Issues of the functioning of soviet industrial cooperation in the restoration of the Bryansk region (1943–1945)

Khusnulin Artur Ravilevich Postgraduate student; Department of Historical Informatics; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moscow, Lomonosovsky ave., 27, building 4, office G-423 komrad.camensky@yandex.ru

On September 17th of this year, the city of military glory Bryansk celebrates the 81st anniversary of its liberation by the Red Army from the Nazi invaders. This event is inscribed in the galaxy of bright victories of Soviet weapons in the liberation of the Motherland from the invaders during the so-called "radical turning point" of 1943. After the liberation of this ancient Russian city, the soldiers of the liberator's army moved on – they were awaited by the hardest battles and the most worthy victories during the liberation of Left-Bank Ukraine, later Right-Bank Ukraine and, of course, operation Bagration to expel the enemy from the territory of the Belarusian SSR.

Meanwhile, while the soldiers of the Red Army achieved victories over the enemy on the front line, the territories where the fires of war were burning yesterday turned into the rear, which was entrusted with the tasks, on the one hand, of its own restoration, and on the other, of providing all possible support to the advancing troops. All available industrial capacities of the returned regions were involved in this case, among which was the Bryansk Region, which since July 1944 received the status of a full-fledged subject – the region within the RSFSR. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bryansk from the Nazi invaders, it should be noted that we do not have a lot of knowledge about such a phenomenon of the national economic life of the Bryansk region as fishing cooperation.

This problem in relation to the economic history of the whole of Russia was formed back in Soviet historiography, where industrial cooperation, with rare exceptions, was in the shadow of state industry. This disparity, in particular, takes place in the work devoted to the Bryansk Party organization, including in its part concerning the restoration of the region after the occupation ^{[1, pp. 277-280]}. One of the few historians of our days who set the goal of studying the institute of industrial cooperation during the Great Patriotic War and successfully completed this task is A.A. Pass, the author of a specialized monograph ^[2] devoted to industrial cooperation in the Urals.

In relation to the Bryansk region, it is necessary to mention the local historian S.P. Kizimova, who, in addition to historical and local history works devoted to the history of the region, including its restoration from the effects of occupation, involved important information into scientific circulation, allowing to form an idea of the work of the Bryansk industrial cooperation ^[3]. Based on both published sources and archival materials, she chose the work of artisans and cooperators as the subject of her research, studying it throughout its history. With regard to the Great Patriotic War, Kizimova notes the great contribution of the industrial cooperation in the restoration of the region from the consequences of occupation, citing facts characterizing this contribution: according to her data, the industrial cartels began their work already in the third quarter of 1943 and by August 1945 consisted of 94 units consolidated into 4 industrial unions: 29 artels of the Bryansk Multi-industry (further – MPS), 30 Klintsovsky MPS, 17 Novozybkovsky MPS and 18 Bryansk regional Timber Industry – they were able to restore 70 pre-war production facilities with specialization in the production of metal utensils and utensils, beds, iron tools, pottery, rawhide, etc. As proof of the success of their work, the local historian cites a figure of 59,751 thousand rubles of the gross product given by the industrial cooperation system of the Bryansk region in 1946 ^{[3, p. 231]} "Again," the author writes, "as in the twenties, the country called for the help of artisans with their strong calloused hands, great practice in their field activities. And they went to this call because they knew the real value of their work" ^{[3, p. 230]}.

Despite the value of the above facts, they do not seem to us to be quite sufficient to build a complete understanding of how the fishing cooperation functioned. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to carry out more painstaking work with statistics, building the dynamics of the creation of artels and their productivity, comparing it for compliance with the planned indicators formed within the framework of the regional planning commission under the Executive Committee of the Regional Council. In the future, this will not only deepen our understanding of the institution of industrial cooperation, but also build a model of the system that exists in parallel with the state economy in a time of crisis. In connection with all of the above, we have set ourselves the goal of conducting this study – to study the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk Region in 1943-1945 as an example of the revival of this institution in the liberated regions of the country in terms of its functions and tasks in restoring economic development. The specified time frame is due to the period from the liberation of the Orel region, which included the future Bryansk region in 1943, to the end of the war and the beginning of the post-war reconstruction of the country in 1945. Nevertheless, we will focus priority attention on the period 1944-1945 as the years of independent existence of the Bryansk industrial cooperation.

To achieve this goal, we must solve several research tasks:

1) Identify the main areas of work of the Bryansk industrial cooperation and its problems in this matter;

2) To show the process of production work of the industrial cooperation on the example of its implementation of production plans for the system;

3) To identify the peculiarities of the influence of ideology and party conjuncture on the work of industrial cartels in the period of interest to us.

