Economic Policy Change in Soviet Union From 1941 to 1986 Essay

Through his Five Year Plans and forced collectivization, Stalin was able to improve industry and agriculture. He did this while also using propaganda to brainwash his people into viewing him as a strong and great leader, despite some of the nasty things he did to them. The first Five Year Plan was announced in 1929. The goal of this plan was to increase Stalin’s resources by causing rapid industrialization.

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

In Document 7, The Land of the Soviets published an excerpt in the U.S.S.R (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) which stated “the first and second five year Plans strengthened the Soviet Union’s economic position and turned it into a powerful industrial state. In 1937 the industrial output of the USSR was 5.8 times larger than in 1913. This shows the massive improvements in production caused by the first and second five year plan.

The people were in a state of famine, the political government was weak, and the economy was in shambles with inflation as high as can be. As Stalin rose in power, this would all change in both positive and negative aspects. One of Josef Stalin’s first methods of rebuilding broken Russia was through what he named to be the Five-Year economic Plans. Through these plans, Stalin would induct a Command, or a Socialist, Economy. This Command Economy would involve a society in which the government would make all economical decisions, controlling nearly all aspects of societal life. As seen in Document One, Stalin believed that implementing a “Socialist economy” would prevent from Russia “[lagging] behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years.” It would bring them up to pace with the surrounding capitalist economies, keeping Russia as a world power. The Five-Year Plans also included the increase of quota in both industrial and agricultural positions. If quota were increased, industrial increase would soon follow. Seen in Document Eight, “the fulfillment of the first and second Five-Year Plans strengthened the U.S.S.R.’s economic position.” The Five-Year Plan would cause for Russia to rise to become a modern industrial society, as well as

which they had experienced in earlier years. In the 1970s, Soviet Prime minister Kosygin had implemented a five years plan to make the economy more dynamic and to increase the production of goods. However, this plan failed to fulfill expectations and industrial and agricultural stagnations persisted. Agriculture played an essential role in the Soviet economy and in the years before detente agricultural development continued to lag. In the 1950s the gross national product(GNP) had grown over 6 per cent. However, by the late 1960s it had fallen to under 4 per cent.The standard of living in the Soviet Union was also declining due to the decrease in food supply caused by the agricultural stagnation. These shortages of consumer goods prompted the growth of the black market in the USSR which also affected the well being of the economy.The arms industry claimed huge quantities of resources for the arms race with the United States. Brezhnev needed to create improvements to living standards and

The many long-term internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union centralized around weaknesses in their economy. They had an inflexible central planning system, the inability to modernize, and the inefficiency in their agriculture production. Sometime around the 1970's the computer and automation revolution had emerged. This revolution took over the West, but practically missed the Soviet Union, except in the military sector (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev's goal in economic restructuring was to create a separation between the economic and the political. The major changes began with the legalization of private farming and business co-operatives, and the allowing of foreign company ownership over Soviet enterprises (Baylis &Smith, 2001) All of Gorbachev's ideas on economic restructuring backfired on him since the price levels were inconsistent, and a sense of social confusion about the future of their state was created.

The democratization, economic liberalization, and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union is commonly attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost reforms during the period of 1985-1991. This purpose of these reforms is still a trenchant question as the countries of the old Soviet Union, particular Russia, are being pressured to further liberalize their economies.

“We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries… we must make good this distance in 10 years… Either we do so, or we shall go under,” ("Joseph Stalin: National Hero or a Cold-Blooded Murderer?"). Russia had been behind all of the advanced countries for many years, using primitive farming practices, machinery, factories, and building. As a result, Stalin decided to enforce the Five Year Plan which would catch Russia up with everyone else in the world and dramatically increase industrialization. He believed that if he did not industrialize, Russia would have been taken over by other nearby Nationalist countries ("Joseph Stalin: National Hero or a Cold-Blooded Murderer?"). However, to do so in ten years, he had to enforce strict laws and

Do you think the American Revolution was a Revolution or a Evolution? I think the American Revolution was a true Revolution because the government was overthrown by the people. Because of the acts like me tell why there people were mad at the British government.

Stalin’s plan was to make Russia an industrial giant, so Stalin created the five-year plan to work on the farms and factories of Russia. Stalin’s five-year plans were a series of nation wide centralized economic plans in the Soviet Union (Wikipedia). What that meant was that peasants who didn’t have jobs were required to work on a specific goal that Stalin had to increase what was considered as an economy booster. The first Five Year Plan introduced in 1928, concentrated on the development of iron and steel, machine-tools, electric power and transport. Joseph Stalin set the workers high

The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government

The Soviets economy

Due to the extreme focus on heavy industry, there were shortages of consumer goods, and subsequently, inflation grew. To satisfy the state’s increasing need for food supplies, the First Five Year Plan introduced the concept of collectivization. Collectivization entailed compounding peasants’ land and animals, and state farms to provide food to the growing industrial sector. The collectivization movement was not received well by the peasants, and as a result, Stalin altered his plan of action. In 1933, he introduced the Second Five-Year Plan. With this plan, he set more realistic goals, and increased the focus on producing consumer goods and increasing industrial output in general. By 1940, after a Third Five-Year Plan was implemented, the Soviet economy was completely industrialized.

In December 30th, 1922 was born the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The intention behind the founding of this association was to achieve an egalitarian, socialist state and where humble workers, a majority community, were able to gain control over the so-called "capitalists" who sought to keep them at their mercy.

Russia became a Communist country after the Bolshevik Revolution, and became the USSR. At first the country had a growing economy. Throughout the course of the Great Depression, their unemployment rates were low. Capitalism began to seem like it wouldn’t be around too long. Because of the success in USSR, Communism seemed like a better option. Nevertheless, this economy didn't work as well as it was portrayed to.