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Original Articles

The End of Rationing in the Soviet Union, 1934-1935

Pages 557-609 | Published online: 02 Jul 2010

References

  • 1996 . Otechestvennye arkhivy , 2 : 28 (V. P. Popov)
  • Marx , K. 1933 . Capital volume 2 , 412 Kerredn , NY (chapter XVIII, section II)
  • Bukharin , N. and Preobrazhensky , E. 1969 . The ABC of Communism 391 Harmondsworth
  • Osokina , E. A. 1993 . Ierarkhiya potrebleniya Moscow The rationing system is examined in three valuable studies based on Russian archives:
  • Osokina , E. A. 1998 . Za fasadom "stalinskogo izobiliya" Moscow
  • Hessler , J. M. 1996 . “ `Culture of Shortages: A Social History of Soviet Trade' ” . University of Chicago . unpublished Ph.D. dissertation
  • Davies , R. W. 1996 . Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy, 1931-1933 177 – 180 . 452 – 455 . London and Basingstoke
  • 1930 . Na novom etape sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva: sbornik statei volume 2 , 7 – 51 . Moscow
  • See Davies, Crisis …, pp. 60-62.
  • Neiman , G. Ya. 1935 . Vnutrennaya torgovlya SSSR 238 Moscow
  • 1929 . Zakonodatel'stvo i administrativnye rasporyazheniya po vneshnei i vnutrennoi torgovle 2 – 11 . no. 70,
  • 1932 . Tovarooborot za gody rekonstruktivnogo perioda 131 – 137 . Moscow
  • Malafeev , A. N. 1964 . Istoriya tsenoobrazovaniya v SSSR, 1917-1963gg. 402 Moscow The 1934 plan for socialised trade eventually approved was 60 000 million rubles (Planovoe khozyaistvo, 1934, 5-6, p. 199). In fact socialised trade amounted to 49 800 million rubles in 1933 and 61 800 million in 1934 (see Table 4); commercial trade amounted to 6300 million rubles in 1933 and 13 100 million rubles in 1934 (Sovetskaya torgovlya (1935[?1936]), p. 74). Kolkhoz market prices fell by 39% in 1934the most substantial fall in any one year. Mezhlauk was promoted to head of Gosplan on 25 April 1934, replacing Kuibyshev
  • Stalin . 1951 . Sochineniya volume 13 , 340 – 346 . Moscow
  • 1934 . Vtoroi pyatiletnii plan razvitiya narodnogo khozyaistva SSSR (1933-1937 gg.) volume I , 383 Moscow this volume was sent to press on 1 September 1934
  • 1935 . Narodno-khozyaistvennyi plan na 1935 god 540 – 541 . 551 Moscow According to official figures, the production of the light industry commissariat (Narkomlegprom), together with the light industry of the commissariats of local industry (NKM-estpromy), increased by 6.8%, compared with the planned 12%; the production of the food industry commissariat (Narkompishcheprom)together with the food industry of the NKMestpromy increased by 27% compared with the planned 31%
  • The realised market fund of both food products and industrial goods was far less than planned (see Itogi … po tovarooborotu, March 1934, pp. 14-17; food products are given in kind, and non-food products in 1934 wholesale prices of industry). Retail trade in current prices was reported as slightly less than planned (see ibid., p. 24).
  • RTsKhIDNI, 17/162/16, 18, no. 148/128 dated 17 March. The amount eventually sold commercially was 1 771 000 tons (Itogi … po tovarooborotu, July 1935, pp. 16-17).
  • Davies , R. W. and Khlevnyuk , O. V. 1997 . “ `Gosplan' ” . In Decision-making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 1932-7 Edited by: Rees , E. A. 53
  • RTsKhIDNI, 79/1/798, 7-9, dated 5 June, published in O. V. Khlevnyuk et al., compilers, Stalinskoe Politbyuro v 30-e gody: sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1995), pp. 140-141. No accounts of this dispute have so far been traced in Russian archives.
  • Davies , S. 1997 . Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934-1941 28 Cambridge
  • GARF, 5446/26/6, 4-6 (memorandum to Molotov). This is a copy, and the comment by Molotov (dated 19 August)is typed, but bears Molotov's signature. Ya. E. Rudzutak, like Chubar'. was a vice-chairman of Sovnarkom.
  • Barnett , V. “ `The People's Commissariat of Supply and the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade' ” . Edited by: Rees . 181 GARF, 6759/1/11, 74; 6759/1/621, 194-5. STO was the main sub-committee of Sovnarkom. For the functions of the KTF see. KTF was absorbed by the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade in August 1934 (ibid., p. 182)
