Why did Stalin do it?
1. Backward USSR
• Stalin: being backward = defeat & enslavement; being strong = feared.
2. Armed forces
• Predicted German invasion (1931): ‘Make good the difference in 10 years or they crush us.’
3. Compete with West
• Lenin & Stalin: USSR must ‘overtake & outstrip’ capitalist countries.
‘SOCIALISM in one country’ → strong USSR, then global revolution.
4. Propaganda
• 5-year plans promoted Communism & Stalin.
How the 5-Year Targets were achieved
1. Plans by GOSPLAN.
2. Targets for industries, regions, factories, foremen, workers.
3. Foreign experts & engineers brought in.
4. Intense propaganda: posters, slogans, radio.
5. Fines for not meeting targets.
6. Stakhanov (102 tons of coal in 1 shift) → ‘STAKHANOVITES’ won medals.
7. Women encouraged to work (crèches, daycare).
8. Forced labour (political opponents, kulaks, Jews) for big projects.
9. Focus on heavy industry → few consumer goods, poor housing.
10. Muslim faith persecuted → seen as hindrance to industrialisation.
Successes...
1. USSR = modern state → defeated Hitler (1941).
2. Communist enthusiasm among young ‘PIONEERS’.
3. Massive production increases:
• Electricity: 5-36bn kWh (1928-37).
• Coal: 35-128m tons (1927-37); new fields (eg Kuzbass, Siberia).
• Steel: 4-18m tons (1927-37); Magnitogorsk key in WWII (428k workers in 1943, incl 200k teenagers).
4. Major achievements:
• New industrial cities:
◦ MAGNITOGORSK (1929) = steel hub.
◦ Komsomolsk (1932) = military production.
• Dams/hydroelectric:
◦ DNIEPER Hydroelectric Station (1932) = largest in Europe.
◦ Ivankovo Reservoir (1936) = water for Moscow.
• Transport & communications:
◦ Turksib Railway (1931) → linked Siberia & Central Asia.
◦ Belomor Canal (1933), Volga Canal (1937) → improved transport.
• Moscow UNDERGROUND (1935): grand stations, 400m passengers/year (1939).
• Farm machinery:
◦ Stalingrad TRACTOR Factory (1930) → 144 tractors/day.
◦ 1939: USSR’s 1st automated machine tool assembly line.
• Fertilizers: output tripled in 2nd 5-Year Plan.
• Plastics: USSR developed synthetic materials & rubber.
• No unemployment:
◦ Officially eliminated (1930); urban workforce grew 11m-32m (1928-40).
• Medicine:
◦ Doctors: 70k (1928) → 155k (1940).
◦ VACCINATION campaigns→ lower disease & child mortality (269 → 100 per 1k births, 1913-40).
◦ Maternity hospitals, midwives, crèches for working mothers.
• Education:
◦ COMPULSORY primary education expanded.
◦ Technical schools trained industrial workers.
◦ Literacy (1939): 94% urban, 86% rural youth.
... and Failures
1. Poor organisation → inefficiency, duplication, waste.
2. Production figures OVERSTATED (by ~33%).
3. Human cost:
• Harsh labour laws:
◦ Striking illegal, strict discipline.
◦ Lateness = dismissal, ration loss; absenteeism = up to 6 months in prison.
◦ Factory sabotage → GULAG as ‘counter-revolutionary’.
• Accidents & deaths:
◦ 25k deaths building BELOMOR Canal.
• Consumer goods shortages:
◦ RATIONING (meat, butter, sugar) into late 1930s.
◦ Soap, clothes, furniture scarce & poor quality.
◦ 1931: only 1 pair of shoes per 2 people.
• Poor housing:
◦ Overcrowded KOMMUNALKI (communal apartments), 1 family = 1 room.
◦ Factory towns lacked water/sewage; Magnitogorsk workers lived in tents/barracks.
• Wages fell, working conditions worsened:
◦ No wage bargaining, unpaid overtime, ‘Stakhanovite’ quotas.
◦ Real wages ↓ 50% (1928-37).
• No human rights:
◦ Internal PASSPORTS (1932) restricted movement.
◦ Peasants tied to collective farms.
◦ Great Purge (1936-38) → GULAG for millions, loss of expertise.
◦ Forced labour in mining, logging, canals, railways.
4. Some historians: Tsars’ industrialisation = foundation; Stalin’s impact exaggerated.
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