacturing, mining, ‘forestry and agriculture. This involves not only the most daring and ambitious schemes that have ever been conceived for the rapid industrialisation of a backward country, but also the creation of a new spirit of enterprise in the people. Millions of people had to be inspired with a sense of partnership in social production, and with the incentive to spare no efforts in raising standards of efficient production. Not the least part of the achievements since the plan began in 1928 has been the remarkable enthusiasm of the masses of the people in carrying the plan into effect. Interest has been aroused and maintained by means of propaganda through posters, newspapers, radio talks, motion pictures, electric gns, and even by slogans set out in the form ¢ patterns in flower-beds in public parks and gardens. The imagination of the younger people in particular has been captured. They are eager to do great things-to build the biggest hydro-electrical works, the largest tractor factory in the quickest time with the most up-to-date machinery in the world. Chailenges are issued by a group of workers in one factory or farm to turn out more than their quota with less waste at lower cost. Pressure from below is exerted on the management of different works to keep them up to the mark. Meetings of workers in a particular factory will demand that their managers speed up the work, cut out waste and increase efficiency so that their factory can outstrip others in production. Workers are stimulated by piecework wages, by public honours and by rewards.

These rewards have usually a social value. For example, last October a Moscow factory that had exceeded its yearly quota received a reward of 750,000 roubles to be used for the building of model homes for the workers. In the Ilytch metallurgical works at Kharkov. four of the best workers and two of the best engineers were given travelling scholarships

abroad because the output had in« creased over and above the goal set by the Plan. Eddy says that the spirit of achievement and emulation reminded him of a football season in America, and the Russian correse pondent of the London "Economist" describes it as "the expression of the delight which Young Russia feels at the sudden discovery of the country’s vast and hitherto unexploited material resources." The younger generation of Russia is deeply thrilled and believes that the Five-Year Plan is the gateway to

a new epoch. The expert planning, efficient management and the enthusiasm of the workers have resulted in several industries exceeding their quota each year, and over the whole of Russia is heard the slogan, "The Five-Year Plan in Four Years." The Planning Commission is already at work on further plans, and a Fifteen-Year Plan is predicted. It is this spirit among the people that has enabled them to endure hard work and much sacrifice during the first years of the Plan. It was of first importance to double and treble the output of the heavy basic industries, ' i.e, to construct gigantic iron and steel works, to develop coal mines and oil fields, to build great industrial towns with factories and houses for hundreds of thousands of workers. ie the meantime the Hight industries have been of minor importance. The people are prepared to suffer a temporary scarcity of boots and shoes, clothing and various commodities, some of which are comforts and some almost necessities. They believe that when the Five-Yeag Plan is completed there will be plenty of clothing, shelter and comforts for all. Now for a few instances of their achieves ments. Let us deal with education first. the days of the Tsars 60 per cent. of thé people were illiterate. Now there is compulx sory education for all children from eight ts eleven years of age, and widespread facilities for education for persons of all ages. In 1 there were 4} million pupils attending a schools. By 1930 there were over 12 million in elementary schools and about 10 million in other educational institutions including schools for adults. The aim is to have no illiterats people by 1934. Eddy says: "In no other country, unless it be Japan, has the aesthetic side of life been so fostered and developed among the common people. In no other country does one find the art galleries, museums, the opera, concert and theatre, all of the highest quality, so thronged with working men. . . . Theart collections from the palaces of the nobles, like the palaces themselves, are now all socialised and ‘made available to (Concluded on page &Y,