***

As you know, in the pre-war years, the fishing cooperation had the task of producing consumer goods to meet the needs of the population in them. This is directly evidenced by the normative legal acts adopted at the highest level - in particular, the resolution of the XVIII Congress of the CPSU(b) – on the need to comprehensively expand the production of consumer goods both in gross product and in nomenclature. The object of this study, the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region, at the time of the liberation of the region was part of the Orel region; in the pre-war years, until 1939, the Bryansk Industrial Union functioned as an independent administrative and economic unit that supervised and directed the activities of the industrial cooperation system of the Bryansk region. How the Bryansk cooperators were doing in the pre–war period can be judged by the document of industrial cooperative origin published in the form of a brochure - a collection of resolutions of the expanded plenum of the Bryansk industrial union, held from May 27 to May 29, 1935. Thus, according to the report of the chairman of the industrial union Gorlovsky, fulfilling the tasks of the party and the government to expand the nomenclature of manufactured goods consumer goods, for the current year, labor productivity increased by 23% compared to the previous year; average salary increased by 12%; selling prices decreased by 0.7%; own funds in artels increased by 31.7% in the 1st quarter of the reporting year; finally, plans for the production of goods and retail trade in general are being implemented at a rapid pace according to the system. Meanwhile, the management and staff of individual artels, firstly, do not fulfill the programs, secondly, they struggle poorly with marriage and low quality of goods, which still remain the "scourge of a number of artels", thirdly, they do not pay attention to "socialist methods of labor" in the form of percussion and socialist competition, and fourthly, they work poorly with personnel at enterprises: the heads of artels, represented by chairmen, deputies and cultural organizations, "are not covered by technical studies", and the living and working conditions of art workers leave much to be desired, since even in general workshops, in production "basic rules of sanitation and hygiene, as well as safety techniques are not carried out" ^{[4, pp. 3-20]}. In order to correct the existing flaws, the plenum adopted a social obligation, in which it set a number of tasks related to improving the situation in administrative, economic, social and cultural work in the industrial cooperation system; among other things, the tasks were set: to provide leadership in the struggle for the fulfillment of production plans, reduce the cost of goods by 3.4% and selling prices by 6.1% compared with 1934, to "radically" improve the quality of products, to cover at least 80% of the "artel mass" with social competition, also introducing individual social competitions ^{[4, pp. 26-27]}.

As is known, the Orel region, which included the Bryansk region in 1943, was completely liberated by the beginning of October of the same year following the results of the Bryansk offensive operation ^{[5, p. 608]}. The expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the territory of the Bryansk Region was accompanied by the most active measures to restore the national economy of the region. As I.V. Stalin put it in a report at the solemn meeting of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies on November 06, 1943, "In areas where fascist pogromists temporarily ruled, we will have to revive destroyed towns and villages, industry, transport, agriculture, cultural institutions, create for Soviet people freed from fascist slavery, normal living conditions… We need to completely eliminate the consequences of the German occupation in the areas liberated from the German occupation. This is a big national task. We can and must solve this difficult task in a short time" ^{[6, p. 2]}. The restoration of the national economy of the region fit into the all-Russian and all-Union policy of expanding the production of consumer goods. As proof, we present a document – plan for the work of the department of industrial cooperation of the State Planning Committee of the RSFSR for 1944. There is an interesting maxim in it, although dedicated directly to the garment industry, but its conceptual component extends to the entire system of industrial cooperation: "There is no reason to further increase the plan for the garment industry of industrial cooperation, since the turnaround of the garment industry in recent years has been achieved by a sharp increase in special tailoring and almost complete curtailment of individual tailoring of household repairs. In 1944, the industrial cooperation should maximize the provision of household repairs to the population and individual tailoring..."^{[7, L. 2]} With rare exceptions, in the future, the industrial cooperation artels were completely guided by this installation in matters of their production activities.

As noted by the local historian Kizimova, who was mentioned earlier, the occupation caused damage to the Bryansk region in the amount of 235 billion rubles ^{[3, p. 230]} These losses were directly related to the industrial cooperation system; in the report on the results of the restoration of the Bryansk region, the commissioner of the CPC of the region Butenin noted that at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, 219 artels with a total amount of the plan were functioning in the territory of the Bryansk region in terms of gross product production, more than 187.5 million rubles, of which industrial products amounted to 148.6 million rubles, and 16.5 thousand cooperators worked in the artels of the industrial cooperation ^{[8, L. 1]}.

During the 22 months that the Bryansk region was occupied, the damage to the industrial cooperation system amounted to enormous amounts. According to the report of the commissioner of the CPC under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR for the Orel region, N.N. Stepanov, based on the results of the work of the industrial cooperation of the region in 1943, at that time the financial losses of the Bryansk, Novozybkovsky and Klintsovsky MPS and the Allesdrevprom Union amounted, as specified in the document, according to "far from complete data", 24 million rubles ^{[9, l. 36-about.]}

Table 1. Financial losses of the industrial cooperation of the Orel region during the years of occupation

Source: GARF. F. A395. Op. 1. d. 382. l. 36-vol.

In addition, it seems appropriate to cite data from another document – the plan for the restoration of industrial industrial cooperation in the territories liberated in 1943, the statistics of which indicate the scale of the problems of restoring the cooperative industry system, among other subjects of the RSFSR, the Orel region, which at that time included the Bryansk Region, in comparison with the pre-war level of development.

Table 2. The plan for the restoration of the industry of the industrial cooperation of the Orel region to the pre-war level (indicators in thousands of rubles)

Source: GARF. F. A395. Op. 1. D. 387. L. 125, 127.

