1920 Soviet plan for economic development
GOELRO
(Russian:
ГОЭЛРО
) was the first of
Soviet Russia
's plans for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent
Five-Year Plans
drafted by
Gosplan
. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (
Russian
:
Государственная комиссия по электрификации России
,
romanized
:
Gosudarstvennaya komissiya po elektrifikatsii Rossii
).
The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by
Vladimir Lenin
. Lenin's belief in the central importance of
electrification
to the achievement of
communism
is represented by his statement:
[1]
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
Foundation
[
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]
The commission was established by the Presidium of the
VSNKh
on February 21, 1920,
[2]
in accordance with February 3, 1920,
VTsIK
resolution on the electrification plan development.
[3]
The director of the commission was
Gleb Krzhizhanovsky
.
About 200 scientists and engineers participated, including
Genrikh Graftio
,
Ivan Alexandrov
, Mikhail Shatelen and others.
[2]
By the end of 1920 the Commission devised the "
Russian SFSR
Electrification Plan" (
≪План электрификации Р.С.Ф.С.Р≫
), that was approved subsequently by the
8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets
on December 22, 1920,
[4]
and accepted by the
Sovnarkom
(Soviet government) on December 21, 1921.
[5]
The Plan represented a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. Lenin's stated goal for it was "...the organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism."
[6]
Foreign authors about the plan
[
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]
In 1920, British writer
Herbert George Wells
visited Soviet Russia and met with Vladimir Lenin. Wells believed that it was impossible to realise the Russian revolutionary’s plan, as he wrote in his book
Russia in the Shadows
:
For Lenin, who like a good orthodox Marxist denounces all "Utopians," has succumbed at last to a Utopia, the Utopia of the electricians. He is throwing all his weight into a scheme for the development of great power stations in Russia to serve whole provinces with light, with transport, and industrial power. Two experimental districts he said had already been electrified. Can one imagine a more courageous project in a vast flat land of forests and illiterate peasants, with no water power, with no technical skill available, and with trade and industry at the last gasp? Projects for such an electrification are in process of development in Holland and they have been discussed in England, and in those densely-populated and industrially highly-developed centres one can imagine them as successful, economical, and altogether beneficial. But their application to Russia is an altogether greater strain upon the constructive imagination. I cannot see anything of the sort happening in this dark crystal of Russia, but this little man at the Kremlin can; he sees the decaying railways replaced by a new electric transport, sees new roadways spreading throughout the land, sees a new and happier Communist industrialism arising again. While I talked to him he almost persuaded me to share his vision.
Implementation
[
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]
The GOELRO Plan was implemented during a 10- to 15-year period. According to the Plan, the territory of the
Russian SFSR
was divided into eight regions, with distinct development strategies due to the specific features of each region: Southern Region, Central Industrial region, Northern Region,
Ural
Region,
Volga
Region,
Turkestan
Region,
Caucasus
Region and Western
Siberia
Region.
[3]
[8]
The Plan included the construction of a network of 30 regional
power plants
, including ten large
hydroelectric power plants
, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.
[9]
It was intended to increase the total national power output per year to 8.8 billion
kWh
, as compared to 1.9 billion kWh in
Imperial Russia
in 1913.
[3]
Soviet propaganda declared the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931.
[3]
[4]
While only three out of ten hydroelectric stations were built by 1930: the
Volkhov
, the
Svir
, and the
Dnieper Hydroelectric Stations
;
[10]
the goal of 8.8 billion kWh was reached in 1931,
[11]
and national power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of the
first five-year plan
in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940.
[
citation needed
]
Leon Trotsky
as president of the
electrification
commission and the Opposition bloc also put forward an electrification plan which involved the construction of the
hydroelectric
Dnieprostroi dam
.
[12]
[13]
Ivan Alexandrov
later directed the Regionalisation Commission of
Gosplan
which divided the
Soviet Union
into thirteen
European
and eight
Asiatic
economic regions, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights".
[14]
The term "Ilyich's lamp" (лампочка Ильича) for an
electric bulb
, a reference to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is a reminder of the Plan period.
[
citation needed
]
-
The GOELRO plan title page, 1920
-
Poster #742 "Rosta Windows" dedicated to Russia's electrification by Vladimir Mayakovsky
-
A map depicting Russia's electrification (1973)
-
"GOELRO Plan" poster by Alexander Lemeshchenko (1967)
-
The electrification of the Southern District according to the GOELRO plan
Legacy
[
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]
In 1963,
Che Guevara
cited the GOELRO plan as a model for the development of revolutionary Cuba.
[15]
: 33
Guevara's view was that electrification provided a crucial basis for advancing to a higher stage of development, although Guevara stated that in hindsight Lenin had overemphasized the importance of electrification in and of itself.
[15]
: 33
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Vladimir, Lenin (1920).
Our Foreign and Domestic Position and Party Tasks
. Moscow.
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
a
b
Neporozhnii, P. S. (1970). "50th anniversary of the Lenin Goelro Plan and Hydropower Development".
Hydrotechnical Construction
.
4
(12): 1089?1093.
doi
:
10.1007/BF02397589
.
S2CID
110688607
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Great Teaching Makes Great Students"
,
Great Quotes for Great Educators
, Routledge, pp. 21?42, 2014-05-12,
doi
:
10.4324/9781315854946-6
,
ISBN
978-1-315-85494-6
, retrieved
2020-12-22
- ^
a
b
(in Russian)
On GOELRO Plan ? at Kuzbassenergo
Archived
December 26, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Physics in the USSR: stages in a long journey ? SOV PHYS USPEKHI, 1983, 26 (8), 720?726"
.
- ^
"Lenin and Lenin"
.
International Affairs
.
10
(3): 421?422. May 1931.
doi
:
10.2307/3016220
.
ISSN
1468-2346
.
JSTOR
3016220
.
- ^
Wells, H.G.
Russia in the Shadows
.
- ^
(in Russian)
85th anniversary of GOELRO plan ? Management
Archived
2007-09-27 at
archive.today
at the website of
RAO UES
- ^
Lapin, G. G. (2000). "70 Years of Gidroproekt and Hydroelectric Power in Russia".
Hydrotechnical Construction
.
34
(8/9): 374?379.
doi
:
10.1023/A:1004107617449
.
S2CID
107814516
.
- ^
Никитин, Олег (February 2010).
Плюс электрификация
.
Forbes
(in Russian).
- ^
Развитие электроэнергетики в СССР (к 80летию плана ГОЭЛРО)
(in Russian). Archived from
the original
on 2018-10-22
. Retrieved
2013-04-08
.
- ^
Carr, Edward Hallett (1970).
A History of Soviet Russia
. Baltimore, Md. : Penguin Books. p. 180.
- ^
Trotsky, Leon (2 March 2023).
My Life
. Wellred Books. pp. 1?50.
- ^
"Correction: Ekonomicheskoe razvitie gorodov belorussii V XVI-pervoi polovine XVIII V."
Slavic Review
.
29
(3): 569. September 1970.
doi
:
10.2307/2493217
.
ISSN
0037-6779
.
JSTOR
2493217
.
- ^
a
b
Cederlof, Gustav (2023).
The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba
. Critical environments: nature, science, and politics. Oakland, California:
University of California Press
.
ISBN
978-0-520-39313-4
.
External links
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