First five-year plan
The first five-year plan (
The Soviet Union entered a series of
The plan, overall, was to transition the Soviet Union from a weak, poorly organized agricultural economy, into an industrial powerhouse. Its grand and idealistic vision, enforced through Stalin's various ministries, saw planners and builders often disregarding practical constraints as they worked to meet demanding schedules, with the possibility of facing severe consequences for failure to do so. [10][11]
Collective farming and peasants' resistance
In 1929, Stalin edited the plan to include the creation of
Because of the plan's reliance on rapid industrialization, major cultural changes had to occur in tandem. As this new social structure arose, conflicts occurred among some of the majority of the populations. In Turkmenistan, for example, the Soviet policy of collectivization shifted their production from cotton to food products; Russian settlers were given the best land, and Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads were forced to settle down on soil without agricultural potential.[15][16][17] Such a change caused unrest within a community that had already existed prior to this external adjustment, and between 1928 and 1932, Turkmen nomads and peasants made it clear through methods like passive resistance that they did not agree with such policies, the Kirgiziya area also knew guerrilla opposition.[15][16][17]
Reasoning for the first five-year plan
Prior to launching the first Soviet five-year plan, the Soviet Union had been facing threats from external sources as well as experiencing an economic and industrial downturn since the introduction of Bolshevik rule.
Rapid growth of heavy industry
The central aspect of the first Soviet five-year plan was the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union from October 1928 to December 1932, which was thought to be the most crucial time for Russian industrialization.[24] Lenin himself before the time of his death, knew the importance of building a transitional state to communism and was quoted saying "Modern industry is the key to this transformation, the time has come to construct our fatherland anew with the hands of machines".[25] Rapid growth was facilitated starting in 1928 and continued to accelerate because of the building of heavy industry, which in turn raised living standards for peasants escaping the countryside.[26] The Bolsheviks' need for rapid industrialization was once again out of the fear of impending war from the West. If war were to break out between the Soviet Union and the West, the Soviets would be fighting against some of the most industrialized nations in the world. The rapid industrialization would inhibit fears of being left unprotected if War between the Soviets and the West were to occur. To meet the needs of a possible war, the Soviet leaders set unrealistic quotas for production.[27] To meet those unrealistic needs, the facilities had to be constructed quickly to facilitate material production before goods could be produced. During this period 1928–1932, massive industrial centers emerged in areas that were highly isolated before. These factories were not only for war production, but to produce tractors to meet the needs of mechanized agriculture. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant was built with the help of western allies and was meant to play a major factor in the rapid industrialization of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. These isolated areas included Magnitogorsk, Dnieper, and Nizhny Novgorod.[28] Magnitogorsk, the largest of the rapid industrialized areas of Russia, was founded in 1743, but became more prevalent in the early 1930s by Stalin. His plan was to make it a one-industry town. The city would become the largest steel producer in Russia and was meant to rival production that was being seen in the U.S. at the same time. During this era of Soviet history, heavy industry was supposed to experience a 350% increase in output.[27] The Soviet Union's achievements were tremendous during the first five-year plan, which yielded a fifty-percent increase in industrial output.[29] To achieve this massive economic growth, the Soviet Union had to reroute essential resources to meet the needs of heavy industry. 80% of the total investment of the first five-year plan, was focused heavily on the industrial sector. Programs not necessary to heavy industry were cut from the Soviet budget; and because of the redistribution of industrial funding, basic goods, such as food, became scarce.[30] The Soviet Union then decided that the workers necessary for further industrialization should be given most of the available food.[31] From this rapid industrialization a new working class emerged in the Soviet Union.[32] This new society was to be an industrial working class, which could be considered much of the population with the purpose of becoming a technologically advanced industry.[33] During this time the industrial workforce rose from 3.12 million in 1928 to 6.01 million at the end of the plan in 1932.[34]
The Soviet Union promoted
Agricultural collectivization
Although Stalin reported in 1930 that collectivization was aiding the country, this was the era of exaggeration.
Prisoner labor
To meet the goals of the first five-year plan the Soviet Union began using the labor of its growing prisoner population. Initially the Soviet leaders sought to decrease the number of prisoners in the Soviet Union so that those resources could be rerouted to the five-year plan.[46] This legislation led to many dangerous prisoners being released from prison into labor camps.[47]
Early in the plan, however, the Communist leaders realized the necessity and the benefit of prisoner labor to complete the five-year plan. At this time the Soviet leaders attempted to orchestrate an increase in prison population.[46] The people of the Soviet Union began being sentenced to forced labor, even when they committed small offenses, or committed no crime at all.[47] Many of the prisoners used for labor were peasants who had resisted indoctrination.[48] This was an attempt by the Soviet Union to acquire free labor for the rapid industrialization; however, it led to the incarceration of many innocent people in the Soviet Union. Eventually Western nations, such as the United States, began to boycott goods produced by this form of labor.[49]
Successes of the first five-year plan
Although many of the goals set by the plan were not fully met, there were several economic sectors that still saw large increases in their output. Areas like
The largest success of the first five-year plan, however, was the Soviet Union beginning its journey to become an economic and industrial superpower.
