State support as a factor of labour consolidation at Kamchatka fishing industry enterprises in the late 1920s-1930s: plans and results

By the late 1920s, the state interest in the resources of the Far North-Eastern territories of the USSR had immensely increased. The basic branch of industry for Kamchatka, the fishing industry, was chosen by the state. It was planned to develop this industry up to the export level. In 1927, in order to master the natural resources of the Kamchatka Peninsula the Aktsionernoe Kamchatskoe Ob-schestvo [Kamchatka Joint-Stock Company] was created. It operated in more than 15 directions. The top priority direction became fishing industry development and its staff problem solving. Under conditions of Kamchatka's little-development and under-population the staff problem was one of the most severe. The use of seasonal labour was one of the ways to solve it. This practice had some drawbacks: double transportation expenditures (to bring workers and then to take them back), low qualification of such workers, their financial interest, frequent delays of workers' arrival because of navigation problems. The approximate date of a purposeful state migration policy start is 1930. By 1933, several variants of migration plans in the number of settled people had appeared. The Soviet state planned to stop using seasonal labour by the end of the first five-year cycle (Pervaya Pyatiletka), having satisfied the region with workers. In order to maintain the migration policy, a system of benefits was invented. Its formation started in 1923. By the late 1920s - early 1930s, a series of state decrees widening the volume and geography of benefit legislation had appeared. Due to the beneficial bonus for service in the North Kamchatka, the workers' salary was higher than in the central regions of the USSR. They also had taxation, housing and educational bonuses. They also had supplementary ration, food and goods supply privileges. Despite all the bonuses, the fishing industry had staff turnover. The reasons for it were the housing problem, the low level of cultural and welfare facilities development and social problems in the region. The main housing facilities of Kamchatka's fishing companies were tents, barracks and dugouts. The low speed of house construction was connected with wood delivery problems, the lack of qualified builders and the absence of a united supervision. By the middle of the 1930s, the housing fund had greatly increased, but the demand for housing was still higher than the supply. This fact could be explained by the active development of the fishing industry and the growth of enterprises. By the late 1930s, the state had not stopped to use seasonal labour, but the number of seasonal workers decreased. The number of constant workers had grown. At the same time it was still impossible to implement official plans in the fishing industry using the constant staff only. That is why the state could not stop using seasonal workers. Higher salaries and bonuses became the basic way of staff problem solving. Kamchatka's realities of the 1930s revealed the housing problem and the problem of the social infrastructure, their solving became the basic condition of constant staff formation.

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