Soviet and post-soviet models of development of the timber industry complex of Russia in the second half of the 20th century: problems, challenges, solutions

Introduction

This study is an attempt to set the framework for writing a comprehensive study on the role of the domestic timber industry complex as the basic mechanism for the exploration, and then the development by the Soviet and then Russian state of its vast peripheral spaces. The study of the history of the development of branches of the Soviet timber industry complex began in the late of 1940s-1950s.Then came first major monographs on the history and economy of the timber industry. These studies are valuable, because in these researches were given first generalizations related the history of restoration and development of branches of the timber industry complex after the war. The period from the late 1950's to the 1980's was characterized by a great variety of problems and researchers. At the same time, the problems of the restoration and development of the domestic timber industry complex after the war were discussed highly generalized. These subjects were touched upon in the works on the history of the national economy and the working class of the USSR.

All the studies relating to Soviet historiography on the subject have number of features. The most detailed reflection in them was given to the role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) training workers and striving of the Party organizations to increase labor productivity, the strengthening of labor discipline and technical progress in the timber industry. In addition to the negative economic consequences of the extensive development of the timber industry, the social, demographic, and environmental risks that were most evident in the later period were not taken into account.

The second period in the study of the role of timber industry complex in the life of the country (late 1980s - late 1990s), in the author's opinion, were connected with the final “withdrawal” of this subject on the periphery of the interest of both historians and economists. On the one hand, at this stage the history of the timber industry was much less in demand than in previous decades, despite the emergence of new methodological approaches and liberation from ideological clichйs that opened up new opportunities in covering this topic with historians. At the same time, interest in the political history of the Soviet period has clearly pushed attention to economic topics to the background. On the other hand, a clear decrease in the interest of economists in the timber industry has been facilitated by a change in the political and socio-economic environment in favor of the problems associated with the history of the development of the oil and gas complex.

At the third stage (early 2000s - 2017), priority attention to the studied problems were paid primarily to economists, as well as specialists in the field of forestry and technical sciences. Later, at this stage, there is an increase in the study of this problem by historians.

The first who turned to attempts to rethink Soviet and post-Soviet economic history were well-known economists who became not only great theorists but also practitioners of conducting economic reforms in the USSR and then in Russia. The works of L.I. Abalkin, which are devoted to both the economy of socialism and the transition period of market reforms, are multifaceted in this case. In particular, they studied the problems of adapting enterprises to external and internal changes, as well as the creation of sustainable enterprise development systems [1]. Much attention to the study of the transitional stage of market reforms in the Russian economy has been given to E. Gaidar. In particular, he studied the issues of economic competition and the issues of transformations in the sphere of property [5].

The basis for rethinking the problems of the ways of development of domestic timber industry in the new economic conditions were publications of specialists in the field of economic transformations in the timber industry complex. In particular,

N.A. Burdin [3] pays much attention to the problems of restructuring and problems of improving the structure of the timber industry complex. In the researches of N.A. Medvedev [10], the problems of forest management and general questions of the economy of the timber industry complex are considered. An important contribution to the study of problems of economics and organization of forest management and the forestry sector in Russia, the relationship between man, society and nature were made by the generalizing works of N.A. Moiseyev [11], as well as A.I. Pisarenko and V.V. Strakhov [16]. These studies contain a historical overview of the main theses of the theory and policy of forestry in Russia against the backdrop of the development of domestic and world forest science, and the economy with an emphasis on the role of the State in forestry in Russia.

In the early 2000's a complex interdisciplinary study was started, connected with the history of the domestic timber industry complex. Within the framework of the system approach, various aspects of the socio-economic, technological, organizational development of the timber industry [21] and forestry in Russia were studied in a comprehensive manner and with the observance of the historicity principle throughout virtually the whole history [22].

To the attempts of writing a generalizing work on the history of the creation and development of one of the branches of the forestry complex, it is worth mentioning the “History of the pulp and paper industry of Russia” [8]. Despite the highly respected authors team, which included big leaders, among which are M.I. Busygin (in 1982-1989. Minister of timber, pulp and paper and woodworking industries and the Minister of USSR forest industry), the publication is more a matter of scientific and popular character.

It is necessary to note the appeal of some economists and specialists in the sphere of forestry to the consideration and analysis of the economic history of regional timber industry complexes. In the dissertation of G.A. Knyazeva, economic problems of structural reorganization of the regional forest complex of the Republic of Komi in market conditions were considered [9]. Despite the deep economic analysis, the study presented in this publication covers only the period of the first half of the 1990s and does not affect practically the time of development of the regional forestry complex in the Soviet era.

