FP1: Why did Stalin introduce the Five-Year Plans?

So, Stalin’s in power and undisputedly in control! Now what? Industrialisation!

Why abandon the NEP?

  • NEP had brought industry back to 1913 levels

  • Urban workers not in worker’s paradise

    • gangs and crime

    • high unemployment

    • housing problem- overcrowded, poor-quality

  • Ideologically flawed- created a non-Communist society

    • privately owned businesses

    • NEPmen

  • Peasants- agriculture still backwards, started withholding grain again, relationship with government deteriorating

  • Turning against NEP isolates the right and allows Stalin to eschew Bukharin and take the centre forward

What could the Five-Year Plans offer? Why make ‘the Great Turn?’

  • A rapid pace of industrialisation

  • An actually socialist society

Motivation for speed

Expand

Military strength

Stalin was convinced that USSR would be attacked

An unindustrialised country = a weak country

He knows USSR needs a strong industrial base to have a strong military base to fight a modern war

Independence

He wants the USSR to be self-sufficient

and less reliant on the West’s goods.

‘Socialism in One Country’ can be implemented.

Aim to ‘beat the West.’

Reduce the dependency on a backward agricultural system.

  • did not want the new socialist state to be held back by the whims of the peasantry

Ideology

Industrialisation would let them establish ‘Socialism in One Country.’

Stronger economy would allow them to match/beat the West.

Stronger industry → higher standard of living

  • the Communist life should be enviable

  • other nations should appreciate its merits

Power + Control

Isolated the right-wing + Bukharin

Political prisoners could work on state-owned projects

  • free labour that would benefit USSR

Reputation + Legacy

Prove himself as a successor to and equal of Lenin

Would cement his legacy as a great leader:

  • taking USSR’s industry forward

  • leading the USSR into a true socialist state

  • transforming the economy