The Soviet military‐economic effort during the second five‐year plan (1933–1937)

Abstract

In our paper we aim to show the changing economic significance of defence outlays in \nthe period of the second five-year plan (1933-7).1 This period emerges as a time of \ntransition. Rapid rearmament had been begun during the first five-year plan (1928-32), \nbut from a very low base. In terms of the rising volume of activity, the following period \nwas less hectic. However, it was a period of exceptionally rapid change in military \ntechnology and the technological level of defence industry products. It was followed by \na third period (the third five-year plan of 1938-42, interrupted by war) in which the \npace of rearmament was again exceptionally rapid and from a much higher initial base \nthan before. Moreover the renewed acceleration of defence mobilisation began in \n1936, when the second five-year plan was still under way. \nCentral to our conventional picture of the Soviet economy in the second fiveyear \nplan are what Naum Jasny called the ‘three good years’ of 1934-6. These were \nyears of good harvests, rapidly rising production, de-rationing of consumer markets, \nand rising wages and farm incomes. For the defence sector, in contrast, these emerge \nas years of struggle and tribulation.

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