Why Did Stalin Launch The Five Year Plans During The Late 1920s?

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.

The Industrial Revolution was period of rapid economic and social growth during the mid 18th and early 19th centuries. The new found power of coal and iron made for many new innovations in machinery. Not all of the Industrial Revolution’s changes were physical. A new ideology arose from the sweat of the working class: socialism. Socialism is a political theory advocating state or collective ownership of property and industry opposed to private ownership. To fully understand the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and socialism, one must first be comfortable with the Revolution and its changes, socialism itself, and the fine line of events linking the two together.

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.

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

The entire economic structure of Russia appeared to be fully dependent on industrialization. In Document 1, a Russian finance minister presents the facts that the Russian empire is making a great transformation and that the industrial and commercial systems must be carried strongly in order for Russia to catch up with other countries economically. The details of how the production and trading of goods are so imperative makes you understand how hard the people of the industry have to work to make all of this possible. Further confirming this observation, Russian workers claimed they would rather die than live the kind of life they lived in Document 4. In Document 4, a Russian socialist witnessed a workers’ meeting during a strike. Quotes from workers like “our suffering has gone beyond all measure,” demonstrated the horrible conditions employees worked in. Another piece of evidence comes from Document 7. In Document 7, a Russian physicist analyzes the women employment in factories. It is said that they worked insane hours and were paid unjust amounts. Women who asked for a raise were just laughed at and disregarded. Within this same document it is revealed that there were children being physically forced into performing intense labor. In proving this unfair treatment, a document from an emperor or prominent political leader could be very beneficial in explaining how things were truly run in factories. However, in the end these documents serve as sufficient evidence that industrial work in Russia was not

Money was required for Russia to build their own industrial base to support themselves. To build this infrastructure they had to borrow money from other countries. In exchange Russia would give them grains. Hence, Russia’s economy depended on the peasant who had to feed themselves & the bourgeoisie.The peasants weren’t productive enough. As a result, Stalin started to collect agriculture to finance industrialization (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Economics historians believe it to be the fastest economic growth rate ever achieved. In 1932-1933 the 4th greatest famine occured in the USSR due to collectivication (Fitzgerald, 2013). The workers building and working in these industries were unpaid laborers and prisoners (New World Encyclopedia contributors, 2014). Because there was about ~7 million - 15 million prisoners in labor camps and they were working in industries, those camps were now necessary for the prosperity of Russia’s economy (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.). With all those measures in place the productions of coal, pig iron & steel increased (New World Encyclopedia contributors,

The last and one of the most important reasons was after the czar had past and Stalin gained power he started a five year plan to stabilize our economy and industrialize our country. (Doc 7) This plan was easily achievable because Russia was united after overthrowing the czar, thinking no one could be worse than the czar. Stalin successfully achieved his goal within five year and the country caught up to the capitalist countries that industrialized before Russia.

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

Communism is a political and social act where everything was controlled by the Government and the citizens having no say. Life in Russia has forever been different than that of Canada. Although Russia claims to be a democracy, its citizens do not fully know the idea of freedom. Joseph Stalin had a plan to make Russia the super power of the world but ultimately failed because communism never works. Stalin released new ideas that he thought would help improve the economy but never actually did. From the time that Stalin came into power in 1924, up until his death in 1953 he transformed Russia’s previously more week society into an active military and industrial superpower striking fear and terror into its citizens. Stalin did play a huge role in defeating the Axis power in WWII but is seen as a communist who was a ruthless ruler responsible for the deaths of over 20 million people. Although some people believe that Joseph Stalin’s plan for communism was good, in reality many horrors affected his people, the economy, and the future of Russia.

Vladimir Lenin was important in the development as well as introduction of The New Economic Policy which achieved much. Peasants became satisfied with their ability to gain a small amount of profit from their hard work and harvests. It brought an awaited solution to

The Russian Revolution led to many improvements in production and education, allowing industrialization, but at the cost of many Russian lives. Russia advanced rapidly during the revolution. The question is were the Russian people better off after the Russian revolution? I believe so because of the improvements in education and production. Without the deaths of the Russian people they wouldn’t of been able to do this.

Firstly, background to the rise of the Soviet Union is examined. Keenan states that the Communists rose to power on ideas which denounced capitalism and

Before the nation of Russia became the international powerhouse that we knew as the USSR, it was first the small backwater country, whose economy ran on the use of serfs, Czar 's ruled every aspect, and the chance of growth was limited; however, once the year 1917 came along, the entire aspect of what was to be the Russia nation changed into a very strange and new one, called the United of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was, at one point, second only to the United States of America and had the power to destroy the entire planet with the single acknowledgement of their leader, because of their nuclear capabilities and their political power. The Russian country became the great Communist powerhouse after a great revolution in

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

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.