Joseph Stalin, the son of a shoemaker from the Russian province of Georgia, was a candidate for the priesthood before he abandoned Christianity for Marxism and became a follower of Lenin in 1903. In 1917 he was named Bolshevik party secretary, an office he retained after the revolution. Following Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin won the battle for party control with Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army during the civil war and Lenin’s heir apparent. Shortly after taking power in 1928, Stalin launched a bold restructuring of the Soviet economy.In 1928, the New Economic Policy (NEP), which Lenin had instituted in 1921, still guided Soviet economic life. Through the NEP, Lenin had sought to restore agriculture and industry after seven years of war, revolution, and civil strife. Although the state maintained control of banks, foreign trade, and heavy industry, peasants could sell their goods on the open market, and small businessmen could hire labor, operate small factories, and keep their profits. The NEP saved the Soviet Union from economic collapse, but its acceptance of private profit and economic competition troubled Marxist purists, and it did little to foster industrialization. Thus in 1928 Stalin abandoned the NEP and replaced it with the first Five-Year-Plan, which established a centralized planned economy in which Moscow bureaucrats regulated agriculture, manufacturing, finance, and transportation. In agriculture, the plan abolished individual peasant holdings and combined them into large collectives and state farms. This meant the obliteration of the class of prosperous and successful peasant farmers known as kulaks. In manufacturing, the plan emphasized heavy industry and the production of goods such as tractors, trucks, and machinery. Second and third Five-Year Plans were launched in 1933 and 1938.
Despite its enormous human costs, measured in terms of economic growth and industrial development, the Soviet experiment in central planning can be called a success. During the 1930s, when the Depression was devastating Western capitalist economies, the Soviet economy grew at an annual rate of 27 percent and achieved impressive increases in the production of iron and steel, oil and electricity, tractors, trucks, and chemicals. To many observers central planning seemed to be the solution to the challenge of rapid industrialization. In the second half of the twentieth century, it became the economic model throughout the communist world and for many newly independent states in Asia and Africa that were seeking rapid industrialization and economic development.
In the report I would like you to read, delivered to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in January 1933, Stalin outlines the goals and achievements of the first Five-Year Plan. You can read the report by clicking here.
After reading the report, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What were the overriding reasons, according to Stalin, for adopting the Five-Year Plan? Does socialist theory or the defense of the Soviet Union seem more important to him? Why, in the industrial area, was it necessary to concentrate on heavy industry? According to Stalin, why was the collectivization of agriculture such a key component of the Five-Year Plan? What were the main obstacles to the success of the Five-Year Plan, according to Stalin? In Stalin’s view, how have the Soviet people benefited from the Five-Year Plan? What sacrifices have they been asked to make? According to Stalin, how does the success of the Five-Year Plan prove that communism is superior to capitalism? Your thoughts…
6 comments:
Basically the 5 year plan was just a plan to industrialize the USSR. Stalin to me seemed to harp on the fact that he was doing this for the USSR. Basically Stalin focused on heavy industry because that would pull every thing else with it, and the USSR, being behind, is trying to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of industrialization. When Russia started making a collectivization of agriculture they are also eliminating capitalism from getting any foothold in the agriculture of the USSR. Honestly from reading this Stalin does not seem all that bad. He talks about the USSR has shot up from a slump to being one of the more powerful countries of the world. And its true, but the people don't get any perks for this in general the government was the one thing that really befitted from all this. Now even then Stalin does not seem all that bad, but he killed maybe 10 million people and lots more indirectly from this. But still I could never imagine a man being so horrible. Until one day three years ago when a got a book "Legends The Century's most Unforgettable Faces". Stalin has a quote in it stating "To choose one's victim, to prepare one's plans minutely, to stake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed... there is nothing sweeter in the world." But even so he pulled off a great a accomplishment with the USSR and made it a force to be recond with.
Yeah the five year plan did help the soviet union, but it really was the wrong way to do it. your people should not be forced into doing something, for selfish gains. plus it will lead to worse things in the future.
According to Stalin, heavy industry needed to be concentrated on to protect the USSR from surrounding capitalist countries. He thought the kulaks were blocking the way of the Five year Plan and by eliminating them by the collectivization of farming they could no longer take advantage of the poor peasants. In the end he said the peasants benefited because unemployment was gone and the people didn't have to get the table scraps from the wealthy elite like the working class did in capitalist countries.
i think its bad that he forced thge peole to do work. eventhought it work, the goal does't justify the means. and trying to do this to destroy the capitalist form of economy is just plain wrong.
The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to eliminate the old and weak country and establish a more powerful and self sufficient country. Stalin wanted to turn the U.S.S.R. into an industrial country and withdraw from the capitalist world around him. He also mentioned the benifits of collectivization and getting lots of crops from state owned land. He really tried to make it clear that all the things that he was doing was to insure that the U.S.S.R. would emerge a global power. The task in his way was aquuiring and constructing heavy industry.
Stalin believes that industrialization is the key to most things because this is all apart of the 5 year plan. He thinka that the USSR is behind everyone (which they arent) so he trys to make them work fast by put fire under there butts which is the five year plan, and it actually does work which is the scary thing. To me stalin really isnt that bad of a dictator cuz his plan works but he does kill people which isnt good but he is a very smart dude
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