According to the updated data of local origin, presented after the creation of the Bryansk region, the figure of financial losses of the industrial cooperation of the region has already amounted to 72.8 million rubles. Subsequently, in February 1946, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region began to carry out an inventory of the material and technical base previously listed on the balance of the artels. To illustrate the extent of the financial losses incurred, here are some examples. Thus, the artel "Labor Way" of the Klintsovsky Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a result of the occupation, lost such tools as sewing machines in the amount of 64 pcs., adding machines (2), an iron cash register, large mirrors (4 pcs.), etc. in the amount of 16 thousand rubles; low-value inventory in the form of tailor's tables (50), chairs (48), cabinets (8), fire extinguishers (25), cast iron irons (45), etc. in the amount of 46 thousand rubles; raw materials in the form of cotton fabrics (25 thousand m.), wool (5 thousand m.), linen (1000 m.), silk (400 m.), cotton threads (7.5 thousandskating rinks), etc. in the amount of 674.82 thousand rubles; work in progress for 117.12 thousand rubles and finished products such as tunics, coats, half-coats, etc. for 73.09 thousand rubles, as well as cash at the cash desk for 10 thousand rubles. In total, the financial losses of the Labor Way artel amounted to 937.03 thousand rubles. Less severe in comparative terms, but no less serious in accounting was incurred by the Himzhir artel of the same industrial union, which lost fixed assets in the form of an adding machine, decimal scales and a cart for 1,850 rubles., low-value inventory in the form of a cabinet, cash register, bills, chairs for 4150 rubles, raw materials in the form of peat, chalk, paraffin, lard, etc. for 61 thousand rubles, finished products (shoe ointments, ink, paraffin candles) for 13.2 thousand rubles, cash for 5000 rubles, processed raw materials (household soap, other materials) for 43.7 thousand rubles, total – 123.9 thousand rubles ^{[10, l. 32-35]}

In the process of resuscitating the activities of the industrial cartels, the leadership of the industrial cooperation of the RSFSR strictly monitored all cases of appropriation of the property of old enterprises by newly created ones. This, in particular, was the subject of an appeal by the head of the CPC at the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR Kravchuk addressed to the head of the CPC at the Bryansk Regional Executive Committee Chirkov and the manager of the Bryansk office of Torgbank – his name is not specified. The document states that in a number of areas, the fact of the transfer to the use of various organizations of the inventory of previously liquidated artels was revealed, in order to avoid which the management of the department needed to conduct a thorough inventory and preserve the property for subsequent transfer to the restored enterprises of the industrial cooperation. In this regard, the head of the CPC proposed, among other things, to take "all measures to ensure that the system receives compensation from organizations that have taken into their use and disposal values that previously belonged to artels and unions" ^{[10, L. 67]}.

According to the previously mentioned document authored by the commissioner of the Criminal Procedure Code for the Bryansk region, in just 3.5 months after liberation, the cooperators restored with varying degrees of completeness 76 enterprises with a number of workers of 3071 people, who by January 1, 1944 had produced products worth 102.8 thousand rubles. In this regard, we consider it appropriate to cite several maps made by us on the basis of the QGIS program in order to visualize the information available to us about the location of the Bryansk industrial cooperation in a geographical context.

It should be noted that the above map does not fully reflect the specifics of the placement of artels, since the artel itself is a structural unit consisting of the board that manages the work of this unit and a network of workshops/consumer service points, which are a kind of branches of this artel in the field; here we limited ourselves to placing points reflecting the location of the actual board of the artels, omitting the details of the location of each individual workshop. In addition, in the maps below, we have somewhat sacrificed the specificity of the geographical location of the artels in specific localities, not always placing the artel points close to those addresses, accurate to the street and house/building where they were located, in order to better visualize the location of the points on the map.

As can be seen from the second map, the lion's share of the Bryansk Region's artels was restored in the first months after the liberation of this region back in 1943. To build it, we used data from reports on the production activities of industrial cooperation enterprises in the G-1 form, which indicated, among other things, information about the date of restoration of enterprises and their location to the street and house; this information is also confirmed by documents of local origin ^{[10, l. 18-21]}. Comparing the list of artels from the sources mentioned above allows us to say that the commissioner of the CPC for the Bryansk region, Butenin, in his report, exaggerated the number of industrial cooperation enterprises restored on January 1, 1944, by 5 units. For this reason, the map designated as Figure No. 2 was made by us based on sources of statistical origin.

Studying the lists of liquidated enterprises and comparing them with the lists of those operating in 1944-1945 allows us to conclude that all enterprises of the industrial cooperation of the war years that worked in the last two years of the war were restored from among those liquidated in 1941: in 1944, 19 artels were restored and in 1945 - 4; as of October 1945, the Bryansk industrial cooperation consisted of 94 artels ^{[10, l. 18-21]}.

