Pulp and Paper Industry at the Start of the First Five-Year Plan: Plans and Practices

Abstract

In Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, formed in 1922, the pulp and paper industry was poorly developed. Following the First World War, the Civil War and the Soviet-Polish War, the loss of the western regions, where more than a third of paper products were produced, was also a negative factor. Despite the presence of large forest areas, there were not enough resources for their development, and there was no machine-building base. As a result, the Soviet state imported significant volumes of semi-finished products, paper and cardboard. The article analyzes the plans of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR for the development of the pulp and paper industry in the second half of the 1920s, the design and progress of construction of enterprises. It was revealed that the main economic body sought to gradually reduce the import of wood pulp, pulp, paper and other necessary materials through the expansion and construction of production facilities. Trusts and regional economic bodies played a major role in the location of enterprises. For them, new construction provided an opportunity to attract capital investment and create industrial centers. It is concluded that large-scale plans for the development of the pulp and paper industry in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1920s. were poorly developed from a financial and personnel point of view, were based on the weak level of development of the industry and reflected the optimistic ideas of economists and business executives about the potential of the new economic policy. On the contrary, the competition for projects of pulp and paper enterprises in 1928 reflected the transition from decentralized to centralized design of facilities and demonstrated the priorities of the Soviet government regarding the location of new production facilities.