How successful were the Five-Year Plans in transforming Russian industry in the years to 1941? Between 1928 and 1941, Russia was transformed from a semi-capitalist rural society to a highly industrialized, urbanized society. The Five-Year Plans set out an agenda for all of Russia to follow; this agenda was focused around collectivization, lines of transport and communications, rearmament and most importantly, heavy industry; all with the notion of increasing productivity by achieving unattainable goals set out by the Gosplan. The first Five-Year Plan focused mainly on generating more output, with significant emphasis on agricultural production (collectivization) and heavy industry. Indeed, this appeared to be effective as Russia's economy exceptionally grew by 14% per annum.
During the 1800s autocrats made many sweeping changes, such as the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Russia also participated in wars such as the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Western influence spread new ideals throughout nineteenth century Russia and exploded in the Russian Revolution of the twentieth century. While autocrats altered politics and engaged in various wars, Russia enjoyed a golden age in literature and art. Russia also prospered from a long awaited growth in industry.
Much of the industrialization in Russia was due to the Minister of Finance, Sergei Witte whom was in charge from 1892 until 1903; he aimed to create a modern and industrial economy that would match that of Britain's and other western powers. Witte was keen to increase foreign investment in Russia and therefore made it much easier for foreigners to invest in Russia's industrial matters, thus creating a much better relationship with foreign powers. Furthermore Witte undertook currency reform: in 1897 he moved the Russian ruble to the gold standard, strengthening and stabilizing it and improving foreign exchange. Possibly his greatest achievement was the development of Railway, Russia was vast and communication was difficult, he created the Tran Siberian railway which linked huge and important cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg which were growing rapidly due to industrialization, the trans Siberian railway also allowed for the food from the land to be transported to the ever growing cities, to feed the workers. Despite many improvements industrially to Russia it was still behind great western powers, despite the cities
This was sometimes called ‘Revolution from above. During the years 1928 to 1941 Stalin decided to introduce a series of reforms in order to radically change Russia’s economy. This would not only create a more prosperous country, but as well would stand out the figure of Stalin and would make him a memorable leader for his acts, moving of the way the image people had of Lenin as the real and unique leader Russia once had. During these years, through collectivisation and industrialisation (Five Year Plans), Stalin was able o successfully improve Russia’s economy. This was mostly due to his policies of collectivisation which made economic sense and forced a lot of peasants to leave the land, which was a process needed in order to change an agricultural rural society to an urban and industrial one as well s the fact that his industrialisation plan increased massively the heavy industry in Russia; the production of raw materials such as iron, coal, steel and oil all increased successfully.
Despite this, the collapse of Tsarism could be blamed on different factors of Russia, such as the civilians; the percentage of peasantry in Russia was extremely high, not only the percentage but also the conditions of peasants was awful. Before World War 1, the Russian political state was extremely corrupt and fragile. Nicholas II held absolute power and his dynasty had ruled Russia for 500 years and was increasingly unpopular. Nicholas II traditional ruled Russia without a parliament. The Noble class of Russia owned most of the countries wealth and land.
This meant that the workforce couldn’t be fully harnessed. Also the newly freed serfs were heavily taxed and had to pay redemption payments to the government over a 49 year period. Witte wanted to exploit the resources within and around Russia which he achieved quite well with
Sergei was a key member of the government under the rule of both Alexander III and Nicholas II. Witte’s largest project was to improve the transport across Russia; he did this by improving the Trans-Siberian Railway which was constructed between 1891 and 1902. The line stretched for over 6000 kilometres and was intended to open up the more remote parts of Russia, which would in turn make the production better all over Russia as the produce would be able to be transported quicker across the different industries. Obviously this factor improved the economy as it meant that the country would be able to produce more and quicker. This railway also opened up a range of different jobs, meaning that the unemployment of Russia plummeted.
Tsarina Alexandra was influenced by Gregori Rasputin, an unpopular and scruffy “holy” man, who was supposedly controlling her son’s haemophilia condition. Nicholas’s decisions at the Eastern Front caused the country's military failures; by 1917 over 1,300,000 men had been killed in battle, 4,200,000 wounded and 2,417,000 had been captured by the enemy. First World War had a disastrous impact on the Russian economy; food was in short supply and this led to rising prices. By January 1917 the price of commodities in Petrograd had increased by six times. In an attempt to increase their wages, industrial workers went on strike.
Wages rose how ever there were too few goods on which to spend money. Also the creation of collective farms essentially destroyed kulaks as a class and this disruption led to a famine. I think that over all the first five year plan was not a success in strengthening the soviet economy because a lot of the targets set were not achieved for example the production of coal were 35.4; oil was 11.7 and steel 4 million tonnes. The actual target of these was double the amount produced. I think it was successful in the sense it increased urbanisation, several gains were obtained in heavy industry and wages rose.
In particular, he released the serfs, which is generally seen as one of the most significant social reforms of the nineteenth century. Yet, the fundamental inconsistency between Alexander II's commitment to autocracy and his moves towards liberal reform isolated him from both reformers and conservatives. The growth of radical political opposition during his reign, was arguably given momentum by the liberal reforms he made which still left some radical groups pushing for revolution and eventually led to his assassination by terrorist of 'The People's Will' group in 1881. A great obstacle was that compared to Western Europe, Russia was backward economically, socially and politically in the late 19th Century. Russia was determined to not set up a new system by which the government were modernized and autocratic in which this stopped Russia from industrialising.