Construction Program of the First and the Second Five-Year Plans in Timber Industry of the USSR: Experience in the Study

Abstract

Timber industry was a very meaningful component element of the «social industrialization» project in the Soviet Union of the late 1920s and the early 1940s. The national economy and the population of the country were in urgent need of products provided by the industry; timber resources and materials generated much revenue from their export. The main directions and parameters of the forest-timber complex were the subject of the first soviet five-year plans. They included establishing timber-industry centers in the European North, Ural, Siberia and the Far East. The plans also contained the itemized lists of the main construction sites made by the Supreme Council of National Economy of the USSR (for the First Five-Year plan), as well as by the Peoples Commissariat of Timber Industry of the USSR (for the Second Five-Year Plan). The present paper introduces for the first time the analysis of timber industry construction program: investments, dynamics of quantity and value of new construction sites, plan target timelines and completion dates of the construction sites. The analysis was based on the materials of the first and the second five-year plans, in reference to timber industry components and regions of the Soviet Union. The study identified the main investment priorities in regional levels, such as sawmilling and wood processing industries as well as pulp and paper industry. The article also contains conclusions about underperformance of some projects and readjustment of tasks for the Soviet timber industry in 1933-1934 (after failure of the First-Year Plan), while remaining the baselines of the industry.