The first five-year plan also began to prepare the Soviet Union to win in the Second World War. Without the initial five-year plan, and the ones that followed, the Soviet Union would not have been prepared for the German invasion in 1941. Due to the rapid industrialization of the plan, as well as the strategic construction of arms manufacturers in areas less vulnerable to future warfare,[56] the Soviet Union was partially able to build the weapons it needed to defeat the Germans in 1945.
Failures of the first five-year plan
The first plan saw unrealistic quotas set for industrialization that, in reality, would not be met for decades to come. The great push for industrialization caused quotas to consistently be looked at and adjusted. Quotas expecting to reach 235.9 percent output and labor to increase by 110 percent were unrealistic in the time frame they allotted for.
In his work,
Legacy
In cities
A number of streets and squares in major Russian cities are named after the plan, including the First Five-Year Plan Street in Chelyabinsk and Volgograd, and First Five-Year Plan Square in Yekaterinburg. The First Five-Year Plan saw Soviet cities sharply rise in population. At least 23 million Soviet peasants moved into cities, with Moscow's population rising by nearly 60 percent.[62] A large portion of the Soviet Union's urbanization was due to the deportation of peasants from villages.[62] From 1929 through 1931, 1.4 million peasants were deported into cities.[62]
Cultural
The Five-Year Plan saw the expedited transformation of Soviet social relations, nature, and economy. The plan's greatest supporters viewed it as the means to change the Soviet Union economically and socially. This change was visibly seen in the role of women in the industrial workplace where rudimentary figures show they comprised 30 percent of the workforce. The prevalence of women within the industrial workplace saw International Women's Day rise in significance in Soviet culture.[63]
The Five-Year Plans also saw a cultural change in the decline of the Kulak population within the Soviet Union.[63] Members of Agitprop brigands attempted to use the push towards industrialization to isolate peasants from religion and away from the formerly influential Kulak population with performances in which they would deem that issues faced by peasant populations were the faults of the Kulaks.[63] From 1929 through 1931, 3.5 million Kulaks were dispossessed by the Soviet Union and left with no choice but relocation to cities.[62]
State investment
As a result of the First Five Year Plan, state investment volume increased from 15% in 1928 to 44% in 1932 due to the rise in industry.[64] The First Five Year Plan resulted in the easy access of staple foods bread, potatoes and cabbage across the Soviet Union.[64] Severe drops in agriculture did however result in famine and inflation as agricultural output and livestock numbers in general dropped.[64]
Military
Soviet reports from before the Five-Year Plan found that much of the military production capacities in the Soviet Union lay in the country's war threatened Western provinces and notably the city of Leningrad.[65] In 1931 evacuation plans for military production facilities into deeper Soviet territories were drafted[65] beginning a policy that would accelerate and relocate deeper within the Soviet Union during World War II.
Film industry
Between 1929 and 1936 the Soviet Union shifted from producing solely silent films to solely sound films.[66] During this period, the Soviet government signed agreements with American, French and German companies to develop sound technology for Soviet cinema.[66]
Further reading
- Applebaum, A. (2017). Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. New York: Doubleday.[67][68][69]
- Danilov, V. P., Ivnitskii, N. A., Kozlov, D., Shabad, S., & Viola, L. (2008). The War Against the Peasantry, 1927–1930: The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.[72][73]
- Fitzpatrick, Sheila. (1994). Chapter 5: Stalin's Revolution. In The Russian Revolution, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.[ISBN missing]
- Fitzpatrick, Sheila. (1994). Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization. New York: Oxford University Press.[74][75]
- Melnikova-Raich, Sonia (2010). "The Soviet Problem with Two 'Unknowns': How an American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization of Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn". )
See also
- Agriculture in the Soviet Union
- Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
- Economy of the Soviet Union
- Left Opposition
- Primitive socialist accumulation
Notes
- ^ The text of the report "The Results of the First Five-Year Plan" by J. V. Stalin delivered on January 7, 1933 to the Joint Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission can be found at: http://www.marxists.org
References
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