How successful were the five year plans in transforming Russian industry in the year to 1941? (30 marks) Russia, three times the size of USA today needed industrialization to help improve Russia’s current economic state in the 18th century. The five year plans was one but he also made other changes to help the growth of the economy. One was collectivization in agriculture, another liquidating the kulaks. The five year plans was to help modernize Russia as it still remained solely on agriculture, 82% of Russians were peasants which made it harder to control the country. Stalin’s aims was to ensure that Russia was stable, modern and powerful, some historians may say that the five year plans were successful as they reached Stalin’s …show more content…
Wages did not increase but hours were longer. Many peasants were getting fed up with poor living and working conditions, as the second five year plan developed, Hitler was becoming more powerful, so nearing the end of the five years much of the industry was becoming more weapon orientated. The third five year plan was obstructed by the need to speed up armament and the 1941 German invasion, the five year plan was abruptly stopped because of the war with Germany but this plan Stalin also made a successful prediction of another annual increase of 12%, new plans were built in the East as Stalin was paranoid he would be invaded by the west, this meant that when the bombs were happening, Russia could still build machinery to help fight the war which was successful, but, just like the other plans it also had its unsuccessful parts, there was labor shortages as many went to war and Stalin’s purges led to disorganization and confusion amongst the people. Many peasants were angered that the priority was weaponry when they were unable to afford and find jackets for the winter and other consumer goods. To conclude the five year plans had a range of factors of successes and failures which change over time like the war. The five year plan succeeded in turning the USSR into a major industrial power over a short period of time, however despite
Propaganda flourished in the public as posters, newspapers, and other print media all praised Stalin, communism, the military, and his ideals. Soviet schools were controlled by Stalin from nursery to college. [“Censorship under Stalin.”] Industrialization allowed women to gain more rights in the workforce (factories). Other groups were not as lucky. From 1941-1949, Stalin ordered mass deportations and sent 3.3 million Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Greeks, Bulgarians and Jews to Siberia and Central Asian Republics. [Languages Of The World, 10 Mar. 2015,] Collectivism and industrialization were his two biggest economic policies under his Five Year Plan implemented in 1928. The idea of collectivization was meant to allow peasants to grow crops on the farms using machinery tractors from the state. Peasants would be compensated and they would keep a small plot of land near their homes for personal use. Stalin wanted to see increases in the USSR’s crop growth quickly. By the end of 1931, the goal set for grain was met but there was a drop in the grain production. Many factors that caused this. Stalin’s activists did not have a wide range of farm knowledge or the skills. Also, the amount of animals were not enough to pull the plows because the hungry peasants ate them. A drought occurred throughout large parts of the USSR and Ukraine during 1931-32. Because all of this, collectivism ultimately failed.
His first five year plan was during 1928-1933 and this was the heavy industry plan which was making industries, transportation, and power supplies. The first of his methods was to use collectivization. Collectivization was the making of small farms into one big farm, and this would help increase the amount of products they make, and that would increase the amount of profit. Afterwards the people who were working on the farms would go into the city and be forced to work in the factories. The money then would be used to buy more more equipment which is industrial products which can help boost their profits yet again. Stalin was shown to be a heavy thinker, and to get his plans through, he made propaganda signs and speeches. He would focuses on telling his people the consequences if they didn’t work hard enough as a country, as they would be “falling behind... and those who fall behind are beaten”(Document 1). The propaganda speeches did work most of the time, but they felt hesitant as the goal for his five year plan was averaging to double the amount of, and “tripling in electricity (milliard kWh) from 5.05 to 17.0 in the end of 1933” (Document 2). Stalin
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.
point of view of Russia the Five Year Plans had been a failure in that
Once eliminating Trotsky, Stalin’s idea of, “socialism in our country,” inevitably meant that Russia needed strength. The productions in the USSR had almost reached pre-war levels by the mid-1920s, but the population of Russia had also increased by 20 million people. No matter, Stalin assured that maximum efforts and resources would be given to the expansion and strengthening of Russia herself rather than an effort to start a revolution elsewhere. This is explained in his famous 1931 speech, gaining power for himself. The people had nowhere else to turn to and needed a leader. Stalin was there and knew what to do to make the people interested in his ideas, thus acquired their trust and control. From these ideas, he created his first
Stalin thought that Russia was far behind the rest of the western world. He devised a 5 year plan to get Russia up to speed with the rest of the world. This is similar to how Napoleon built the windmill. Stalin also created a centralized agriculture
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 3 5-year plans focused on heavy industry, as well as an emphasis on electricity, coal, oil and steel. The latter sections of industry greatly increased including coal (million tons) rising to 128 in 1937. Although during this time period, famine and forced labour occured, the 5-year plans were a success. Through the implementation of Collectivization and the 5-year plans, it can be seen how Stalinism impacted upon the economy, and thus the Soviet State.
The Soviet Union did a few things that are notable of mentioning as positive aspects of the Cold War and of the USSR’s mindset. One example of something positive yielded from
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 third put an emphasis on weapon production, as war did seem to be approaching. The long-term effects of this were that Russia was able to withstand German invasion in World War Two and drive back the German forces. Stalin's adoption of the Five Year Plans proved to be very successful. There were vast improvements in Education and Health and Russia was made into a major industrial
The Third Five Year Plan lasted for only three years, as it was interrupted by Germany’s declaration of war on the Soviet Union during World War II. As war seemed imminent, this plan focused on the production of weapons and other wartime materials (Trueman). The Soviet Union mainly contributed resources to the development of weapons, and constructed additional military factories as needed. Stalin continued to use additional Five Year Plans in the years following WWII, in an attempt keep his promise in 1945 to make the Soviet Union the leading industrial power by 1960. By 1952, industrial production was nearly double the 1941 level. Stalin’s Five Year Plans helped transform the Soviet Union from an untrained society of peasants to an advanced industrial economy. So through out this plan of hopefully saving Russia that Stalin has created products that could not be used and unintelligent citizens who were only trained to only do only one skill.
The Bolsheviks believed they had to industrialise to achieve national strength and maintain independence. This was a shared view of non-Bolshevik predecessors such as Count Sergei Witte a former Russian minister. The Soviet Union needed a modern industry, especially a heavy industry, as there was the idea that they had to defend the revolution. They believed the Russian revolution was in constant danger from capitalist countries, which were militarily and technically far stronger than them. Then there was the belief that the building of socialism or communism involved industrialisation, and that a proletarian dictatorship was insecure so long as it ruled in an overwhelmingly peasant environment . Industrialisation was introduced to eradicate the backwardness that had plagued the country for so long so they could rise and defeat capitalism. In his speech in 1931 Stalin stated ‘we are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under’ and that ‘it is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak - therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty - therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you. This is why we must no longer lag behind’ . These show the need for the Soviet Union to advance and become stronger than capitalist countries. Industrialisation also allowed the Soviet
Slave labour from the gulags was used for large-scale engineering projects, with a total of eight million prisoners by 1938. Overall, the initial Five Year Plans were an economic and political success for the Soviet Union, however the shocking social oppression that came with it overshadowed this advancement.
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.