The Five Years Plans of Joseph Stalin, Study notes of Russian

Download The Five Years Plans of Joseph Stalin and more Study notes Russian in PDF only on Docsity! 1 The Five Years Plans of Joseph Stalin In 1929, Stalin became the undisputed ruler of Russia. He saw that his nation was way behind the west in modernization and industrialization. In order to survive, he had to reform the country. He also knew that a strong economy could create a strong military and the future of Russia becoming a global power. Stalin created a series of Five-Year Plans. He brought industry under state control and all development was planned by the state. He created an organization called GOSPLAN, where the state decided what and how much was to be produced and where is was to be produced. The two main areas of concentration for his plan were the Heavy Industries (iron, coal, steel, and oil) and Agriculture. The First Five-Year Plan was from 1929 to 1932 The Second Five-Year Plan was from 1933 to 1937 The Third Five-Year Plan was from 1938 to 1941 (when it was interrupted by World War II). Each plan created a series of quotas (targets) that had to be met for each industry. As time went on, these targets were raised to a point that they could not be met. However, in many areas of production, vast improvements were made. The following table shows Stalin’s progress. The column under 1927 is the base line, i.e. before the Five- Year Plans. The Quotas (targets for each plan are in the brackets). Commodity 1927 1932 1937 Coal 35 million tons 64 mt (75 mt target) 128 mt (152 mt target) Oil 12 million tons 21 mt (22 mt target) 29 mt (47 mt target) Iron Ore 5 million tons 12 mt (19 mt target) Unknown Pig Iron 3 million tons 6 mt (10 mt target) 15 mt (16 mt target) Steel 4 million tons 6 mt (10 mt target) 18 mt (17 mt target) mt = Metric Tons Though these appear to be excellent results, it must be remembered that the base year (1927) was low by European standards. However, it was a massive jump forward for Russia. 2 A major part of the Second Five-Year Plan was to create new infrastructure and communication systems, such as railways and roads and then develop the chemical industry. The Third Five-Year Plan put an emphasis on weapons and military production which required input from heavy industry as Stalin feared future Russian involvement in World War II. Stalin brought in outside help from foreign countries to aid in his development programs. He also changed Lenin’s plan of running industry through soviets (workers councils as to how industries should be run). Stalin now named individual managers to each facility. They were responsible for fulfilling the quotas. Good managers were well rewarded. Unsuccessful managers paid a severe price for failure. Failures of the Five-Year Plans Agriculture/Farming Before the Russian Revolution there had been 16 million farms in the country. It now had 25 million. The theory was that the small farmers only produced enough food to feed themselves. The large farmers, on the other hand, were able to provide a surplus that could be used to feed the factory workers in the towns. These large farms were owned by kulaks (individual land-owners). Stalin’s government officials argued that the state, in order to undermine the power of the kulaks, should create large collective farms. This plan was called Collectivization. Thousands of people from various parts of Russia were now ordered to become farmers and move to the agricultural regions in order to provide for the state. Many kulaks resisted these orders and subsequently burned their fields and destroyed their machinery halting any food production. To motivate the kulaks to do work under Stalin’s plan, they had to be given incentives, "the ability to enrich" themselves. The tax system was changed in order to help kulaks buy out smaller farms. In an article in the government newspaper it promised the kulaks that they could now "Enrich yourselves, develop your holdings. And don't worry that they may be taken away from you.” However, collectivization did not work as planned and Russia soon witnessed several major famines.