The Five-Year Plans

Industry and the 5-Year Plans

Summary

Stalin modernised industry by means of the 5-Year Plans.

He achieved fantastic successes, but at the most appalling human cost, and while industrial output soared, the production of consumer goods remained static.

Source A

If we are backward and weak, we may be beaten and enslaved. But if we are powerful, people must beware of us.

We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries of the West. We must make up this gap in 10 years. Either we do this or they crush us.

from a speech made by Stalin to the First Conference of Workers in 1931.

There were two Five Year Plans – 1929–33 and 1932–1937. This webpage deals with the reasons for the Five-Year Plans and how they were achieved, and also with how successful they were.

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Old Bitesize - simple intro (pdf)

New Russian Primer - Soviet children's book from 1930: wonderful!

Photos of Magnitogorsk

Building the Moscow Metro - BBC Witness History

YouTube

Life in Stalin's Russia - History File

Old textbook accounts of the 5-Year Plans

Reed Brett, European History (1967)

Norman Lowe (1982)

Why did Stalin do it?

[Modernise And Catch Up]

1. Many regions of the USSR were backward

Stalin said that to be backward was to be defeated and enslaved. ‘But if you are powerful, people must beware of you’.

2. Armed forces

He believed (correctly) that Germany would invade. In 1931, he prophesied: ‘We make good the difference in 10 years or they crush us’.

3. Compete with the Western World

Stalin believed (with Lenin) that the USSR should ‘overtake and outstrip the capitalist countries’. He believed in ‘Socialism in one country’ – the USSR would become strong enough to survive, then would take over the rest of the world.

4. Useful propaganda

The 5-year plans were very useful propaganda – for Communism and for Stalin.

How the 5-Year Targets were achieved

Plans were drawn up by GOSPLAN (the state planning organisation).
Targets were set for every industry, each region, each mine and factory, each foreman and even every worker.
Foreign experts & engineers were called in.
Workers were bombarded with propaganda, posters, slogans and radio broadcasts.
Workers were fined if they did not meet their targets.
Alexei Stakhanov (who cut an amazing 102 tons of coal in one shift) was held up as an example. Good workers could become ‘Stakhanovites' and win a medal.
(After the First 5-year plan revealed a shortage of workers) women were attracted by new crèches and day-care centres so that mothers could work.
For big engineering projects such as dams or canals, slave labour (such as political opponents, kulaks or Jews) was used.
There was a concentration on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods or good housing.
Stalin persecuted the Muslim faith because he thought it was holding back industrialisation.

Source B

A poster from 1931: "A network of creches, kindergartens, canteens, laundries to ensure participation of women in socialistconstruction".
Explain the imagery and messages

Source C

A poster of 1934: "Peasants can live like a Human Being".
Study the poster - how it is promising people: enough to eat, nice clothing, the latest consumer goods, electricity, education, and happiness.

Source D

Stalin at the hydro-electric dam at Ryon in the Caucasus (1935).
Explain the messages and imagery in the painting, paricularly the use of white. How is this 'useful for Communsim and for Stalin'?

Successes...

The USSR was turned into a modern state (which was able to defeat Hitler's 1941 invasion).
There was genuine Communist enthusiasm among the young ‘Pioneers’.
Production levels rose dramatically:.

electricity:
- production rose from 5-36 billion kWh, 1928-37
coal:
- coal production increased from 35-128 million tons (1927-37).
- coal fields like Kuzbass in Siberia were developed.
steel:
- steel output rose from 4-18 million tons (1927-37)
- the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works became a key site during WWII
- in 1943 it had 428,000 workers (including 200,000 teenagers).

There were huge achievements in the following areas:

new industrial cities were built from scratch, often in remote locations, eg:
- Magnitogorsk (1929) became a major steel-producing centre
- Komsomolsk (1932) was built in the Far East for military production.
dams/ hydroelectric power, eg:
- the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (1932) was the largest in Europe
- Ivankovo Reservoir (1936) to supply water to Moscow.
transport & communications, eg:
- the Turksib Railway (1931) linked Siberia with Central Asia for grain & cotton
- the Belomor Canal (1933) linking the White Sea and the Baltic Sea
- the Volga Canal (1937) improved transport between Moscow and Petrograd.
the Moscow Underground (1935):
- a symbol of Soviet achievement, with grand stations
- by 1939, it carried 400 million passengers a year.
farm machinery, eg:
- the Stalingrad Tractor Factory (1930) produced 144 tractors a day
- in 1939 it installed the first automated machine tool assembly line in the USSR,
fertilizers:
- fertilizer output tripled during the Second Five-Year Plan
plastic:
- the Soviet chemical industry developed synthetic materials, including plastic
- factories in Moscow and Leningrad began mass-producing synthetic rubber.
no unemployment:
- officially, unemployment was eliminated by 1930 as industrial jobs expanded
- the urban workforce grew from 11-32 million (1928-40).
doctors & medicine:
- the number of doctors rose from 70,000 (1928) to 155,000 (1940)
- sanitation and public health campaigns reduced infectious diseases
- infant mortality dropped from 269-100 per 1,000 births (1913-40)
- vaccination campaigns against tuberculosis & diphtheria reduced child mortality
- maternity hospitals and clinics were expanded
- the number of trained midwives increased significantly
- the 1936 Family Code provided maternity benefits
- crèches were set up in workplaces to support working mothers.
education:
- compulsory primary education expanded
- technical schools trained workers for industry
- by 1939, 94% of urban youth and 86% of rural youth were literate.