  • RGAE, 7971/2/8, 134; this is a draft decree of Sovnarkom dated [197] September 1934. For other examples of the sale of goods at illegally high prices see Malafeev (1964), pp. 197-199.
  • In Moscow the price of a kilogram of rye bread on the kolkhoz market in the first six months of the year varied between Ir85 and 2r, compared with the commercial price of Ir50 (see the data for Moscow and other towns in Tovarooborot SSSR za mai 1934, pp. 36-37).
  • 1960 . Vneshnyaya torgovlya za 1918-1940gg. 144 Moscow Grain exports amounted to 769 000 tons in 1934 (primarily from the 1934 harvest)compared with 1 684 000 in the previous year
  • 1934 . Ekonomicheskaya zhizn' , 10 11 October
  • See Stalin's appointments diary in Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1995, 3, pp. 142-143. The first two meetings took place on 3 and 5 November. On 3 November the Politburo, again bez protokola, established a high-level commission to prepare the reform within one week; the commission comprised Molotov (chairman), Kaganovich, Kirov, Zhdanov, Mikoyan, Mezhlauk, M. Belen'ky, Grin'ko, Kleiner, Zelensky, Veitser, Shvernik and Veinberg (APRF, 3/43/51, 57).
  • KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh, volume Ill (1954), pp. 256-260; the resolution first appeared in Pravda, 29 November 1934. In the discussion of the resolution, Stalin, in spite of his earlier criticism of Razumov, endorsed his proposal to vary bread prices, commenting that it would `make the transition more flexible' (RTsKhIDNI, 17/2/529, 78).
  • Narodno-khozyaistvennyi plan … 1936 (1936), pp. 432-3; Promyshlennost' SSSR (1936), p. 584. 1 ton of flour produces approximately 1.4 tons of bread.
  • Sbornik … po mukomol'no-krupyanoi promyshlennosti za 1935 god (1936), p. 31 (for full title see Source to Table 6(a)).
  • See quarterly data for 1934 in Itogi … po tovarooborotu, July 1935, pp. 16-17, and for 1935 in Osnovnye pokazateli vypolneniya narodno-khozyaistvennogo plana [hereafter Osnovnye pokazateli] 1935 (1936), p. 225.
  • Narodno-khozyaistvennyi plan … 1936 (1936), pp. 392-395, reporting the 1935 plan. The 1935 plan as published in May 1935 gave the cost increase for all-Union industry as 21.4%, but did not give a figure for industry as a whole (Narodnokhozyaistvennyi plan … 1935 (1935), p. 659).
  • Narodnokhozyaistvennyi plan … 1935 (1935), pp. 442-443, 642-643; for the investment plan see GARF, 5446/57/33, 223-6 (Sovnarkom decree dated 16 December, art. 2721).
  • Harrison , Mark and Davies , R. W. 1997 . 'The Soviet Military-economic Effort during the Second Five-year Plan (1933-1937)' . Europe-Asia Studies , 49 ( 3 ) May : 369 – 406 . 380
  • RGAE, 7733/13/184, 28-9 (unsigned memorandum on 'The Balance of Incomes and Expenditures of the Population in the 3rd Quarter of 1935', transmitted 7 June).
  • See the Gosplan report dated 29 April 1938, signed by M. Bogolepov (RGAE, 4372/92/159, 71-57)
  • Pis'ma I. V. Stalina V. M. Molotovu, 1925-1936gg.: sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1995), pp. 178-179, citing RTsKhIDNI, 85/27/397, 5Ob.-6.
  • 1934 . Izvestiya , 27 December
  • 1934 . Izvestiya , 22 December Bukharin was the editor of Izvestiya
  • Rimmel , L. A. 1997 . `Another Kind of Fear: Kirov's Murder and the End of Bread Rationing in Leningrad' . Slavic Review , 56 : 494 see also the housewife's comment reported on p. 496; and S. Davies (1997), p. 140
  • Davies , S. Popular Opinion …. 29
  • Rimmel, p. 493.
  • Rimmel, pp. 483-484.
  • Ibid., p. 491.
  • Ibid., p. 497.
  • Ibid., pp. 485, 487-488. For hostile and favourable comments on the end of bread rationing recorded in the NKVD files see also Osokina, Zafasadom …. pp. 180-181.
  • 1934 . Ekonomicheskaya zhizn' , 27 December
  • 1934 . Ekonomicheskaya zhizn' , 30 December (G. Kos'yachenko)
  • GARF, 5446/16a/329, 47-9, 59. See also Osokina, Zafasadom …. p. 182, citing NKVD reports on the very widespread reintroduction of forms of local rationing in the first few months of 1935.
  • Narodno-khozyaistvennyi plan na 1936 god (Moscow, 1936), p. 332. For much higher figures for both years see Table 7(b).

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