Why did Stalin want to industrialise the USSR so quickly? To increase Military Strength: • Stalin knew that an un-industrialised country was a weak country. • To fight a war, the country had to be well developed on an industrial base so they could manufacture the huge quantities of weapons that would be required to fight a war. • Stalin had a big suspicion that the USSR would be attacked especially in the lat 1920’s. To achieve self- sufficiency: • Stalin wanted to make the USSR less dependent – especially on Western manufactured goods.
Other changes Stalin made were to increase production in agriculture by the collectivization policy. Document 4 shows how he planned to do this by joining small peasant farms together and eliminate the Kulaks who were wealthy farmers. During the First Five Year Plan, livestock went from 33 to 16 million. During the Second Five-Year Plan, livestock went up slightly from 16 million to about 17 million. Wheat production yo-yoed from 25 to 18 million between the years 1928-1937.
By collectivizing and industrializing the agriculture and industries. Stalin hoped to improve Russia’s economy through making production of food and materials more efficient. To assess how successful were Stalin’s industrial policies in developing the Russian economy one would have to measure the results by the production of goods and the quality of life as that is much to do with food production. By 1928, the USSR was 20 million tons of grain short to feed the towns. Industrialization was creating even more towns, increasing this problem.
It is apparent that he achieved this as 50% of peasants owned their own land by 1915 due to the introduction of the Peasant Land Bank on 15th November 1906. Also, agricultural output rose by 20 million tonnes between the years 1906-1913 meaning that Stolypin’s agricultural policies made a significant difference. Therefore, this suggests that Russia had moved in the direction of economic reform as this is all evidence towards an improvement in Russian economy between the years 1906 and 1914. Stolypin directly targeted the economy as a way to improve the Tsarist position as he believed that a more stable peasantry would lead to a more stable Russia. Consequently, it is accurate to say that Russia had moved in a large way towards economic reform in the years 1906-1914.
There were economic factors that led to collectivisation. The autumn of 1926 saw a record grain harvests for the USSR, however, the harvests of 1927, 1928 and 1929 were all poorer due to the peasants keeping hold of the grain. This decrease in production forced the price of agricultural products up. Consequently, the standard of living amongst urban worked declined. The decrease in agricultural production also affected the soviet government.
Only Soviet Russia, the country which had basically isolated its self from every other country at the time, had not been affected by the Great Depression. But the Russian people, especially in the Ukraine, had suffered very badly for several years after 1929 for other reasons and causes. Another effect of the Great Depression was the shrinkage in trade and manufacturing. It shrank rapidly, for example, in 1929 the estimated value of United States imports and exports had gotten up to ten billion dollars. By 1933 the value had dropped to three billion.
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. In terms of economic failure collectivisation resulted in a great harvest drops dramatically in the early of 1930s and also a huge decline in Russia’s animal population furthermore in reference to human cost collectivisation had resulted in seven million deaths due to famine and ten million peasants being reposed which often resulted in much of the effected being sent to prison camps. This concludes that Stalin’s economic policy was not a great success in relation to collectivisation. In
How successful were Stalin's industrial policies in developing the Russian economy in the years 1928-41? Stalin took power in the USSR in 1928. He immediately began the Five Year Plans. His aim was to modernise Soviet industry, and bridge the gap between the Western Democracies (including Nazi Germany). Despite their inaccurate names (none of them actually lasted 5 years), these economic experiments laid the foundation for the emergence of the USSR as a world superpower.
Stalin was aware of the fact that by 1928, Russia was already two million tonnes short of the grain it needed to feed its workers. In the long run, collectivisation was a success. For example, the collective farms grew more food than the small, privately owned ones had done. 30-40 million tonnes
Stalin’s description of the state of Russia’s farming was very accurate. There was barely any mechanisation, the use of scientific measures was minimal and peasant farmers produced usually for themselves and the local area. This was not good enough for Stalin. To change all this and update Russia’s agriculture, Stalin introduced collectivisation. This meant that small farms would be gathered together to form one large massive one.