Stalin’s five year plans did improve the Russian economy due to heavy industry increased the production of steel, iron, oil and coal. However, the five year plan was unsuccessful in terms of consumer goods and labour productivity. Additionally, the plans did not fully succeed in fulfilling Stalin’s targets for war preparation. Heavy industry was successful in improving the economy primarily due to the first three five year plans. Evidently, Industries like coal steel and iron grew enormously.
Germany faced many problems such as unemployment, debt and lack of money. Construction of Autobahns and schools would have created many jobs and brought in a huge amount of money. This is exactly how Schacht planned to solve Germanys economic problems, with The New Plan. The New Plan consisted of four major parts (Limiting imports, Trade agreements, Government spending and tackling unemployment). However, Hitler was not happy with this as his spending on the military was being limited, which meant only a certain number of tanks/planes were being produced.
One political party with in the bundestag was the CDU. In the 1949 elections the CDU won the elections by 1.8%, making Conrad Adenauer the Chancellor of the Federal Republic. Adenauer had to address problems such as Rebuilding war damage, which had damaged the economy due to commerce and industries being destroyed. One of Adenauer`s policies that was a success was that he rebuilt 4 million dwellings by 1957, he did this through raising tax on buildings and capital assets to 50%. Although the result was that 110.4 billion DM were collected, it was less successful that first envisaged due to the level of inflation in Germany.
The length of railway tracks in Russia increased form 31219 miles in 1891 to 58392 miles by 1904. In the same time period, Russia’s coal production increased from 6.01 million tonnes to 18.67 million tonnes. This shows how the government’s investment in expanding and modernizing the country’s railways resulted in significant economic gains. This was a result of an increased ability to transport raw materials to areas with the greatest population, such as the area surrounding St Petersburg. The railways, particularly the Trans-Siberian railway, also gave Eastern Russia a link to Europe and Western Russia a link to the Pacific Ocean, which made it easier to export Russian goods.
As seen in Document J this jobs did help to greatly lower the percentage of unemployed between 1935 and 1938. Although the work of the WPA did not completely solve the enormous problem it was certainly a move in the right direction, bringing the USA closer to the complete extermination of the unemployment problem, which was finally achieved after the second world war. This New Deal, fueled by organizations such as the WPA, completely revolutionized the role of the federal government. Coxey had advocated for actions similar to the new deal decades before but his ideas were shut down because the government had such close ties with big. However now, in such drastic times, the federal government realized that it needed to help the common people directly through providing more Jobs.
Together, they created the Trans-Siberian Railway improving the infrastructure and mobility of the country. Much like Alexander III, Stalin focused heavily on industry and increased the output by doubling the track size of the railway infrastructure. Therefore, there were big increases in coal production during the tsarist period where 26.8 million tonnes were produced in 1910 compared to 3.2 million in 1880. Furthermore, the communists enjoyed similar booms in pig iron – 116,000 tonnes in 1921 compared with 2.4 million tonnes in 1926. It is questionable as to whether these improvements directly affected the urban workers, as there was little reward of their hard work.
Due to businesses like these integrating vertically big businesses were made easier to grow. By 1913, 14.7% was what the US produced units relative to the world in 1880 became 32%. Another point is the fact that through the work of Carnegie, steel has become a major product of the US, this increased the steel production thus providing lots of employment. This results in a massive growth in the economy . Due to big businesses like one of Carnegie’s, small companies which were less profitable were ruined, this resulted in the economy benefiting from monopolies.
The Labour Party won a huge overall majority of seats in 1945 and this shocked the political establishment of Britain. This majority was primarily the product of the British electoral system, since Labour failed to win even half the total of votes cast. However Labour did poll more votes than the Conservatives and any explanation of why must focus on the positive appeal of Labour and/or the lack of appeal of the Conservatives. Many commentators have focussed on the election campaign itself, though the fundamental period for the rise of Labour and the decline of the Conservatives was in fact World War Two and the years leading to it. In Britain we use the First Past the Post (FPTP) system.
How successful was Stalin’s economic policy In terms of how successful was Stalin’s economic policy we need to take into consideration the successes and failures of collectivisation, moreover the economic successes and failures, and also the limitations the three five year plans. In reference to the successes of collectivisation, this included economic accomplishment for the government whereby the state procurement did not decline in which the government had collected all the grain they needed in order to sell it abroad to pay for industrial equipment, moreover in relation to achievement due to collectivisation the peasants had fled to the towns which meant there was more labour for setting up factories, which helped in Stalin’s dream of rapid industrialisation in Russia. Furthermore in mention of successes for the government and undoubtedly a success for Stalin’s economic policy; collectivisation was a political success. The party gained control of the villages and this meant the government did no longer have to bargain with the peasants anymore moreover collectivisation in terms of a political success for the government it was an essential part of modernising Russia. However the failures of collectivisation may contradict the theory of Stalin’s economic policy being a success; whereby this is in relation to how collectivisation resulted in both economic failure and human cost.
For example, of the four main parts of heavy industry; Coal, Iron, Steel and Oil, only the targets for oil production were met and exceeded by 1932. However, the economy grew by 14% every year and the rest of heavy industry did grow, Iron went from an annual production of 3.3 million tonnes in 1928 to 6.2 million in 1932. The second plan (1933-38) was a more conservative version of the first, with a larger focus on consumer goods. However, these were superseded towards the end of the plan with a focus on military equipment and production, as Stalin was predicting a war with Nazi Germany. Transport and electricity output was expanded to help meet the growing demand of industrialisation.