GOELRO (Russian:ГОЭЛРО) was the first ofSoviet Russia's plans for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequentFive-Year Plans drafted byGosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (Russian:Государственная комиссия по электрификации России,romanized: Gosudarstvennaya komissiya po elektrifikatsii Rossii).
The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised byVladimir Lenin. Lenin's belief in the central importance ofelectrification to the achievement ofcommunism is represented by his statement:[1]
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
The commission was established by the Presidium of theVSNKh on February 21, 1920,[2] in accordance with February 3, 1920,VTsIK resolution on the electrification plan development.[3] The director of the commission wasGleb Krzhizhanovsky.
| Member | Dates | Organisation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gleb Krzhizhanovsky | (1872-1959) | ETO | |
| Alexander Kogan | (1865-1929) | TsES (Central Electrotechnical Council) | |
| Boris Ugrimov | (1872-1941) | People's Commissariat of Agriculture | |
| Grigory Dubelir | (1874-1942) | Elektrostroi | |
| Genrikh Graftio | (1869-1949) | Railway electrification | |
| Karl Krug | (1873-1952) | Heating Committee | |
| Mikhail Lapirov-Skoblo | (1889-1947) | ||
| Boris Stunkel | (1882-1937) | Glavtekstil |
About 200 scientists and engineers participated, includingGenrikh Graftio,Ivan Alexandrov, Mikhail Shatelen and others.[2] By the end of 1920 the Commission devised the "Russian SFSR Electrification Plan" («План электрификации Р.С.Ф.С.Р»), that was approved subsequently by the8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920,[4] and accepted by theSovnarkom (Soviet government) on December 21, 1921.[5]
The Plan represented a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. Lenin's stated goal for it was "...the organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism."[6]
In 1920, British writerHerbert George Wells visited Soviet Russia and met with Vladimir Lenin. Wells believed that it was impossible to realise the Russian revolutionary’s plan, as he wrote in his bookRussia in the Shadows:
For Lenin, who like a good orthodox Marxist denounces all "Utopians," has succumbed at last to a Utopia, the Utopia of the electricians. He is throwing all his weight into a scheme for the development of great power stations in Russia to serve whole provinces with light, with transport, and industrial power. Two experimental districts he said had already been electrified. Can one imagine a more courageous project in a vast flat land of forests and illiterate peasants, with no water power, with no technical skill available, and with trade and industry at the last gasp? Projects for such an electrification are in process of development in Holland and they have been discussed in England, and in those densely-populated and industrially highly-developed centres one can imagine them as successful, economical, and altogether beneficial. But their application to Russia is an altogether greater strain upon the constructive imagination. I cannot see anything of the sort happening in this dark crystal of Russia, but this little man at the Kremlin can; he sees the decaying railways replaced by a new electric transport, sees new roadways spreading throughout the land, sees a new and happier Communist industrialism arising again. While I talked to him he almost persuaded me to share his vision.
The GOELRO Plan was implemented during a 10- to 15-year period. According to the Plan, the territory of theRussian SFSR was divided into eight regions, with distinct development strategies due to the specific features of each region: Southern Region, Central Industrial region, Northern Region,Ural Region,Volga Region,Turkestan Region,Caucasus Region and WesternSiberia Region.[3][8] The Plan included the construction of a network of 30 regionalpower plants, including ten largehydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.[9]
It was intended to increase the total national power output per year to 8.8 billionkWh, as compared to 1.9 billion kWh inImperial Russia in 1913.[3] Soviet propaganda declared the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931.[3][4] While only three out of ten hydroelectric stations were built by 1930: theVolkhov, theSvir, and theDnieper Hydroelectric Stations;[10] the goal of 8.8 billion kWh was reached in 1931,[11] and national power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of thefirst five-year plan in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940.[citation needed]
Leon Trotsky as president of theelectrification commission and the Opposition bloc also put forward an electrification plan which involved the construction of thehydroelectricDnieprostroi dam.[12][13]
Ivan Alexandrov later directed the Regionalisation Commission ofGosplan which divided theSoviet Union into thirteenEuropean and eightAsiatic economic regions, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights".[14]
The term "Ilyich's lamp" (лампочка Ильича) for anelectric bulb, a reference to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is a reminder of the Plan period.[citation needed]
In 1963,Che Guevara cited the GOELRO plan as a model for the development of revolutionary Cuba.[15]: 33 Guevara's view was that electrification provided a crucial basis for advancing to a higher stage of development, although Guevara stated that in hindsight Lenin had overemphasized the importance of electrification in and of itself.[15]: 33
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.
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