The Five Y ear Plan (Continued from page 7.) the people." He goes’ on to speak of the progress made in art, literature, and music, and says further: "No other nation has made the cinema such an instrument of education, with such a powerful political and social message. Instead of a merely commercialised amusement and a social menace it is made a vast educational force for teaching the socialised conception and building the kind of character they desire. Lenin had said that ‘of all our arts I believe that the cinema is the most important.’ " . Regarding the peasants, Eddy states: "A new peasantry is being evolved in Russia. The revolution has given the peasant the land and a new liberty. It has in many ways driven him from the old ruts. It has swept over him with a cyclone of new ideas and practices. Whether he accepts them or resists them, his children at least have broken from the old order. They bring home daily new suggestions from the school or youth meeting. "There are new posters, new motion pictures, new institutions, new agricultural methods all about him. He sees the tractors ploughing their deep furlows about his little farm. He sees the larger crops and better living standards of his neighbours who have joined the collectives. He and his friends attend the village meeting. They are elected on the soviets and other committees. They learn to speak out and fight for their rights as they never dared to do under Ozarist oppression. "However painful the process of transition for those of the older generation who cannot or will not change their habits of life, a new day has dawned for Russia. Probably greater changes are taking place among the peasants in this single decade than in the last two thousand years on these steppes." An outstanding example of modern large-scale mechanised agriculture is the huge State farm, "Giant," containing over 600,000 acres. On it there are over 2500 permanent labourers, 240 caterpillar tractors, 220 wheel tractors, 830 harvester combines, 500 seed-drills, 1200 ploughs, and 6000 harrows. {ft takes six hours to ride across this farm in a train going eighteen miles an hour. The "Economist" representative, after seeing it, said: "Of all the places I visited in Russia this summer I saw nothing to approach this farm in efficiency, strict discipline, natural friendliness and camaraderie." At Magnetogorsk, in the Urals, there is being constructed the second largest iron and steel plant in the world. It is to cost over £80,000,000. Already, as part of this work, 15,000 workers have built, in less'than five months, a dam three-quarters of a mile long across the Ural River, using 40,000 cubic yards of ferro-concrete. When finished these works are to turn out three million tons of iron yearly. , At Oheliabinsk is being built a tractor factory with an assembly room covering an area of twenty-six acres and designed to produce 50,000 ten-ton 60 h.p. caterpillar tractors a year. Huge hydro-electrical works are being built on the Dnieper River to produce each year 2500 million kilowatt hours of energy. In connection with this enterprise a new industrial city is being built, the cost of factories, equip-

ment and workers’ homes to be ore £75,000,000. One could go on enumer- \. ating examples of remarkable achievements in industrial construction. On the human side there are excellent provisions for safeguarding the welfare of the workers. In describing these Hddy says:"In protective labour legislation and social insurance Russia probably leads the world. ... . In 1918 the average number of hours in the normal work ing day was 9,9. The Labour Code of 1918 and 1922 introduced a maximum eight-hour day. To-day it has been reduced to an average of 7.2 hours. Instead of one day’s rest in seven, one in five is now provided in ‘the continuous working week.’ "Child labour, which is still permitted in so many of the States in America, is prohibited in Russia for children under fourteen, while thdése from fourteen to sixteen may work but four hours a day, and from sixteen to eighteen six hours. "Most generous and extensive provisions for payments for maternity and child welfare, for medical care, for temporary and permanent disability, unemployment, invalidity and old age, housing, death benefit and burial are made. It is evident that low wages are largely compensated for by increased security, reduced rents and prices for food, recreation, cultural privileges, education for the worker and his children and provision for all contingencies and for old age. There is no place in the system for hoarding because of individual fear, tomake provision for the unknown The risk is shared and borne by all so. cially instead of individually. The American worker receives higher wages but has less security against unemployment, old age, sickness, etc. The Russian has lower wages but more security. Several hundred labour exchanges at Government expense are responsible for providing work for every possible man. "Working women, who were the beasts of burden in old Russia, are specially protected, and as a rule prohibited from night work and from certain arduous employments. All manual women workers are free from work on full pay eight weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth... Additional financial assistance and special provisions are made for mothers during the nursing period. , "Public nurseries, provided for small children whose mothers are at wark, are a notable feature of Russian ,life, not only in the factories, but on -the collective farms, and in the parks and places of amusement. Such scientific and uniformly kind treatment of children is all the more noteworthy in a country that was recently so backward. "Vacations are provided for workers for at least two weeks on full pay in advance. Palaces and summer resorts of the former nobility are turned over for sanitaria, rest homes, hospitals, and nurseries for the workers and their children. In the palace and surrounding park of some former nobleman, one Sees accommodated during the course of a single summer several thousand work.>" ers in tutn. .The visitor sees them browning themselves on the lawns in the sun, resting in hammocks under the trees, swimming in the lake or river, or playing games over the wide grounds. "Tt is an almost startling sight to see every former palace, every gallery, resort or place of amusement socialised."