"For two years," writes Butenin, an official of the Bryansk industrial cooperation, "the system's staff has been working to eliminate the consequences of the German occupation and heal the wounds inflicted on the production of the system. New production facilities are growing in the fires, burnt, mutilated equipment is returning to service..." By September 1945, more than 1 million rubles were spent on capital investments out of 2.6 million rubles. In two years, the industrial cooperation also carried out tremendous work to provide the front and rear with a variety of goods for more than 28 million rubles, including goods consumer goods for 23.1 million rubles ^{[8, l. 1-volume–2-volume]}

The process of work in the field of restoring the production of consumer goods was actively written in the local press. The main printing body of the Bryansk Regional Committee of the CPSU(b), the Regional Council and the Regional Executive Committee was the Bryansk Worker newspaper, which covered both events from the front and news of international relations, as well as achievements in the rear from the entire Union in general and the Bryansk region in particular. In the next issue dated October 14, 1944, an article was published with the telling title "Decisively improve the work of local industry" ^{[11, p. 1]}, in which the work of the regional local industry engaged in providing the population with consumer goods was criticized - it should be noted that the industrial cooperation performed tasks in this specialization in parallel with state–owned enterprises of the local industry (hereinafter referred to as the local industry), and in terms of structure, the industrial cooperation occupied a lower, subordinate position compared to the state–owned local industry. This fact is confirmed by the example of the Bryansk region, among other things, by the fact that at the first session of the Bryansk Regional Council of Workers' Deputies, 10 departments and 11 departments were formed – from the departments directly responsible for the national economy, regional departments (hereinafter referred to as regional management) of local industry, light industry, food industry, building materials industry, local fuel industry are allocated industry, development and operation of small rivers ^{[12, p. 2]}. Thus, among the listed structural units of the Regional Council there is neither a department nor a department for industrial cooperation – everything related to the work of industrial cooperative artels was under the jurisdiction of the regional administration of local industry. This conclusion can be supported, for example, by the fact that, according to a note dated October 24, 1944, the promartel "Smychka" of the Bryansk Ministry of Internal Affairs fulfilled the plan by 131% during the pre-October socialist competition, taking "first place in the competition among the enterprises of local industry (my italics – A. H.) of Bryansk" ^{[13, p. 2]}. Consequently, the industrial cooperation functioned with double subordination – through its own Management of fishing cooperation at the level of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR and through local authorities.

In the previously mentioned article on improving the work of the local industry, it was stated that the local industry – and, consequently, the industrial cooperation – faces the most important task of providing the population with necessary goods, meeting "the urgent needs of workers who give all their strength and abilities to the great cause of victory over the enemy," however, it is performed extremely unsatisfactorily due to regular disruptions of monthly plans and negligent attitude to trading in released goods. As vital examples, the author of the article cited a fact revealed in the work of enterprises of the Bezhitsky Mining and Industrial Complex, which, having produced 91 pairs of boots, engaged in the sale of shoes bypassing stores, as a result of which only 2 pairs of boots got into the actual outlets; in addition, the dealers of the same industrial plant were engaged in the sale of raw materials for shoes: chrome, yufti, semi-val The Zhukovsky Shipbuilding Plant experienced similar difficulties in its work, in which the annual production program was completed after 8 months of operation by only 23.3% ^{[11, p. 1]}.

All the above-mentioned flaws in the work of the local industry were discussed at a meeting of heads of enterprises of local and cooperative industry, at which officials made socialist commitments aimed at improving the current state of affairs. "Party and Soviet workers," the article concludes, "should provide them (the leadership of the local industry and industrial cooperation. – A. H.) with all possible assistance so that local industry begins to give even more products to the country and the advancing troops of the Red Army" ^{[11, p. 1]}.

It should be noted that the same negligent attitude towards responsibilities to the population and the national economy was observed in the work of the Bryansk industrial cooperation – the leadership of the CPC under the SNK of the RSFSR regularly stated the facts of low quality of products, as well as regularly emerging cases of price speculation and disruptions of plans for the release of goods. So, on November 20, 1944, according to the preamble to order No. 1591 on the CPC under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the artels of a number of industrial unions in different regions sometimes "engage in direct fraud, labeling products not in accordance with their valid article and grade, and release them at increased prices," and also do not monitor production conditions as a result, unusable products end up on the shelves. Here it will be appropriate to give the examples listed in the order: "So, in the Gorky region, 4,568 toothbrushes were rejected from 10360 handed over by the Bogorodskaya artel. In the third quarter of 1944, the Vacha metartel union returned substandard knife products in the amount of 8,100 rubles from a batch of 36,200 rubles... The artel "1st Mekhzavod" of the Moscow region presented for delivery a batch of meat grinders in the amount of 24 thousand rubles, of which 18.6 thousand rubles turned out to be unusable. In the Ivanovo region, from the batch of children's dresses presented by the Workshop artel, in the amount of 126 thousand rubles, trading organizations rejected 21.7 thousand rubles due to the poor quality of the technical execution of embroidery and its anti-artistic nature" ^{[14, l. 7-8]}. In order to combat such harmful phenomena that undermine confidence in the institute of industrial cooperation, the capital's leadership ordered mandatory labeling of manufactured products, prohibit the release of unmarked and untested products, as well as inflate prices above state ones. In addition, among the disciplinary measures, there was also a ban on awarding and awarding prizes to those artels that did not fulfill the plan for the production and delivery of planned and regulated goods to trading organizations ^{[14, L. 9]}.

