THE GREAT TURN AND THE FIRST FIVE YEAR PLAN

Why did Stalin want to increase the military strength of Russia?

an un-industrialised country was weak, and to fight in a modern war you need modern weapons, war scare in the 1920s and 1930s caused Stalin to become increasingly paranoid about war?

Why were Stalin’s concern’s about war somewhat unfounded?

threat of war wasn’t really present, there where some issues in the Ukraine but they were put down quickly

Why did Stalin wish to achieve Self sufficiency?

wanted to make the USSR less dependent on western manufactured goods, often got iron and military goods from the west, USSr needs a heavy industrial plant in order to produce the goods needed

Why did Stalin want to increase grain supplies?

wanted to end the dependence of the economy on a backward agriculturral system, created major problems whenever there was a bad harvest or not enough food was produced, did not want a socialist state at the mercy of the peasants

Why did Stalin want to move towards a more socialist society?

marxist theorists thought socialism could only be established in an industrialised society, in 1928 only 20% of the population were workers

Why did Stalin wish to establish his credentials?

so that he was seen as a successor and equal to Lenin, economic transformation and revolution would be a giant leap to socialism and establish Stalin as a figure of historic importance

Why did Stalin wish to improve the standards of living?

wants to catch up to the west, industrialisation should create wealth for society, communist life should be good and the wrld should appreciate what it had to offer for the working class

When did industrialistaion in Russia first begin?

under the tsarist regime

What was industrialisation in Russia badly hit by?

WW1 and the civil war

What was industrialsation like after 1921?

recovery was slow and patchy despite the introduction of veshenka and Gosplan

What was production weakened by under Lenin?

strikes, managerial incompetence, low levels of mechanisation, officials blamed Nepmen for obstructing central planners and factory managers blamed officials for interfering and demanding unrealistically low prices

What were Kolkhozes abd Sovkhoses?

voluntary collectives and state farms

What were collective famrs like in 1928?

less than 5% of peasants belonged to one and there was little enthusiasm

What were the problems of industrialisation linked to?

agriculture and collectivisation, as food was required for the workers and a surplus was needed to pay for industrial investment and machinery

What impact did the NEP have on foreign trade?

exports were at 33% in 1926/7, and imports were at 38% of their 1913 levels due to the decline in grain exports

How many wooden ploughs were in use in 1927?

over 5 million

What was the issue with the way that land was shared out ater the revolution?

peasants landholdings tended to be smaller than pre 1917, large estates and farms had disappeared and the smaller farms tended to be subsistence

When did the relationship between the government and the peasants deteriorate?

end of the 1920s

under the NEP, how were peasants encouraged to grow more grain?

stopped collecting tax in the form of requisitioning and moved to tax, also clamped down on private traders

How did the peasnats (under the NEP) get aroud the government forcing them to sell therir grain at low prices?

since meat prices increased, they fed their grain to their animals rather than sell it, no point in having surplus goods as industrial goods were so expensive, they held back their grain. hoping for the prices to increase, grain procured in 1927 was about two thirds of what it was in 1926

How did Stalin aim to stop the 1926/7 grain procurement crisis?

officials, backed by the police seized the grain, Satlin himself went to the Urals and western siberia on a requisitioning campaign but the relationship between the gov and the peasants was weakening so there was much resistance, he used this tactic again followin the poor harvest in 1928 which caused bread rationing in cities

How had the NEP helped Urban workers?

real wages by 1928 had reached their pre-war levels, hand an 8 hour work day, social benefits, some power in state run factories with trad union representatives often sitting in a panel to run the factory alongside a specialist director

During the NEP how were indutstries run?

hierachical, trade unions tended to support government appointed managers, lenin favoured schemes from the US which used time and motion studies to speed up production

What did workers complain about under the NEP?

mass unemployment, gap between themselves and the better off, high prices charged by peasants and vendors for food

How were women affected by the NEP?

forced out of jobs by the returning red army, forced to move from skilled to unskilled work, many ended up on the streets

How was housing impacted by the NEP?

major problem, workers lived in overcrowded, poor quality houses and flats

How did the NEP impact crime?

increased, thousands of young people were parentless and rootless, forming gangs who roamed the streets to fin their victims

What was the Urals-Siberian method’?