Among the works of historians in recent years, we can note a number of dissertations in which new methodological approaches to the study of the history of the development of industrial branches are applied. These include the study of S.A. Bakanov [2], in which the development of the coal mining industry of the Urals is viewed through the prism of its life cycle and thedissertation of M.V. Slavkina [20], which examines the impact of the oil and gas complex on the modernization processes taking place in the scientific, technical, economic, social and political spheres of life of USSR and Russian Federation in the period from 1939 to 2008. The strong point of these dissertation studies is that the authors, within the framework of their chosen methodological approaches, were able to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the development of these sectors of the domestic economy over long periods of time.

Dissertational studies of historians of the last decade on the problems of the development of the timber industry complex are distinguished by the traditionality of the consideration of timber industry history. These works absorbed traditional research trends for Soviet historiography related to the study of the place and role of the timber industry in the national economy, the formation and development of the personnel of the forest industry, the material and technical basis of the timber industry and the material and living conditions of the workers, the development and use of production capacities for timber enterprises and improving the organization of production and labor in logging and wood processing, and etc. The peculiarity of these studies was that they concerned only the national regions of Russia and not including a new level of analysis of the problems of the timber industry complex of the country. To this kind of studies could be attributed dissertations of V.S. Vasiliev [4] and M.S. Novolodskaya [15].

The article reviews foreign publications on the research topic. These scientific works could be divided into several areas. One of such areas was the study of the correspondence of the resource possibilities of forest resources in the whole USSR [26], and in particular of the European North of Russia and Siberia to ever increasing demands of the world and domestic markets for forest products [24]. The problem associated with the disappearance of forest areas in the USSR, which appeared before the Soviet leadership in the late 1980s, also become the subject of research by foreign authors [23]. Another area of researchs area includes generalizing works devoted to various branches of the Soviet timber industry [25] and, in particular, the pulp and paper industry. An important aspect of research and analysis among foreign specialists were the issues of labor protection in Soviet industry, which, among others, were studied by the CIA. The analysis of foreign studies has shown that Western historiography also lacks a systematic approach to the study of the USSR and Russia models of the development of the timber industry complex.

In general, analysis of the research literature has shown that there is still no comprehensive research on this issue.

1. Methodology

A comparative study of the Soviet and postSoviet model of the development of the Russian timber industry complex in the second half of the 20th century required the author to address theoretical and methodological principles, developed in the works of foreign geographers and economists.

The central aspect of the study was the authors' appeal to the theory of modernization as one of the possible methodological models for studying different historical events. At the same time, much attention is paid to the specifics of modernization reforms, to the features that distinguish Russian modernization path from similar processes in other countries. According to the authors' study, one of such features, which in many respects make the situation of our country unique, is the availability of the richest forest resources. The extensive nature of the development of these resources has become basic factor in the Soviet modernization in those regions, that have saved considerable reserves by the middle of the twentieth century.

Another methodological approach in this study was using of the concept of “center- periphery”. The classic of this concept is

J. Friedman. According to his concept, the unevenness of economic growth and the process of spatial polarization inevitably generate disproportions between the so-called core and periphery. In this case, the core throughout the life cycle of the center-peripheral system stably dominates the periphery. According to I. Treivish, G.V. Joffe and O.V. Gritsai, a number of key characteristics of the periphery can be singled out: a low initial level of socioeconomic development with a low rate and unstable character of its dynamics, an increased share of employed in the primary sector and sphere of non-market services, the minimum share of knowledge-intensive industries in the structure of the economy, etc. [7].

For the analysis of the dynamics of the development of the domestic timber industry complex, it was important to use the theory of the life cycle of the industry. It is based on the idea that the product produced by the industry passes through several stages in its economic life:

1) “Birth”; 2) “Growth”; 3) “Maturity”; 4) “Decline”. This or that stage of development of the industry changed the state's attitude to the prospects of its further financing, and also changed its own needs and interests.

In addition, when working with quantitative information, elements of statistical techniques for the analysis of dynamic series and descriptive (statistical) statistics were widely used. The result of using of statistical methods was the identification of the correlation of the dynamics in the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of the development of the timber industry complex.

2. Results

2.1 Production and Economic Indicators