Establishing a system of mobilization bodies and developing a methodology for drawing up mobilization schemes in the USSR during the first Five-Year plan

In: Russian Foundation for Basic Research Journal. Humanities and social sciences, S. 9-18

Abstract

This paper focuses on a set of preparatory mobilization measures taken in the Soviet economy in case of war during the first Five-Year Plan. The foreign-policy crisis of 1927, terrorist attacks, military threat and the "march into socialism" prompted the leaders of the USSR to take urgent steps aimed at establishing a system of economic mobilization and developing special mobilization schemes of reserving resources to repulse the acts of aggression. As a result, in the late 1920s, the USSR, for the first time ever, created a well-built system of economic mobilization with the central mobilization body, departments and local mob units. This system remained almost unchanged until the onset of the Great Patriotic War. Alongside with the new structures and system of mobilization planning in the USSR, the nation developed a methodology for compiling mobilization plans. This work was challenging due to new and complex tasks, an acute shortage of resources, as well as the simultaneous collectivization and industrialization amidst the breakdown of the NEP and the transition to a planned distribution system.