The above measures indicate the liberality of the industrial cooperative authorities in punishing wards for very serious violations of labor discipline. Normative legal acts, which were issued with a certain regularity, did not solve the problems that took place in principle, so sometimes third-party departments also entered into the control of artels – in particular, the bodies of the People's Commissariat of State Control and control bodies of other departments. So, on June 21, 1945, Butenin, the commissioner of the CPC for the Bryansk region, and Yablonsky, the chairman of the regional Trade Union, received an appeal from the Main Directorate of the State Trade Inspection, which cited disappointing facts of severe overestimation of prices by enterprises of the fishing and handicapped cooperation of the Bryansk region. The most eloquent example for us was the case of the Zarya artel of the Novozybkovsky Cooperative, which in April-May 1945 was engaged in the sale of morse in the amount of 98.4 g/liter in the amount of 19.7 thousand rubles at a price of 2 rubles/liter with a state price of 1 RUB/liter ^{[15, L. 2]}. Thus, the cooperators of this artel appropriated almost 10 thousand rubles. In addition, in almost all artels there are no employees-brackers, as a result of which low-quality products were not screened out from the rest and were sold, moreover, at inflated prices. The Control Commission warns in the document that such speculation is a violation of the directives of the party and the government and will be punished by the forces of the judicial investigation authorities ^{[15, l. 2-ob–3]}. However, the study of the office documentation of the industrial cooperation allows us to conclude that these measures, although implemented from time to time, did not have the desired effect, and price speculation, as well as the sale of low-quality goods, took place further.

Nevertheless, despite the occasional problems and cases of speculation, the cooperators did everything in their power to provide the front and rear with the necessary products. Earlier, we already mentioned an example of overfulfilling the plan by the industrial cooperative artel "Smychka"; in the same period, the Dubrovsky artel "May 1st" of the Bryansk Ministry of Internal Affairs reported on achievements in fulfilling and overfulfilling industrial tasks, which fulfilled the October plan by 110%. The authors of the article highlight the success of the shoemaking workshop, which performs daily tasks by 103%, as well as the sewing workshop, which performs similar tasks by 105%. "Students Mikhail Chagin and Egor Pozdnyakov master shoemaking with love. Soon they will be transferred to independent work... the best seamstress Elizabeth Amik gives about two production rates daily. The craftsmen Evdokia Glukhareva, Evdokia Nikitina, Antonina Nikulina and Fanya Khatsrevina systematically perform the daily task by 160%" ^{[13, p. 2]}, – stated in the next issue of the newspaper. The previously cited report provides the following statistical data on the number of labor strikers and Stakhanovites in the industrial cooperation system of the Bryansk region: on 09/17/1945, the system numbered 608 Stakhanovites and 510 strikers, "of them fulfilling the production standards by 300% and above – 19 people, from 200 to 300% – 40 people and from 100 to 200% – 549 people. Thanks to the ever-increasing rise, the workers of a number of artels have almost completely restored their production in a short time and systematically, month after month, carry out and exceed the production program" ^{[8, l. 3-vol]}. In honor of this, the head of the Criminal Procedure Committee for the Bryansk region, Butenin, asked for very interesting awards in the form of cuts for men's and ladies' coats and suits, as well as several dozen pairs of men's and ladies' shoes, and, finally, 30 thousand rubles for the payment of cash bonuses ^{[8, L. 6]}.

Following the statement of the above facts, it is important to look at how the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region fulfilled the production tasks issued by the State Planning Committee of the RSFSR. Since the Bryansk region was, as is known, formed in 1944, the documentation is presented in figures for exactly 2 years – identifying indicators for 1943 from the Orel region would require performing separate work with planned tasks of regional origin. Between the lines, we note that in the implementation of the production plan for 1943, the industrial cooperation of the Orel region demonstrated positive dynamics – with an indicator of 9349.7 thousand rubles. at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the implementation of the plan amounted to 9138.9 thousand rubles, i.e. 97.7% ^{[9, L. 33]}. Unfortunately, we could not find official data on the implementation of the plan for 1943 by the industrial cooperation of the Orel region in the USSR Gosplan fund, but the above figures are very eloquent.

The table below shows that, in general, the Bryansk industrial cooperation did not fulfill production plans for 1944-1945, compared with the same Oryol region, where the implementation of the plan for the production of industrial gross output for 1944 amounted to 120.6% in percentage terms ^{[16, L. 10]}; in 1945, the result was worse – 88.1% ^{[17, L. 16]}. The largest share in the industry of the Bryansk industrial cooperation in 1944 belonged to such industries as sewing (4247.2 thousand rubles), leather (3558.6 thousand rubles), industrial enterprises (3504.2 thousand rubles), as well as transport (1784.3 thousand rubles) and woodworking (1754.6 thousand rubles) ^{[18, l. 25-vol]}

Table 3. Implementation of production plans by the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region for 1944-1945.

Source: GARF. F. A262. Op. 1. d. 2241. L. 18; Ibid. d. 2248. L. 21; RGAE. F. 4372. Op. 45. D. 1052. L. 16; Ibid. l. 34, 36.

