GOELRO (russian: link=no, ГОЭЛРО) was the first

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

plan for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans drafted by Gosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (Государственная комиссия по электрификации России). Stamp of USSR 1666

The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

. Lenin's belief in the central importance of

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histo ...

to the achievement of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

is represented by his statement that The commission was established by the Presidium of the

VSNKh Supreme Board of the National Economy, Superior Board of the People's Economy, (Высший совет народного хозяйства, ВСНХ, ''Vysshiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva'', VSNKh) was the superior state institution for managem ...

on February 21, 1920, in accordance with February 3, 1920, VTsIK resolution on the electrification plan development. The director of the commission was Gleb Krzhizhanovsky. About 200 scientists and engineers participated, including Genrikh Graftio, Ivan Alexandrov, Mikhail Shatelen and others. By the end of 1920 the Commission devised the "

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

Electrification Plan" (), that was approved subsequently by the 8th Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920,On GOELRO Plan – at Kuzbassenergo
and accepted by the Sovnarkom (Soviet government) on December 21, 1921. 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."

Foreign authors about the plan

In 1920, British writer

Herbert George Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. '' Russia in the Shadows: ''"Interestingly, Herbert Well revisited the Soviet Union in 1934 and was really astonished with what he saw"'' - Yelena Kosheleva, Head of Mosenergo’s Museum Group, noted, when Mosenergo PLC had published a book called "GOELRO: 100 Years On", prior to the anniversary.

Implementation

The GOELRO Plan was implemented during a 10- to 15-year period. According to the Plan, the territory of the

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 The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catch ...

Region,

Turkestan Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Overview Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turk ...

Region,

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

Region and Western

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

Region. The Plan included the construction of a network of 30 regional

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

s, including ten large

hydroelectric power plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

s, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. It was intended to increase the total national power output per year to 8.8 billion

kWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bill ...

, as compared to 1.9 billion kWh in

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

in 1913. Soviet propaganda claimed that the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931. In reality, only three out of ten hydroelectric stations were built by 1930: the

Volkhov Volkhov (russian: Во́лхов) is an industrial town and the administrative center of Volkhovsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the river Volkhov east of St. Petersburg. Population: It was previously known as ''Zvan ...

, the

Svir The Svir (, Veps: , Karelian/ Finnish: ) is a river in Podporozhsky, Lodeynopolsky, and Volkhovsky districts in the north-east of Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It flows westwards from Lake Onega to Lake Ladoga, thus connecting the two large ...

, and the

Dnieper Hydroelectric Station The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station ( uk, ДніпроГЕС, DniproHES; russian: ДнепроГЭС, DneproGES), also known as Dneprostroi Dam, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, is the largest hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper river. ...

s. The goal of 8.8 billion kWh was reached in 1931, and national power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of the first five-year plan in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940. Ivan Alexandrov later directed the Regionalisation Commission of Gosplan which divided the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

into thirteen

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an and eight

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

tic economic regions, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights". The term "Ilyich's lamp" (лампочка Ильича) for an electric bulb, a reference to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is a reminder of the Plan period. File:GOELRO plan title page 1920.jpg, The GOELRO plan title page, 1920 File:RIAN_archive_436925_Poster_-742_%22Rosta_Windows%22_dedicated_to_Russia%27s_electrification_by_Vladimir_Mayakovsky.jpg, Poster #742 "Rosta Windows" dedicated to Russia's electrification by Vladimir Mayakovsky File:RIAN archive 528016 Map depicting Russia's electrification.jpg, A map depicting Russia's electrification (1973) File:RIAN_archive_763450_%22GOELRO_Plan%22_poster.jpg, "GOELRO Plan" poster by Alexander Lemeshchenko (1967) File:Goerlo 03.jpg, The electrification of the Southern District according to the GOELRO plan

References

External links

85th anniversary of GOELRO plan
at the website of RAO UES
Map of the electrification
from the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

{{authority control Documents of the Soviet Union Economic history of the Soviet Union 1920 establishments in Russia 1920s economic history 1920 documents