Encyclopedia of Russian History

At first the war went worse than envisaged in the most pessimistic prewar plans. Soviet territory was deeply invaded; the real output of the territory under Soviet control fell by one-third; and the burdens of defense increased both relatively and absolutely. By 1943 three-fifths of Soviet output was devoted to the war effort, the highest proportion observed at the time in any economy that did not subsequently collapse under the strain. A railway evacuation of factories and machinery from the zones threatened by occupation shifted the geographical center of the war economy hundreds of kilometers to the east. The production of weapons rose to a level that exceeded Germany’s throughout the war. There was little detailed planning behind this; the important decisions were made in a chaotic, uncoordinated sequence. The civilian economy was neglected and it declined rapidly. By 1942, food, fuels, and metals produced had fallen by half or more. Living standards fell on average by two-fifths while millions were severely overworked and undernourished; however, the state procurement of food from collective farms ensured that industrial workers and soldiers were less likely to starve than peasants. Still the process might have ended in another economic collapse without the stunning victory over the German army at Stalingrad at the end of 1942. This enabled a return to economic planning and a partial restoration of resources to civilian uses. Foreign (mostly American) aid, which added about 5 percent to Soviet resources in 1942 and 10 percent in 1943 and 1944, also relieved the pressure.

The war had lasting economic consequences. It took the lives of one in six Soviet citizens living at its outset, and destroyed perhaps one quarter of the Soviet prewar capital stock. Economic and demographic recovery took decades. The success of the war effort also had lasting consequences: It confirmed the authority of Stalin, as well as that of a new generation of wartime industrial and political managers who survived him and remained in power for thirty more years. The success of the war economy was used to discourage critical thinking about basic economic policies and institutions. For example, Stalin claimed that the war demonstrated the superiority of the Soviet system over capitalism for organizing economic life in both wartime and peacetime. See also: COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE; STALINGRAD, BATTLE OF; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barber, John, and Harrison, Mark. (1991). The Soviet Home Front: A Social and Economic History of the USSR, 1941-1945. London: Longman. Harrison, Mark. (1996). Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940-1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Harrison Mark, ed. (1998). The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Samuelson, Lennart. (2000). Plans for Stalin’s War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925-1941. London: Macmillan.

1660

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

WARSAW TREATY ORGANIZATION

Simonov, Nikolai S. (1996). “’Strengthen the Defence of the Land of the Soviets’: The 1927 ‘War Alarm’ and Its Consequences.” Europe-Asia Studies 48(8): 1355-64.

MARK HARRISON

WAR OF THE THIRD COALITION

One of the Napoleonic wars, the War of the Third Coalition, occurred between 1805 and 1807. Russia first participated in the conflicts arising from France’s efforts to expand its dominance over continental Europe and the Middle East in 1798, in the War of the Second Coalition, along with Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and the Ottoman Empire. Most of the direct Russian involvement was in the Eastern and Northern Mediterranean, with Admiral Fedor Ushakov occupying the Ionian Islands and General Alexander Suvorov campaigning through Italy. Emperor Paul, however, became annoyed with his allies, especially Britain. In 1800 he withdrew and formed an alliance with France, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. This dramatic reversal contributed to a reaction and the assassination of Paul in March 1801.