The report on the work of the industrial cooperation for 1944 repeatedly states the fact of overcoming great difficulties in restoring the functioning of the artels. "It was necessary to restore the artels," the document says, "in difficult conditions, because when organizing them it was not possible to provide not only machines, machines, but even the simplest tools. However, despite the difficulties ... the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region on January 1, 1945 has 92 restored artels" ^{[19, l. 14]}. Among the reasons that made it possible to increase the number of industrial cartels in such a short time and thus make up for their shortage, one can single out the presence of two sources of supply of the Bryansk region's artels with raw materials and materials for 1944: out of the total supply of the regional system of 9583.8 thousand rubles, raw materials and materials were supplied centrally for only 2151.4 thousand rubles, while while such a source as "self-procurement" on the so-called "tolling" basis accounts for as much as 5,904.1 thousand rubles ^{[16, l. 119]} Apparently, it was about the transfer of raw materials from other enterprises of other systems of the national economic complex, including from local industry. For comparison, out of 10011.0 thousand rubles, centralized supplies to the Orel region amounted to 5287.0 thousand rubles, and self–procurement on a tolling basis - 4346.5 thousand rubles ^{[16, l. 119]} In addition, 1.2 million rubles were allocated in 1944 for the purpose of capital construction of artels, i.e. restoration of the immovable property fund, and actually mastered 1.3 million rubles, i.e. 111.2% of the allocated amount ^{[19, L. 14]}. The banknotes for capital construction, apparently, were included in the fund of centralized supplies of raw materials.

Separately, it is necessary to mention the system of long-term lending to industrial cooperation, information about which can be gleaned from the annual reports of the regional offices of Torgbank. Back in the pre-war period, by the Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated May 5, 1932 "On the organization of special banks for long–term investments", the country's leadership in accordance with "the implementation of the socialist reconstruction of the entire national economy and the interests of rapidly developing capital construction, requiring specialized ... organization of financing ..." - created several banks, among which was the Bank financing of capital construction of trade and cooperation (Torgbank) ^{[20, pp. 232-233]}. Within the framework of this bank, a so-called long-term lending fund was created, which was replenished at the expense of 10-15% of deductions from the profits of artels and industrial unions from net profit ^{[21, p. 192]}; allocations from national and local budgets for the purpose of long-term lending to industrial cooperation; interest accrued by the Trade Bank on the funds of the fund, etc. ^{[20, p. 174]} Torgbank, through the issuance of loans from the funds of the FDC, set the goal of financing capital construction of all parts of the industrial cooperation, as well as the formation and replenishment of working capital of industrial cartels and industrial unions in the organization of new crafts, the emergence of new artels and industrial unions, in the elimination of natural disasters, as well as replenishment of working capital of viable artels and industrial unions that lack working capital ^{[20, p. 174]}.

The Bryansk office, judging by the documents, appeared only in 1945, in the year of the creation of the region, still being part of the Oryol region. Nevertheless, we have at our disposal a list of sources of long-term lending to cooperative systems for January 1, 1945 in the Bryansk region, the study of which gives interesting information: of all loaded liabilities, 3588.7 thousand rubles are occupied by own funds of the Long-term Lending Fund system, which existed in the cooperative industry system since 1932 on the basis of a resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars The USSR dated July 23 of the same year on the restructuring of the work and organizational forms of fishing cooperation ^{[20, p. 174]}; the own funds of the special deposit system amounted to 261.9 thousand rubles, and the funds of the Central Long-term Lending Fund (hereinafter – CFDK) – as much as 5346.0 thousand rubles; together with the timber industry cooperation, which in the Bryansk region was represented by Allesdrevpromsoyuz, the FDK system's own funds amounted to 6594.6 thousand rubles at the beginning of 1945, and 6346.0 thousand rubles according to the CFDK funds ^{[22, L. 31]} Thus, in total, the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region received loans from the system in the amount of almost 13 million rubles in 1944. According to the report for 1945, the own funds of the FDK system amounted to 7651.1 thousand rubles, and the funds of the CFDK – 6023.0 thousand rubles, total – 13889.5 thousand rubles ^{[23, l. 110]} According to the results of 1945, the Bryansk regional office of Torgbank, at the request of Soyuztogbank, also reported on the presence of loan arrears from the artels of the industrial cooperation "Named after 3-the International" in the amount of 10.7 thousand rubles, "named after Chkalov" in 4 thousand rubles. and the artel of the disabled people's cooperative "Named after Kirov" – in 11.8 thousand rubles ^{[23, l. 102]} In all cases, these loan repayment delays were explained either by the lack of an opportunity to process the allocated raw materials and, as a result, sell the right amount of goods and receive revenue from it, or by accounting and control problems on the part of the industrial cooperation artels and the regional office of Torgbank. As measures to address these shortcomings, local bank employees were obliged to raise the issue of improving the economic activities of the listed artels ^{[23, l. 102]}.

Talking about ways to improve the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk Region, it should also be noted that back in 1943, by order of September 13, the leadership of the industrial cooperation of Russia, in order to restore its own system after the liberation of the occupied territories, introduced the institution of patronage over the destroyed regions: the Rostov region was bailed out by Moscow and Molotov region, Kalinin - Gorky and Ivanovo, and the Orel region is the Tatar ASSR and the Penza region. The task of the chiefs was to transfer equipment, raw materials and supplies to the liberated areas; this work was supervised by special commissions working "headed by one of the deputy commissioners" – apparently, the commissioner of the CPC for the region, but the normative legal act does not specify which region: sponsored or patronizing. In addition, the CPC booked a special fund of metal, textiles, fabrics and equipment used only for the needs of the liberated areas, and a staff of 3,050 qualified craftsmen was trained, who were ordered to work in areas in need ^{[24, L. 5-ob–6]}. Based on the above, it is safe to say that the combination of all the above measures made it possible to establish the work of the industrial cooperation, including the Bryansk region, in a relatively short time.

