Witte believed that heavy industry was the way forward, because he thought that light industry and agriculture could both benefit from this boost. It was important for this change to occur because Russia had massive resources of iron, coal, timber etc. but was not exploiting them. By encouraging heavy industries to tap into Russian resources, Witte was stimulating the Russian economy using Russian resources; self sufficiency. This can be seen in statistics that show Russian production of coal and iron multiply three and eightfold respectively.
Fewer workers could then be used on the farms and industrialisation could take place more rapidly by transferring more workers from the countryside to the factories. Unfortunately, Lenin's NEP was not achieving the results that they wanted. Stalin dubbed the NEP as an impediment to communism and had to be scrapped. This rapid industrialisation would also bring about two political results. Communist support would increase as the workers were the Communists' greatest supporters and remaining opposition would be eliminated, in particular the class of rich peasants, the kulaks.
In 1928, Joseph Stalin, now leader of the USSR, knew that the agricultural sector had to be made more efficient in order for it to feed the huge workforce which would take Russia through industrialisation. In his ascent to power, Stalin criticised Lenin's New Economic Policy for its Capitalistic features and so, through the Gosplan, a centrally controlled economy was created which subsequently gave birth to the five-year-plans and Collectivisation. By removing the Kulaks (wealthy peasants), combining numerous small holdings into one large farm and introducing modern equipment, collective farms were established. There is no doubt that this was a much more Socialist policy than the NEP, but whether it was successful is highly debatable: it would entirely depend on the interpretation of the word 'success' which, for this essay at least, will be that it has benefitted the majority of the people it has affected. However, it would be all too easy for one's opinion to be based entirely on the increase in agricultural output after 1928.
Trotsky wanted to help communists in other countries to the revolution and push forward the revolution in the USSR. He wanted to end the NEP and introduce more socialist ways of running the economy; Stalin however believed they could build a fully economic state by helping the people within the USSR and not from outsiders. Members of the communist party like the policies of Stalin better than those of Trotsky’s, because they didn’t trust Trotsky to lead them into a better USSR. What Stalin meant by ‘socialism in one country’ was that the nations first was to consolidate Lenin’s revolution and the rule of the CPSU by turning the USSR into a modern state capable of defending itself against enemies, a majority of Russia’s population agreed with this. Although Zinoviev and Kamenev attacked Stalin calling a vote of no confidence in him, the ending of the NEP and a
This shows that Alexander was ready to liberate Russia because even though it was risky, it helped to start the liberalisation process because it enabled ex-serfs to work in factories which would help boost the economy, let the gentry to earn their own money and would help advances in industry which in turn help Russia to compete with the western world. However the aftermath of this manifesto was a lot more negative than first appears. Although Alexander helped to abolish Serfdom there were a lot of negatives
Stalin’s desire to initiate collectivisation was motivated by his struggle against Bukharin and the Communist party’s right wing. The radical nature of collectivisation appealed to the left-wingers of the party. It was more appealing than the right wing alternative of importing grain as importing grain would reduce the pace of industrialisation because importing would mean spending the money needed to develop Russia’s industry. This allowed Stalin to appear strong because he showed that Russia’s agricultural difficulties could be transformed through strong leadership, and also asserted that peasants who refused to co-operate with the state agricultural policy were essentially terrorists and enemies of the people. When collectivisation was criticised by some local officials, Stalin published an article called ‘Dizzy with success’ in Pravda, defending the policy by arguing that the target for collectivisation had been met and therefore the programme would be suspended, in order to cover up the carnage that collectivisation had in actual fact caused.
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
The transition from the old Russia to a truly communist state would require industrialization on a massive scale. According to Marxist theory, only through a modern industrialized economy could a true proletariat class be developed as Marx makes no mention of a peasant class. Marxist theory aside, the need to industrialize was also a pragmatic matter of self-defense. Stalin, either as a result of paranoia or a simple distrust of the capitalist West, assumed his country would have to fight for its survival. He presented the need to industrialize as a life or death struggle.
The situation in which the Soviet Union found itself in 1979 was that it simply did not have the financial resources to for fill all its target policies. These included fully competing with their rival, America, in the arms race and keeping any rebellious Eastern territories under their control. The SU put a higher priority on achieving these two key target policies that I have mentioned, which meant that because of the lack of financial resources, the money had to be found from somewhere. The SU was in decline because so much of their money had been diverted towards the Arms Race rather than being used for domestic wellbeing. More money was taken away from the Soviet population for the arms race in comparison to the cost of controlling their Eastern territories; hence for this reason I consider the arms race as the primary reason for the decline of the Soviet Union in 1979.
However industrialization also brought human suffering, unhealthy working conditions and pollution to the society. This overall led to a huge wealth gap between the rich and the poor. Many different philosophies emerged in hopes to solve poverty and to ensure peoples happiness. Laissez-Faire Liberalism was planning to make a capitalist society that supported the idea “the survival of the fittest”. This believed that humans would progress without any regulations.