Stalin’s Five Year Plans 1928-41

What were the aims of the First Five Year Plan?

• It concentrated on rapid growth in heavy industry such as coal, steel and iron an approach recommended by ‘superindustrialisers’

When did the First Five Year Plan start and finish?

1928-32

What industries were neglected by the first five year plan and why?

• Consumer industries such as textiles and producers of household goods were neglected

• They needed to build up an industrial infrastructure of factories and communication networks and plants before other sectors could flourish

Who were Superindustrialisers?

Those within the Communist Party who believed that agricultural surpluses should be seized by the state in order to invest in industry. They believed that heavy industry should be given priority over other sectors of the economy

What was the result for Factories during the First Five Year Plan?

• Existing factories and equipment were made use of

• Large industrial centres such as Magnitogorsk and Gorki were built from scratch and became large cities

First Five Year Plan

How many people were living in Magnitogorsk originally and what did this increase to?

In 1929, 25 people were living at Magnitogorsk but 3 years later this number had increased to 250,000

First Five Year Plan

What were the conditions like at these industrial centres?

Primitive. Workers were housed in tents and temporary huts.

First Five Year Plan

What were the skill levels of the workers like at these centres?

By 1933 only 17% of the workforce in Moscow was skilled and in other cities the figure was considerably smaller.

First Five Year Plan

How did the government set an example to other workers on how to work well?

The government used ‘shock brigades’ made up of the best workers. The most well known model worker was Alexei Stakhanov a coal miner from the Donbas region who could mine 15x the average amount of coal.

First Five Year Plan

How did the government increase incentive to work?

There were rewards for model workers such as a new flat and bigger rations while slackers were held up to ridicule.

Many sites had statues to Lenin built in order to inspire the workers to greater revolutionary achievements.

First five year plan

Who did the government use for work in cold remote regions such as Siberia? Or for other work that people were not willing to do?

The population in the Gulag.

Labour camp prisoners were diverted to mines, railway construction and other projects.

First Five Year Plan

What was the White Sea Canal Project? Why was it a failure?

It employed 180,000 prisoners by 1932 and was used as government propaganda.

10,000 prisoners died on this project during the winter of 1931-32

In order to speed up construction and reduce costs the depth was reduced from 22 feet to 12 feet rendering the canal useless for all but small barges.

What was the impact of the first five year plan on factory managers?

They faced increasingly unrealistic targets which led to them using a wide range of enterprising methods. This included ambushing resources destined for other factories and bribery.

Quality was often sacrificed in a rush to fulfill targets e.g the Stalingrad tractor factory was supposed to be producing 500 tractors a month in 1930 but in June it only managed 8.

What was the aim of the Second Five Year Plan?

• It set higher targets for the production of consumer goods

• This was redirected as the rise of Hitler in Germany redirected the focus onto defence → heavy industry continued to receive priority

When the Second Five Year Plan start and finish?

1933-37

What did the Third Five Year plan focus on?

It was geared more towards arm productions to meet the threat of Germany

When was the Third Five Year Plan launched?

1938

What did the 2nd and 3rd five year plans develop?

Both traditional industrial centres such as Moscow and Leningrad and new centres in less developed parts of the country. Much of the new industry was located in the remoter areas of the USSR such as Kazakhstan. This was a form of regional development which promoted a more even distribution of industrialisation throughout the USSR

What were some of the positives to industry from the 2nd and 3rd year plans?

• rapid growth in the engineering industry and transportation

• 1928-41→ 17% growth in industrial production

• There was a 4 fold increase in the production of steel and a six fold increase in coal production (positive but unbalanced)

• Successful completion of projects e.g the Dnieper Dam

• The Soviet Union had shown it could defend itself against Nazi Germany

• New bakeries, ice-cream and meat packing factories were established in many towns

What were the negatives of the 2nd and 3rd five year plans?

• Production was unbalanced with consumer industries suffering the most as the production of textiles declined during the first 5 year plan and housing was ignored

• Collectivisation of agriculture destroyed a lot of cottage industry previously undertaken in rural areas

• Massive human cost

Why did the Five Year Plans fail so massively?

The rigid command economy directed by the government led to failures because planners based in Moscow had little understanding of local conditions in the far-flung parts of the Soviet Union. The result was that resources were wasted because they were inappropriate.