Despite the unsuccessful, by and large, 1944 reporting year, impressive indicators took place in relation to the production of some products – for example, the percentage of fulfillment of the peat extraction plan was 101%, for the production of saddlery products – 132.7%, for the repair of metal products – 222.2%, and for the production of household goods.brushes – as much as 613.3% ^{[24, L. 15]}.

The drafters of the report state that the failure to fulfill the plan was due to objective reasons: firstly, the artels turned out to be unprepared due to the unsatisfactory state of the material and technical base and production personnel; secondly, they poorly used local resources as a source for production activities; thirdly, they paid little attention to the quality of goods to the detriment of their quantity. In the latter, the management of the industrial cooperation accuses trading organizations that accept "finished products ... not according to GOST and unapproved samples, as well as accept products without labeling and do not disassemble the received goods on site" ^{[24, l. 16-about]}. Subsequently, in 1945, the explanations for the failure to fulfill the government task would be identical. It is necessary to emphasize in particular the presence in the industrial cooperation system of such a problem as serious power outages in the Bryansk region, in particular, its absence in areas outside major cities. This fact was mentioned in the report of the Bryansk cooperators on the results of cultural and mass work for 1946. In relation to the issue of the work of amateur art circles: "In a word, out of 12 (hereinafter - highlighted by the source. – A.H.) existing circles in the first half of the year 4 broke up. This is because the day has decreased with the onset of winter. The art workers work from 8 o'clock (a.m. – A.H.) to 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and from 5 o'clock it is already dark. There is no electricity in the districts, and there are no other conditions for the work of the circles" ^{[25, l. 15]}. Another problem of exceptional complexity that took place in the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region was the low degree of mechanization of labor, if not to say the almost complete absence of mechanization as such. This problem was especially acute in the work of the timber industry union's artels, as can be seen from the report on production activities for 1944 for each industrial union: with a plan of 5050 thousand rubles for gross output and 4550 thousand rubles for consumer goods, the performance amounted to 2327.3 thousand rubles and 1572.3 thousand rubles, respectively ^{[19, l. 15-about]}.

The fact of the existence of this problem was also stated in a popular brochure issued already in the post-war period, the head of the Main Directorate for Commercial and Consumer Cooperation of the USSR, P.F. Kravchuk: "The timber chemical industries of commercial cooperation are extremely important for the national economy. Forestry chemical companies produce acetic-calcium powder, resin, turpentine, rosin and other forest chemical products…

Unfortunately, the timber chemical industry, which has such an important national economic importance and has an exceptionally large raw material base in our country, is extremely underdeveloped and completely unsatisfactorily mechanized" ^{[26, pp. 11-12]}.

In connection with the above data of cooperative origin, we point to the figures of production indicators of the same time period for the local industry of the Bryansk region, with which, as is known, the system of industrial cooperation both in this region and throughout the USSR consisted in a kind of competition.

Table 4. Implementation of production plans by the local industry of the Bryansk region for 1944-1945 in prices of 1926/27.

Source: GARF. F. A44. Op. 1. D. 7845. L. 18; RGAE. F. 4372. Op. 45. D. 1014. L. 86; Ibid. L. 90.

As we can see, the Bryansk local industry in 1944 exceeded the plan of 4.7 million rubles by 6%, while in 1945 it failed. Nevertheless, the fact of a disproportion in the distribution of planned tasks in favor of industrial cooperation is extremely noteworthy – the artels were entrusted with the production of gross output in 1944 almost 5 times more than the regional industrial plants of the local industry, and in 1945 – 3 times more. The reasons for the failure to fulfill production plans in 1945 were explained by the leadership of the Regional Department of the Local Industry "mainly by the lack of transport and equipment and poor organization of work by the management of enterprises themselves" ^{[27, l. 2-about]}, in short, the explanations were identical to those given by officials of the industrial cooperation.

Serious difficulties with the material and technical base and raw materials in the restoration of the Bryansk region prompted representatives of both the local industry and the industrial cooperation to resort to administrative methods of raising the productivity of enterprises in the form of so-called socialist and Komsomol competitions. The next such event was announced by the co-operators of Bryansk in January 1945, in Order to accomplish our party and government tasks, co-operatives Bryansk region, according to the agreement, pledged: the annual plan of 1945 in the amount of 27.5 million RUB[a] to overpower the 5th of December 1945 in honor of the Day of the Stalin Constitution; to deploy "a systematic struggle for the quality of the products strictly follow the standards set and approved by images of manufactured products", is to enhance productivity by 15% against the approved plan at 12.6%, to reduce production costs by 3% against the target of 2%; arrange for 1945 to 18 teams instead of 16 planned; to organize different workshops on domestic services in the amount of 70 points is 65 years scheduled, etc. [28 L. 1-3] of Course, the ideological impulse of cooperators deserves respect, especially given the difficult conditions in which they had to work for the homeland and native land; however, the main points of the obligation in the form of early implementation of the annual plan, and more artisanal than planned were outstanding – we had quoted a figure for the number of cooperatives in October 1945 in 94 units; according to the same report ^[29] the Bryansk regional statistics Department in the form of "K" for 1945, co-operatives Bryansk region on 1 January 1946, there were 93 of the farm, i.e. for the full year was openly 3-4 enterprises [b].

