Soviet Industiralization In The Eyes Of Western Scholars,1928-1941

This paper based on the basis of results home and abroad, starting from somerepresentative results by the western scholars to Soviet Union industrialization,attempting continue enriching the perspective of domestic Soviet industrializationresearch.The western scholars divided the industrialization of the Soviet Union between1928to1941into four stages, named "The Warming-up Period"(1927.12-1929.11),“All-out Drive”(1929.11-1932.12),“The Three ‘Good’ Years”(1934-1936.12),“ThePurge Era"(1937-1940.12). This staging is established by western scholarsrepresented by Naum Jasny. They use specific data depicting the changes of industry,agriculture, and other aspects of livings in Soviet. On this basis, they evaluated theimpact of soviet industrialization.The full paper is made up of three independent parts: the introduction (chapter1),the main body and the conclusion.Chapter2is the Soviet industrialization process in the eyes of western scholars.1928-1941, the division of Soviet industrialization into four stages itself can provethat the Soviet industrialization is in fluctuate trend during this period. It is true thatthe western scholars are taking a suspicion view to the plans set in the Soviet five-yearplans. The methods they utilized have great differences compared with the Sovietscholars."The Warming-up Period " is the period when Soviet industrializationstarted, mainly focus on forming the idea of how to solve the problems of economicdevelopment, and establishing the economic developing goals. In the " All-out Drive”,both the agricultural production and the industrial growth rate declined. And duringthe " The Three ‘Good’ Years ", it is a period that showed rapid expansion of theSoviet economy, economic growth ratio is very high. Finally," The Purge Era " iswhen the Soviet Union’s economic growth has been slowed, but the Soviet Union’s industrial production was actually increased.Chapter3is the positive comments of western scholars for Sovietindustrialization. Heavy industry is a priority of the Soviet industrialization. It is onthe basis of the industrialization of tsarist Russia, then continuing to move it forward.And in the1930s, the western world caught in the "Great Depression",and theeconomy with a recession, which shows the superiority of the Soviet plannedeconomy. Therefore, both the growth rate and the improvement of the industrialsystem, the development of Soviet heavy industry was remarkable. Soviet victory inthe Great Patriotic War, just testing the fruit of the Soviet industrialization. Afterputting it in order,I found they stressed that the industrialized development toimprove the standard of living of the Soviet people, to enhance the level of nationaleducation in the Soviet Union. R. C. Allen, represented by some scholars believe thatbefore the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War,in the Five-year Plan, per capitaconsumption is growing on the whole, but growth is not continuous, uneven.Meanwhile, industrial consumer goods and national income are also in an upwardtrend. Development of education in the Soviet Union provided the impetus forindustrialization. There are three "bright spots" in Soviet national education. First,promoting universal education; Second, expanding the ranks of the Soviet partyexperts; Third, the number of Soviet women accessing to education is increasing. Atlast, the technical exchanges between the USSR and the West, and the Soviet forces toimprove their research, both the foundation of the Soviet future technologyindependent.Chapter4introduces a negative evaluation of the Western scholars of Sovietindustrialization.The western scholars started from the details, deeply studied thecapital accumulation, labor issues and other elements during the Sovietindustrialization. Representative views are: The capital accumulations in the Sovietindustrialization damage the benefits of the domestic farmers and consumers. On theother hand, utilization of forced labor, poor working conditions, such as low workerpayment, poor housing conditions, would inevitably lead the workers to revolt. Also, the production process exists serious waste, such as poor product quality, raw materialloss and adulteration, high resource consumption and so on.The research of Soviet industrialization by the western scholars has provided aperspective of view and data that different from the Soviet scholars, and the resultscould continue and deepen our understanding to the Soviet industrialization.