Statistics.
In 1897, the All-Russian Society of Sugar Farmers was established, which provided a monopoly in the market and existed until the victory of October. Along with the sugar and sand monopoly, the refiner syndicate started its activities, dictating the prices for refined sugar. Sugar monopoly forced peasants to sell beets at a low price, and sugar prices were kept at a high level with the poor wages of workers. This made it possible for the monopoly to export sugar at a low, loss-making price.
Tobacco trust covered 14 major factories and controlled 50% of production. The salt business was actually in the hands of a syndicate known as "Ocean". It concentrated about 50% of all salt production at Baskunchaku.
The monopolistic process was energetic in other branches of the food industry, where there was an increase in the concentration of production.
Due to the general economic backwardness Russian capitalism was in a large and diverse dependence on foreign capital. In 1914, Russian capitalism was in great dependence on foreign capital. 42% of the capital of 18 major joint-stock banks belonged to foreigners, who tried to consolidate their dominating position in the national economy of Russia. Foreign capital also became widespread in the food industry. In 1915, the total amount of foreign capital in the sectors of processing animal products, plant and taste substances was 49.1 million gold rubles.
English and Danish capitals participated in the construction of bacon factories, German-owned some large breweries. High profits attracted foreign capital to the confectionery, soap-making and perfumery industries, and the enterprises were equipped exclusively with imported equipment. Russian owners of the enterprises also resorted to importing a considerable amount of equipment for the technical armament of many large enterprises due to the lack of sufficient machine-building base in the country.
But in general, there were very few large food enterprises. Very insignificant was also the volume of gross output of the pre-revolutionary food industry.
The huge abyss separating the working class and bourgeoisie was an expression of the sharp difference between the nutrition of capitalists and workers. In tsarist Russia for a small layer of city bourgeoisie and nobility in insignificant quantities produced high-quality products of domestic production, many types of such products were imported to provide this layer from abroad. Production of many food enterprises was characterized by limited assortment and low quality (for example, corned beef, strong salted fish, caramel without coiling, gingerbread, etc.). At the general backwardness of the country, the small number of the city population, a miserable standard of living of working masses and peasantry, at the semi-subsistence economy in the village there could not be a significant market for industrial foodstuffs, the large food-processing industry was not required.
Statistical data characterizing the level of development of the food industry in 1913 does not reflect its state at the time of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Years of the First World War were accompanied by a sharp decrease in the volume of production of the food enterprises under the influence of a deep decline of agriculture and other factors caused by the military economy. The general economic condition of Russia at the transition of authority in the hands of the won proletariat was disastrous. In a resolution of VI congress of a party (July - August 1917), it was underlined that "the country already falls in an abyss of final economic disintegration and destruction" 2.
The working class of Russia which has won in October 1917 has received in consequence from capitalism the economy ruined up to the last degree, with a deep decline of all branches of the food-processing industry and their raw materials base.
By 1917 gross production of the operating food enterprise made slightly more than half of the level of 1913.
State of the economy.
Lenin wrote about the state of the country's economy and ways out of the current situation: "...when the country is devastated by war and brought to the brink of ruin, the main, basic, fundamental "economic condition" is to save the worker. If the working class will be saved from starvation, from direct death, then it will be possible to restore the destroyed production".
The country could not switch over to peaceful construction, it gave all its strength to reflect foreign intervention and domestic counterrevolution.
During this period, as at all stages of socialist construction, the party and the Soviet government attached great importance to the problem of the food supply. Back in March 1919 in the Program of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted by the VIII congress of the party as a concrete task of the proletarian dictatorship in the economic field it was written down: "Everything else should be subordinated to the practical purpose - immediately and by all means to increase the quantity of the most necessary products for the population".
During these years, the party and the government paid much attention to the issues of resolving food difficulties, but the situation required to focus the main activity not so much on the organization of food production, as on the search and mobilization of resources, on their proper distribution in the interests of providing the decisive areas.
- There were no conditions for the restoration of the industry both heavy and easy, including the food industry. All industrial production made in 1920 only 13,8 % of the volume of manufacture in 1913.
- At extremely low levels were almost all branches of the food industry, deprived of sources of raw materials. The volume of gross output of the food industry in 1920 was only 15.8% of the level of 19133, including the production of sugar - only 6.5%, vegetable oil - 3.2%, starch, and molasses - 5.5%, fish catch - 24.4%.