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to end the conversation about social obligations without mentioning the labor achievements of the Bryansk region's cooperators. So, in February 1945, the Regional Committee of the Komsomol and the Bryansk CPC, following the results of a social competition between Komsomol brigades of young cooperators, awarded the winners of the competition – the brigade of bakers of the Krasny Oktyabr artel of the Bryansk MPS Brigadier Shatokhin, who fulfilled the February plan by 184% and gave 12.1 tons of bread in excess of the plan, and the brigade of spinners of the Krasny Tekstilshchik artel of the Novozybkovsky MPS brigadier Pashuto, who fulfilled the plan by 180%. The Red Banner of the Komsomol Regional Committee was handed over to the first brigade and cash prizes were paid: 500 rubles to the foreman, 300 rubles to the brigade members, while the "silver" prize–winner of the competition received cash prizes in the amount of 300 rubles to the foreman and 200 rubles to the brigade members ^{[30, L. 2-3]}.

In general, the results of the social competition on the system of cooperative industry of the USSR for 1945 are well reflected in the relevant document that we discovered during our work in the archive of the Bryansk region – the figures are given below. It can be seen from them that the Bryansk industrial cooperation has never been among the leaders of the social competition, barely managing to fulfill its obligations, but at the same time not being the worst in terms of results, as far as can be judged from the study of statistics.

Table 5. The results of social competitions in the Bryansk industrial cooperation in 1945 (in %% of the social obligation plan)

Source: GABO. F. 2206. Op. 1. D. 151. L. 4-17.

***

The restoration of the national economy in the territories liberated from the Nazi invaders became a task of national importance, in the name of which all subjects of the Russian Federation located near the newly annexed regions, by order of the Party and the Government, sacrificed their already limited resources. The Bryansk Region, which had acquired the appearance of an independent subject of the RSFSR since 1944, was being restored by forces not only of a large state-owned, but also of a cooperative industry, which, despite its plight, made every effort not only to provide the population of the Bryansk region with much-needed consumer goods, but also to support the front through the fulfillment of planned tasks.

Nevertheless, despite the dedication and labor consciousness of the Bryansk cooperators, the two reporting years during which the industrial cooperation of the Bryansk region worked as an independent national economic structure were unsuccessful for the industrial cartels in terms of fulfilling production tasks – both in terms of gross output, and in particular in consumer goods, the industrial cooperation did not achieve its goals. The reason for these failures lies in the consequences of the economic devastation of the region as a result of the war, as well as in the low level of material and technical support for enterprises, which did not allow production work to be fully deployed. The only way to solve pressing problems was the extensive expansion of existing artels by attracting new employees, which, in turn, could not but affect the quality of products and their suitability for consumption by the masses – the low quality of consumer goods regularly caused proceedings through both the industrial cooperation system and control bodies of other departments. Another way to increase labor productivity was the announcement of socialist competitions and the return to the agenda of the shock movement and the Stakhanov movement – young art workers were promised generous rewards for showing labor enthusiasm, which, however, did not fundamentally solve the problem of non-fulfillment of planned tasks.

Meanwhile, despite the non-fulfillment of planned tasks for 1944 and 1945, both in terms of gross output and consumer goods, the statistics presented in our work indicate the presence of positive dynamics in the production processes of artels, as well as a gradual increase in the burden on fishing cooperation from the point of view of the tasks released by the regional planning commission on gross products. This fact indicates the strengthening of the position of industrial cooperation artels in relation to state industry in the conditions of post-war reconstruction of the regions, which can be explained by greater flexibility in the creation of cooperative enterprises and the organization of their functioning. On the other hand, such overestimated targets, difficult to achieve for essentially artisanal enterprises, indicate the low quality of the work of planning authorities, their isolation from the realities of the economic life of the industrial cooperation system.

To improve our understanding of the institute of Soviet industrial cooperation, specifically its existence in the conditions of the administrative and command system, as well as survival in the extreme conditions of the Great Patriotic War, it is extremely important to compare this institute with local industry in determining the status of industrial cooperation - an analysis of the social inequality of employees of both systems and the dynamics of income of their enterprises will allow researchers to approach specific statistical material to answer the question about the prospects of the art industry in particular and alternatives in Soviet economic history in general.

[a] There was probably a typo in the document here – the plan was 24.5 million rubles.

[b] This disparity in stat.reports sometimes occur due to the fact that, depending on the type of reporting document, it could contain information on the industrial cooperation system as a whole or specifically on the cooperative industry – in the latter case, artels specializing in so-called industrial enterprises were not included in the total number of listed artels. Sometimes the absence of certain enterprises in the statistics could be attributed simply to an error made by the accountant-compiler.