Source E

Soviet industrial production figures, 1921–40

This chart is based on official Soviet statistics

	1927	1933	1937
Electricity ('000 million kw)	5	13	36
Coal (million tons)	35	64	128
Oil (million tons)	12	21	47
Steel (million tons)	4	6	18

From official government figures. Note that historians have found that Stalin's statisticians overstated the increases by about a third - they dared not do anything else! It was the official line that Stalin had achieved a remarkable improvement, and a statistician who found otherwise would have been sent to Siberia.

... and Failures

Poorly organised – inefficiency, duplication of effort and waste.
Production figures overstated by about a third.
Appalling human cost (see Source I).

harsh labor laws and discipline, eg:
- striking was illegal
- workers were forced to meet production targets under threat of punishment
- arriving late was punished by dismissal and loss of ration cards
- absenteeism punishable by prison sentences of up to 6 months
- damaging the productionline sent you to the GULAG as a 'counter-revolutionary'.
accidents and deaths, eg:
- 25,000 workers died building the Belomor Canal
few consumer goods, eg:
- rationing continued foron meat, butter, and sugar into the late 1930s
- everyday goods like soap, clothes and furniture were scarce and of poor quality
- in 1931, there was only one pair of shoes for every two Soviet citizens.
poor housing, eg:
- many workers lived in overcrowded communal apartments (kommunalki)
- a single family often had one room, with shared kitchens and toilets
- in industrial cities like Magnitogorsk, workers lived in tents and wooden barracks
- new factory towns lacked running water or sewage systems.
wages fell and conditions at work worsened, eg:
- wage bargaining was abolished, and forced unpaid overtime became common
- a 'Stakhanovite' system pressurised workers to exceed quotas
- real wages fell by around 50%, 1928-37.
no human rights, eg:
- internal passports (1932) restricted movement
- peasants could not leave collective farms without permission
- the Great Purge (1936-38) sent millions to the GULAG, reducing expertise
- use of forced labour in mining, logging and canal- and railway-building.

Some historians claim the tsars had done the ‘spadework’, setting up the basis for industrialisation, and that Stalin’s effort had very little effect on a process that would have happened anyway.

Source F

The Five-Year Plans had a dramatic effect on the Soviet Union, making it the second largest industrial power in the world. Huge new steel plants, hydro-electric power stations, railways and canals were built. Vast numbers of factories in hundreds of new towns poured out manufactured goods. A major symbol of this growth was the new city of Magnitogorsk. Between 1928 and 1932 Magnitogorsk was transformed from a tiny, isolated village to a thriving industrial city, with more than a quarter of a million citizens.

N Kelly, Russia and the USSR 1905–1956 (1996).

Source H

Stalin’s industrialisation policies created new opportunities for workers in towns in the Soviet Union. More generous pay was offered for certain jobs, which encouraged the workers to improve their lives. People competed to be the most efficient workers and were rewarded with promotion. Better jobs meant they could afford better housing. In workplaces discipline was less strict, which made working conditions easier. More workers were able to become managers. Children of workers benefited from the increased educational opportunities that were on offer. In 1933 Stalin announced, ‘life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyous.’

From Tsarist and Communist Russia 1855–1964 by Sally Waller, published in 2015.

Source J

To conclude, we must first of all forever banish the suggestion that Stalin commits errors, that he is a bad defender of the conquests of the October Revolution and that his faults derive from his theory of 'socialism in one country'. No, Stalin is carrying out the policies of a new class based on the exploitation of the workers; all that is left of the October Revolution in Russia has been transformed into a counterrevolutionary instrument. Its monopoly of foreign trade, its economic plans and industrialization are not bringing the USSR closer to socialism, but to modern capitalism, to fascism.

Guy Sabater, a French professor ofeducation and socialist, 1977.

Source G

The Soviet people and industrialisation

The Soviet people achieved so much in such a short time. This happened because all the country's wealth belongs to the working people who create this wealth. The Stakhanovite movement spread all over the country. Thousands of workers produced more that their quota. Miracles were created by the enthusiastic work of the Soviet people.

from a Soviet school textbook published in 1976.

Source I

Working conditions in the city of Magnitogorsk in the early 1930s

In early April it was still bitterly cold, everything was frozen. By May the city was swimming in mud. Plague had broken out not far away. People were in poor health because of lack of food and overwork. Sanitary conditions were appalling. By the middle of May the heat had become intolerable.

from Behind the Urals (1942) by John Scott.
John Scott was an American engineer who voluntarily went to Russia in the 1930s to help in the building of the country

Consider:

1. Why did Stalin want to modernise Soviet industry? Explain your answer using Source A and your own knowledge'.

2. How useful are Sources B and C to an historian studying Stalin's policy of industrialisation? Explain your answer using Sources B and C and your own knowledge.

3. How useful is Source D as evidence about the results of the Five-Year Plans on Russian industrial production? Explain your answer using Source D and your own knowledge.

4. Does Source E give an accurate interpretation of the industrialisation of Russia in the period 1928–40? Explain your answer using Source E and your own knowledge.

5. Study Sources E and I. Which is more useful to an historian studying Stalin's policy of industrialisation? Explain your answer using Sources E and I and your own knowledge.

6. "Stalin's policy of industrialisation was a success in the period 1928 to 1941." Do you agree or disagree with this interpretation? Explain your answer using the Sources and your own knowledge.

7. "The Five Year Plans brought glory to Stalin and misery to his people". Is this a fair interpretation of Stalin's achievement?

AQA-style Questions

Edexcel-style Questions