How successful were Stalin’s economic policies in the 1920s and 30s Essay Example

not much had been produced as Russia was effectively in medieval times.

Stalin made electricity when he made dams in the river Dnieper to create HEP (as well as other places).In Stalin's first five-year plan the idea was to increase production and set a base for the next five years. In the first four years (the plan only took four years to complete) electricity production was nearly tripled, coal nearly doubled, as did oil and Pig Iron whilst steel production increased by fifty percent. However none of these mainstream resources actually hit the targets which were set (with the exception of oil which exceeded its target by 2.

4 million tons). This should give some indication how ambitious Stalin was in his plans. This is not to say that Stalin's policy was not successful however, as can be seen by the results above and by the fact that after four years the USSR's national income had been increased from 27 billion roubles to 45 billion roubles.Stalin's second five-year plan had an extra aim to the ones set in the first which was to create or import machine parts and other investment goods (such as tractors, lorries and cargo ships).

Another distinguishing feature of this five-year plan was the distribution of medals to hardworking men as an incentive to others. These medals were called Strakhanov medals after a miner called Alexei Strakhanov who produced 14 times more coal than was normal in one shift (he mined 102 tons of coal). After this a 'Strakhanovite movement' was set up and Alexei proceeded to tour the country lecturing on his ideals and methods.In the third, and what was to

be the last five-year plan, the idea was to produce consumer goods (e.g.

toilet paper, cooking pots, shoes and shoelaces, lightbulbs, soap etc.). Unfortunately the Second World War interrupted this plan so production was turned almost completely over to the production of armaments.AgricultureThe changes that were made had two main motives behind them, firstly Stalin's want to bring all of Russia's economy under state control and secondly to increase food production dramatically to feed the massive numbers of workers that Stalin will need to accommodate as a result of his plans for industry.

The first stage of the Stalin's plan to achieve those two goals was to achieve collectivisation. This was a key word since it meant that all the private farms spread across Russia would become either a collective farm Kolkhoz) or a State farm (Sovkhoz).A Collective farm was one in which the peasants who ran it would pool their land to form one large unit in which they farmed co-operatively. They would sell a fixed amount of their produce to the government at a low price and keep any surplus for themselves.

In State Farms the land belonged to the government and the peasants would work on it for a wage paid by the government.The main problem for Stalin was what he gave the name 'kulaks'. These were the people who had prospered under the N.E.P.

and so were unwilling to change circumstance. As these were Stalin's greatest impediment the communists encouraged the rest of the peasants to regard these 'kulaks' with jealousy and hatred, though without a huge amount of success.When Stalin decided to eliminate the problem of the 'kulaks' by force it served

two purposes. It meant that the rest of the peasants were now aware of what would happen to them if they did not co-operate with Stalin in his campaign to collectivize Russia and it gave Stalin and collectivisation a good image as they were liberating the majority of farmable land from the kulaks and making it available to the poorer peasants through collectivisation.

Collectivisation began in earnest by the forming of collectivised and state farms in 1929 and by March 1930 55% of the land had been collectivised and its resisting owners had either been shot or deported to Siberia yet still collectivisation only meant that the peasants had signed a piece of paper, nothing solid had been achieved. In fact the whole of agriculture had moved backwards as resentful peasants proceeded to destroy equipment, farm buildings and crops as well as slaughtering and eating their livestock. At this development Stalin declared that the communist officials had been too hasty in their methods and so temporarily called off collectivsation. After having declared this he then attempted again but allowed the peasants the right to own their own houses, a small plot of land for household needs and a few head of livestock in the hope that these concessions would make collectivisation more attractive. So collectivisation began again in 1931 and so by 1937 almost all of the USSR's farmland had been collectivised.

Once the farmland had been collectivised it was important to increase efficiency on those farms so tractors and more modern equipment was introduced having been produced as a result of the industrialisation of Russia.As a result of collectivisation and Stalin's five-year plans the population of

the USSR increased from 159,200,000 in 1913 to 170,600,000 in 1939 and the grain harvest changed from 80.1 million tons in 1913 to 73.3 million tons in 1928 to 68.4 million tons in 1933 to 97.4 million tons in 1937 so despite some major setbacks in 1913 and 1928 Russia was better off by 1937.

Changes in agriculture and industry were linked in one way. In order for Stalin to make significant changes in industry he needed a lot more workers in his cities. By collectivisation Stalin made more food and because the farms now state controlled more of that food was available to the workers in the cities at a faster rate and for much cheaper than before.Stalin gave a fairly famous speech about the need to modernise Russia, which had an extract that went: "We (Russia) are a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us!" Stalin on February 4th 1931.

Stalin had started the progress of collectivisation two years previously but here there the message was that Russia was being threatened on two fronts. In the east Japan was becoming a less than peaceful nation whilst in the west the threat of Germany was becoming more real by the year and so four years later Hitler would reintroduce conscription and start to lead Germany down the road to war. Yet even at this point Hitler was not considered to be a international menace so it is more likely that this was a fear that had dwelt with Stalin for a long time, stemming from the hatred that the

western countries harbored for the threat of communism which in turn reflected on Stalin causing him to fear that the western countries may decide that communism was to big a problem to leave to its own devices. All of this contributed to the need for the modernisation of Russia, at least in Stalin's eyes.Secondly there was prestige at stake.

Stalin wanted to show the world that communism worked, especially at a time when there were a lot of international problems stemming from the Wall Street Crash and many people were unhappy about the condition of their countries economy etc. Stalin wanted to show the world that Russia was not only a threat in terms of being a communist state but that she could be on a level footing economically with the rest of the world.Despite the amazing progress, which Russia had made in her industry, she was still lacking in well-trained engineers and machine parts in comparison to the rest of the world. So it was important for a lot of food (grain) to be produced so that they could traded for engineering materials etc.Although I doubt that Stalin intended to do so in a hurry, the main idea of modernising, for the rest of the communists anyway, was to achieve a state of autarky (self-sufficiency) which meant that Russia would be capable of surviving on its own (without imports from other non-communist countries) in order to create a power base from where Russia would start spreading communism farther afield creating more communist states and so eventually Karl Marx's vision will complete with a whole communist world.