Stalin’s visit to the Urals in Januray 1928 lasted for only 3 weeks and is said to be the only time he visited an agricultural area in his life, encouraged the poor and m/c income peasnats to denounce Kulaks who were ‘hoarding grain’, grain seized, kulaks arrested

What are the main 5 reasons that Stalin abandoned the NEP?

th need for industrialisation, improve living conditions, consistent famine, Stalin’s changing ideology and the need to revert back to ‘true’ communism

When did the great turn and the 5 yr plan actually begin?

introduced in 1928 and was enacted in 1929?

Why collectivise?

by 1929 less than 5% of peasants were on collective farms, by January 1930 Stalin announced that around 25% of grain producing areas were to be collectivised by the end of the year

Why was Stalin’s decison to colletisivs a shock to many of the officials?

they presumed it would occur on a voluntary basis and they had not anticiapted the speed at which it would occur

What was the launch of the first five year plan?

1928, Stalin launches his plan for rapid industrialisation, envisigioned as only the beginning of a sustained industrial transformation through a further series of 5 year plans, centralised planning was to be maximised with systematic targets set for ambitious increases in output

When did Golero begin to become successful?

under the first 5 year plan

What did Stalin want to do to production?

boost it by 300%

What were the main aims of the first 5 year plan?

improve transport (notably railways), develop heavy machinery, use electrification, generate 6x the power by 1933 than the total in 1928, ight industry was given low priority but was still expected to double its output

How were the targets met for the 5 year plan?

quotas, longer working hours, more working days

Why were the targets for the 5 year plan needed?

to force managers an workers to devote maximum effort to the fulfilment of the 5 year plan

What was the launch of the five year plan accompanied with?

a huge wave of propaganda, full of predictions of future success

How did Stalin claim that the targets of the five year plan would be met?

through worker enthusiams, all pulling together for a greater cause

What complexes were planned under the five year plan?

the new ‘steel city’ of magnitogorks

What ner factories were planned to open under then five year plan?

tractor factories eg Stalingrad on the Volga and Kharkiv in Ukraine

What was the propaganda regime like under the five year plan?

exaggerative but it had a considerable impact

what did urban workers hope for under the five year plan?

better employment standards and higher living conditions

what did poor and middle peasants hope for under the five year plan?

benefit from further land reform and the introduction of more modern methods of farming, but there was pessimism from the start

what did party members say about the five year plan?

saw the kulaks as the backbone of society and were fearful that the harsh imposition of collectivisation would harm grain output (it did)

How were almost immediately critical of the 5 year plan?

many managing industrial production critical of the adverse impacts of central planning and they regarded the new policy as a high risk gamble

What was collectivisation?

main type of farm was the Kolkhoz, land was held in common by an elected comitteee, need aaround 50-100 households, all land, livestock and tools were pooled, under direction from the commitee and farmed as a unit

What were the positives of collectivisation?

education, women can work (free creches), can use amchinery, joy and pride

How did Stalin introduce collectivisation?

at a rapid pace

What does the fast pace of collectivisation do?

casues faine as people can’t adapt quickly enough and are resistant so refuse to grow things or destroy the crops, causes suffering and misery

What happens to the firs wave of collectivisation?

it ends but the next year it is restarted

What was collectivisation like by 1932?

had resulted in enormous issues in agricultural production and caused a famine in which millions died

What was the positive side of collectivisation economically?

Stalin produced enough surplus to feed the industrial workforce and to some extent pay for industrialisation

when was the grain procurement crisis?

winter of 1927-8

How did Stalin deal with the grain procurement crisis?

focused special attention on the west and the urals, where harvests had generally been good but grain was down by one third on the previous year, stalins officials closed free markets and used article 107 to stop ‘speculation’

What happened to Bukharin?

was isolated by the leadership struggle (Nomenklutura) led to his lose of majority in the Moscow party which he had had since 1924, Satlin then charged him with ‘right deviation’

What did Molotov do?

active in issueing central directives summer of 1929 there was a ‘chain reaction’ between these directives enthusiastic support from officials in the localities,

Wjhat policy did the central committee release during the 5 year plan?

sending 25,000 industrial workers into the countryside to celebrate the development of collective farms, december 1929, stalin announced to the party congress his readiness to impose forced collectivisation without any retraiant and ‘to smash the kulaks as a class’