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Stalinist Restructuring in Estonia

From Market to Command Economy

by Olaf Mertelsmann (Author)
©2024 Monographs 268 Pages
Series: Tartu Historical Studies, Volume 7

Summary

In 1940, Estonia was first occupied and then annexed by the Soviet Union. The process of Sovietization started immediately and was accompanied by a thorough reconstruction of the economy. This monograph looks in detail at the different stages of economic restructuring of a country to be remodeled according to the Soviet example. Exploitation, violence, and declining living standards formed part of the process under Stalinist rule. Different sectors of the economy, but also the demographic development, are analyzed. By the end of Stalinism, the outcome indicated a disaster.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Abbreviations
  • List of Tables
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • 1 The First Soviet Year 1940/41 and the German Occupation 1941–1944
  • 2 Postwar Reconstruction
  • 3 Demographic Changes
  • 4 The Standard of Living
  • 5 Agriculture and Forced Collectivization
  • 6 Industry
  • 7 The Service Sector
  • 8 Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Series Index

List of Abbreviations

CC

Central Committee

CPSU

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

ECP

Estonian Communist Party

ERAF

Branch of Estonian State Archives—Eesti Riigiarhiivi Filiaal

ERA

Estonian State Archives—Eesti Riigiarhiiv

ERM-KV

Estonian National Museum: Archive of the Replies of the Correspondents of the Museum—Eesti Rahva Muuseum—Korrespondentide vastuste arhiiv.

ESSR

Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

GARF

State Archives of the Russian Federation—Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

GmbH

Limited Liability Company—Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung

GNP

Gross National Product

Gosplan

State Planning Committee—Gosudarstvennyi komitet po planirovaniiu

KM-EKLA

Estonian Literary Museum: Estonian Archive of Cultural History—Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum—Eesti Kultuurilooline Arhiiv

MTS

Machine-Tractor Station

NKVD

People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs

Orgnabor

Organized Recruitment of Labor

RA

Estonian National Archives—Rahvusarhiiv

RGAE

Russian State Archive of Economics—Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki

RGASPI

Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History—Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii

SA

Sturmabteilung

SD

Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS—Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VKP(b)

All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

List of Tables

Table 1: Restrictions on Purchases, October 1940

Table 2: Import of Concentrated Feed from Other Soviet Republics

Table 3: Livestock in Estonia in Thousands

Table 4: War Damage in the Countryside (Information on 85 percent of all parishes)

Table 5: Productivity per Work Hour in Soviet Industry, 1928–1950

Table 6: Population Losses of Estonia (approximate values)

Table 7: Population, 1945–1956, in Thousands

Table 8: Age and Gender Structure of the Rural Population, January 1, 1947

Table 9: Age and Gender Structure of the Rural Population, 1951–1956 (on January 1, in thousands)

Table 10: Distribution of Rural Inhabitants in Households, 1950–1956 (on January 1, in thousands)

Table 11: Officially Registered Births, Deaths, and Natural Population Growth per 1,000 Inhabitants, 1938–1956

Table 12: Absolute Number of Births and Deaths, 1938 to the Second Quarter of 1944

Table 13: Number of Terminations of Pregnancy and Abortions, 1951 and the First Half of 1952

Table 14: Total Number of Deaths among Small Children, 1937–1955

Table 15: Marriages and Divorces, 1945–1956

Table 16: Ethnic Composition of the Population, 1934–1959

Table 17: Monthly Income of Workers’ Families in Tallinn in 1938, in Kroons

Table 18: Nominal Monthly Incomes in Estonian Industry in 1939, in Kroons

Table 19: Intake of Calories, Protein, and Fat in Estonian Workers’ Households in 1938

Table 20: Food Consumption of the Households of Workers and Civil Servants, 1938, per Capita in Kg

Table 21: Market or Retail Prices in May 1940 in Kroons per Kg

Table 22: Market Prices in Tallinn in Rubles per Kg in the Winter of 1947

Table 23: Market Prices in Tallinn in Rubles per Kg, August 1948–August 1949

Table 24: Prices of Rationed Goods and “Commercial Prices” in the USSR in Rubles, 1946

Table 25: Monthly Structure of Expenses of Soviet Workers, 1940 and 1947–1948

Table 26: Family Size and Family Income of Workers, 1952–1956

Table 27: Average Gross Income in September in Rubles

Table 28: Index of Real Wages of Soviet Industrial Workers, 1940–1953

Table 29: Structure of the Private Consumption of a Kolkhoz Household in the First Quarter of 1952

Table 30: Average Food Prices for Collectivized Peasants in 1952, in Rubles per Kg

Table 31: Food Consumption of Kolkhoz Peasants in the First Half of 1952 in Estonia and Russia per Capita in Kg

Table 32: Monthly Food Consumption of Estonian Workers’ Families, 1952–1956, per Capita in Kg

Table 33: Monthly Food Consumption of Soviet Workers’ Families in the Third Quarter of 1952 in Kg per Capita

Table 34: Sources of Food of Estonian Workers’ Families, 1952–1956, in Kg per Month

Table 35: Monthly Average Income, 1939 and 1955, in Goods

Table 36: Availability of Food in the USSR and in Tsarist Russia

Table 37: Monthly Food Consumption of Peasants in Tsarist Russia and in the Soviet Union, 1905–1953, in Kg

Table 38: Monthly Food Consumption of Different Households in the Soviet Union, 1953, in Kg per Person

Table 39: Daily, Respectively Annual, Consumption and the Nutritionally Recommended Consumption in the USSR in 1954

Table 40: Per Capita Calorie Intake for Each Soviet Republic in 1954

Table 41: Turnover Tax on Selected Products, April 1, 1953

Table 42: Price Index of State and Cooperative Trade, 1940 and 1950–1956, in the USSR

Table 43: Share of Market Production Exceeding One’s Own Consumption, Calculated in Kroons

Table 44: Purchasing Prices for Forced Procurement in Rubles per Tsentner, May 9, 1941

Table 45: Agricultural Taxes, 1944–1948, in Rubles

Table 46: Official Information on the Production of Animal Husbandry, 1913, 1940, and 1945–1956

Table 47: Annual Milk Production of Checked Cows, 1940/41–1947/48

Table 48: Annual Milk Production in Ühisjõud Kolkhoz

Table 49: Livestock Numbers in Thousands, 1939–1956

Table 50: Average Livestock Husbandry in the USSR in Thousands, Converted to the Number of Inhabitants of Estonia on January 1, 1938–1940

Table 51: Estimate of Milk and Meat Production, 1951–1956

Details

Pages
268
Publication Year
2024
ISBN (PDF)
9783631919170
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631919187
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631919163
DOI
10.3726/b21838
Language
English
Publication date
2024 (June)
Keywords
Stalinism Baltic states Estonia economic and social history economic restructuring
Published
Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2024. 268 pp., 79 tables.

Biographical notes

Olaf Mertelsmann (Author)

Olaf Mertelsmann is a professor of Eastern European history at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He has researched Stalinism, Baltic history, and social and economic history. Among other works, he has authored Everyday Life in Stalinist Estonia and edited The Sovietization of the Baltic States, 1940–1956 and The Baltic States under Stalinist Rule.

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