[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.
