GOELRO plan was the first-ever Soviet 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". The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's belief in the central importance of electrification to the achievement of communism is represented by his statement that The Commission was established by the Presidium of the VSNKh 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 Electrification Plan", that was approved subsequently by the 8th Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920 and accepted by the Sovnarkom 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."
Implementation
The GOELRO Plan was implemented during a 10- to 15-year period. According to the Plan, the territory of the Russian SFSR was divided into eight regions, with distinct development strategies due to specific features of each region: Southern Region, Central Industrial region, Northern Region, Ural Region, Volga Region, Turkestan Region, Caucasus Region and Western Siberia Region. The Plan included construction of a network of 30 regional power plants, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. It was intended to increase the total national power output per year to 8.8 billion kWh, as compared to 1.9 billion kWh in Imperial Russia 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, the Svir, and the Dnieper Hydroelectric Stations. The goal of 8.8 billion kWh nevertheless was reached in 1931, and national power output continued to increase significantly, reaching 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 into thirteen European and eight Asiatic economic regions, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights". The term "Ilyich's lamp" for an electric bulb, a reference to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is a reminder of the Plan period.
