[2.5. Five-year plan - Jews in the industrialization
in industrial combines 1929-1933]
[Jewish artisans are
integrated in industrial combines]
The five-year plan, however, surged ahead. In fact it surged
ahead faster than many Russian officials had anticipated. It
created a tremendous revolution in Soviet society. At the
price of a great deal of suffering during the four years of
the actual operation of the plan, especially on the part of
the peasantry, the Soviet Union began its transition to an
industrial country. This vitally affected the Jews as well.
Suddenly the notion that a large class of artisans would still
be needed seemed outmoded. At an increasing rate Jewish
artisans were being absorbed into industrial combines.
On February 7, 1930, Rosen said that "under the present
conditions in Russia, it would be undesirable to undertake to
enter into a new agreement with the government for the
proposed industrial project, for which subscriptions had been
received from a number of subscribers to the AMSOJEFS."
(End note 26: AJ 2)
In fact, Baerwald seemed to sense that Rosen was not as sure
of himself on the industrialization project as he had been on
the agricultural one.
[Since March 1930: Stalin's
regime allows Rosen's program]
But then there was another change. In the spring of 1930, with
a setback in the collectivization drive after Stalin's Pravda
article, the Soviets were amenable to taking another look at
Rosen's program.
In May and again in June Rosen pressed the New York office to
give him the green light for an ambitious extension of his
original program: up to $ 1 million was to be spent each year
for three years for the projects originally proposed and a few
more of the same kind. (p.80)
In Jude, with about 50 % of the
lishentsy reinstated, the possibilities of
such an expansion seemed to rise.
[Nov 1929: Stock exchange
crash in New York - sinking funds in the Joint for Russian
Jews]
But then two factors intervened that buried the project
altogether. One was the economic crisis that in late 1929
began to grip the United States. Profits were sinking;
businesses went under at an alarming rate; and with breadlines
in the United States lengthening daily, money was not
available for the reorganization of Jewish economy in Russia.
Nevertheless, Hyman and Baerwald make heroic efforts to
collect subscriptions. Rosen was told to scale down his
demands. By August 1930 he was suggesting a subscription of a
quarter of a million dollars yearly for three years. But even
that was too much, and plans for JDC-Soviet cooperation on a
large scale had to be abandoned.
In January 1931 Rosen suggested a budget of $ 100,000 for that
year, but even that was unattainable. In fact, a total of $
44,355 was collected of which five-eighths came from
Rosenwald. This was spent in 1931, maintaining at least partly
those activities that the Agro-Joint was already engaged in.
On December 23, 1931, the JDC office informed Rosenwald that
they considered the matter "entirely closed".
[1930-1932: Collectivization
by taxation and discrimination of private farmers]
While the economic crisis was in itself sufficient to kill any
JDC participation in the industrialization program, one other
major factor must be mentioned. The years 1930-32 saw the
final success of the collectivization drive, with peasants
entering the collectives whether they liked it or not because
of government taxation pressure and discrimination against
private farming, coupled with the results of the mass
slaughter of livestock.
[Surplus farm population gets
into the heavy industry]
At the same time, unemployment was entirely eradicated, and
the surplus farm population of the Soviet Union began to be
siphoned off into the new heavy industry. Jews were drawn into
this maelstrom of transformation.
[1932: No Jewish economic
problem any more by integration as workers in the industry]
By 1932 there were 787,000 Jewish wage earners, 350,000 of
whom were employed in factories. In other words, about 1.5
million of the 2.7 million Jews in Soviet Russia were now
connected with factory life.
(End note 27:
Emes
of 3/25/32 [25 March 1932], cited by the Chicago Chronicle of
7/22/32 [22 July 1932])
This tended to eliminate not only the problem of the Jewish
artisan, ex-trader, and lishenets, but the whole Jewish
economic problem in the Soviet Union. Soviet society, by
changing its basic (p.81)
structure, seemed to have absorbed the Jews on equal terms. In
the Ukraine, 20.7 % of the industrial workers in 1932 were
Jews, although the Jewish population was only 5.4 %. The Jews
had become proletarians, which in Soviet Russia meant equality
of opportunity and advancement.
Rosen, too, had changed his views. By October 1931 he was
stating clearly that the development of industries in Russia
was actually proceeding apace. When Russia started out with
its first five-year plan, most people were rather skeptical
about it and had talked to him about it in a cynical way. By
1931 nobody could deny that Russia had made tremendous
progress with its industrial development, as well as with the
industrialization of farming methods.
(End note 28: AJ 66, 10/8/31 [8 October 1931])
[Crimea: Many Jewish farmers
on collectives return back to their shtetlach - and take
further education for industrialization]
The same process deeply affected the colonization program.
During collectivization, some Jewish farmers in the Crimea
tended to run away because of the collectivization drive.
Rosen himself stated that "400 families had run away from the
colonies during the drive."
(End note 29: AJ 2, 2/13/30 [13th February 1930], p.3)
Zionist colonies had their Hebrew names changed, and the
Communists instituted strict political control. "Great numbers
of Jewish settlers who were brought during last month from
shtetlach into colonies to join collectives are returning
home", cabled Smolar from Moscow in April [1930]. They were
saying that recent Soviet decrees opened wider possibilities
for them in shtetlach than in collective colonies. This
resulted in a lack of laborers on the farms and endangered the
existence of many Jewish collectives, which had to go to the
expense of hiring labor. Even when they arrived, new Jewish
settlers didn't remain on the collectives.
(End note 30: AJ 5, 4/14/30 [14 April 1930])
People began to leave the colonies not because of pressure,
but because of the greater opportunities outside them. At an
industrial training school in Odessa subsidized by JDC, 20 %
of the students came from Jewish colonies. The younger
generation could go to the factory, back to the city life to
which they had been accustomed. In time, educational
opportunities opened up, and colleges and universities
beckoned; Soviet Russia needed technicians and scientists. The
need for ex-
lishentsy
to escape their status by settling the land diminished to an
ever-increasing extent, and OZET found it more and more
difficult to get candidates for the colonies.
[Technical conditions on the
Jewish farmer colonies improve by electricity etc.]
On the other hand, the existing colonies became better
established and more prosperous. Electricity was introduced
into most of them. Dispensaries, schools, and even cultural
institutions were opened. By 1931 Rosen and JDC sponsors in
the United States were saying that the colonization experiment
had proved to be a resounding success. In 1931 they still
believed in "the necessity (that) still exists and will for
many years" to settle Jews on land, but after 1931 this kind
of sentiment was no longer voiced. However, growth of the
colonies did not stop altogether or all at once.
By a well-calculated stroke, Rosen obtained more land and
greater compactness of settlement in return for the
importation of 300 tractors at the height of the agricultural
difficulties in the latter part of the first five-year plan
period.
[Crimea: 1,800 Jewish
families]
In 1931 1,800 families were settled, about 50 % of the number
originally planned; the Jews had become the third largest
group in the Crimea.
(End note 31: Norman Bentwich in
B'nai B'rith Magazine, February 1932)
[1932-1933: New famine in
Russia - the reasons]
Then in 1932/3 another famine struck the Soviet Union. The
reasons for this famine were many. There was the increased
expenditure for military purposes, which meant that valuable
fuel resources were used by the armed forces rather than by
civilians, including those engaged in agriculture. Many
farmers were, of course, disaffected; the most efficient
people, the kulaks, had been deported; and agriculture was,
organizationally speaking, in a state of confusion. On top of
all that, there was a drought. With no reserves, no resources
to draw on, the result was famine.
