How far do you agree that Stalins five year plans

However along with the many pros Of the 5 year plans also came some cons, for example many people died within the duration of the plans up to 20 million people died because of his harsh policies during the course of these plans. The first five year plan started in 1929 the aim of this plan was to increase heavy industry all throughout Russia because Stalin believed as quoted that “we are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries, either we make this distance in 10 years or we be crushed” so following this his plan was to increase output of raw materials such as steel, iron and grain.

To make sure this rapid industrialization was to happen, Gospels the supervised committee which controlled the various aspects of the USSR planned economy then employed 500,00 bureaucrats to set targets for every workshop, factory mill and mine, these target set were to unrealistic so because of the unrealistic targets to avoid severe punishments of not meeting these targets people would lie about the production rate to avoid punishment this caused false production figures.

Furthermore some people also to meet these targets just tried to produce as much as possible and this eliminated he quality of these products produced, as historian Sheila Fitzpatrick argues that it was an experiment in Containing the doing for size and quantity over quality for the sake of production. Another aim of this plan was to increase grain production by getting rid of the Kulaks in Russia who were the wealthy peasants, this happened because Stalin wanted all peasants to have a better living standard and to make them all equal .

In the end because of the great production rate this first five year plan was ended early in December of 1932. The successes of this plan were that production, the economy and the social mobility increased along with the success the failures of this where that it caused widespread fraud, worthless products and finally malnutrition and bad diets of the people as they were forced into working in such hard conditions and for long hours.

The second five year plan began in 1933 and was dedicated to the better working conditions for workers but as time went on the aims of the plan evolved from concentrating on improving conditions of workers to preparing for war as Stalin became scared of the rowing Germany after rearmament in 1936 and fearing invasion from Germany slowly focused plan towards war preparation. At the start Stalin said for better working conditions but the continuation of the famine lead to no change so as a result of this rationing continued.

Further improvements were made in communications, especially railways, which became faster and more reliable the Moscow metro was built as transport improved. The government to boost production and motivate workers in Russia made a media sensation Alexis Astrakhan’s who as shown mined 102 tones of coal in 6 hours and a onto later mined 227 tones. This was totally fabricated as Astrakhan was given the best equipment and lots of assistants to help him.

This media sensation inspired many to produce as much as possible because Astrakhan was rewarded 200 rubles and an apartment for his work, this caused workers to believe that the harder and more you produced got you rewards. The same thing happened with the second five year plan as the first, the second was not as successful as the targets they set were again too high, failing to reach the targeted production levels in such areas.

The second plans slight failure Of under production lead to incentives as well as punishments and so later the targets were eased and as a result of that the second five year plan similar to the first one ended early in 1937. The successes of the second plan were that targets were made more realistic, there was slight improving on living standards because of the increased incentives to work and finally Migrations and other similar centers were built.

The failures were that this caused hoarding of goods because of the fear of punishment, reverie shortages because similar to the first plan quality of good was poor and quantity was seen as more vital so this cause shortages for example more left foot shoes were produced then right foot ones and lastly the Stephanotis media sensation lead to more incentives for people to work but rewards were given mostly to higher ranked people.

Lastly the third five year plan which started in 1938 ran up to 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Stalin ever since Germany’s rearmament in 1 936 feared invasion so ever since then prepared for a war he knew would e fought, so as war approached, more resources were put into developing armaments, tanks and weapons, as well as constructing additional military factories to prepare better for war.