Economic Impact of WW2

• The centralised command structure of the Soviet economy proved well-suited to the demands of war.
• The Soviet economy was mobilised far more efficiently for war than in Nazi Germany with the foresight that this conflict would demand to total mobilisation of the nation's economic resources.
• 1.5 million railway wagon loads of industrial plant and machinery were moved form western regions of the USSR to the east of the Ural mountains.

  • This represented 8-10% of the USSR's productive capacity which was now safe from falling into the hands of the invader.
• 3,500 new factories were created and thousands more existing manufacturing plants were converted to war production including armaments, tanks and planes.
• Despite the loss of territory to the German Army in 1941 and 1942, Soviet factories were producing more war material than German factories in 1943.
• Mass production techniques continously improved.
• The hours needed to produce the T34 tank were more than halved through the duration of the war.

  • These improvements also required less manpower at a time when skilled labour was at a shortage.
• Soviet industry produced some of the most effective armaments of the war.
• The T34 tank eventually proved far superior to the German Panzer tanks and the Yak-1 fighter plane was also regarded very highly.
• It is important to note that there were negative issues during the war as well, most significantly, the focus on quantity over quality.
• Some Soviet aircraft had an appalling safety record during the war and Soviet landlines were notoriously dangerous and unstable to handle.
• The countryside was stripped of men, horses and machinery.
• By the end of the war, 80% of collective farm workers were women.
• Carts and ploughs being pulled by people was an increasingly common sight.
• Ruthless grain requisition from the collective farms continued and malnutrition among peasants was universal.
• Only soldiers and essential manual labourers were guaranteed a supply of good food during the war.
• The peasants had been allowed to keep their small private plots of land, which many expanded, and sell their produce at market but this was not sufficient to provide them with a full diet.
• Even before they entered the war, the USA was supplying Britain and the USSR with essential supplies to enable them to keep up the struggle against Nazi Germany.

  • This scheme was called "Lend-Lease" as in theory, these supplies would be returned or paid for after the war had finished.
• Once Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, Britain also made a contribution of resources to the USSR under the Lend-Lease scheme.
• The most important supplies given to the Soviet Union by the Allies were transport resources, such as trucks, jeeps and railway stock as well as important tinned foodstuffs such as Spam.
• Khrushchev famously remarked that "without Spam we would not be able to feed our army."
• In 1943 and 1944, Lend-Lease made up 10% of Soviet GDP.

  • 94% of Lend-Lease was supplied by the USA.
• The western regions of the USSR suffered the greatest devastatuin.
• As they retreated in 1941, the Red Army destroyed as much as possible in a "scorched earth" policy to deprive the Germans of valuable resources.
• The Germans themselves then took as much as they could during their occupation as well as deporting millions to work in slave labour camps in Germany.
• Finally, as the Germans themselves retreated in 1943 and 1944, the German Army destroyed as much land as possible.

  • These areas of the USSR had been stripped of men, animals and machinery, the transport network needed entire rebuilding and public services and the buildings in which they operated had been obliterated.
• The USSR lost

  • 1,700 towns
  • 70,000 villages
  • 31,000 factories
  • 65,000km of railway track
  • 40% of their agricultural output