2. industrialisation

• First 5 year plan 1928-1932

  • aimed to double all production output (coal, oil, steel)->increase total production by 300%
  • major emphasis on heavy industry
• Second 5 year plan 1933-1937


  • continue development of heavy industry
  • communication developments to link cities
• Third 5 year plan 1938-1942


  • rapid rearmament
  • still emphasis on heavy industry Following stalins purges there was a lack of managers and specialists.
  • plan disrupted due to Hitlers invasion in 1941
• Dnieprostroni Dam 


  construction in 1927-> opened in 1932

  largest hydroelectric power station
• Turksib railway 1926-1931


  Connected central Asia with Siberia. built by 50,000 workers
• Moscow metro 1935


  opened with 1 11km line and 13 stations. built to help cope with influx of peasants in the cities. built by many women.
• Moscow- Volga canal 1937


  built by prisoners of Dmitlag labour camp. connects muskva and Volga rivers. 22,000 workers died during its constructions
• Success of 5YP's

  1. growth in heavy industry  The Soviet Union did progress in its transformation as an industrial front. ​
  2.  By 1937 USSR was self sufficient in machine making.​
  3. “THREE GOOD YEARS 1934-36” as economic measures such as food rationing and household income had slightly increased. ​
  4. Defence and armaments had increased enabling Russia to be seen as well defended union in contrast to Tsarist era. Thus this improved its reputation as a strong reliable power. – particularly helpful for WWII. ​
  5. In 1945 the USSR captures Berlin – NOT POSSIBLE prior to 5 year plans!​

  ​
• 1. Managers of enterprises and factories had lots of opportunities to manipulate paperwork, exaggerating successes
  2. Regional officials did not want to be seen failing targets set: cover up low numbers and accept good statistics reported to them by enterprises.​
  3. The need to demonstrate success to Stalin was regarded as a “heavy burden”, thus reporting anything else would have been detrimental.​
  4. Third plan ran into a lot of difficulties by 1938 due to a diversion of materials to the military/prep for WWII. ​
• Stankhanovite movement

  Aleksie Stakhanov-> 102 tonnes of coal in 5 hours; aug 1935

  hailed as human determination

  most likely a propaganda stunt.

  became a way on managers forcing workers to increase production.
• Managers


  had ensure outputs met unbelievable targets-> led to lying about stats due to pressure.

  "wrecking"-acts pecived as economic or industrial sabotage
• Millions of peasants ran away from the collective farms
• Peasants poured into the towns in search of work
• Between 1928 and 1932 the urban population grew at the extraordinary rate of 50,000 people every week
• Mass influx of peasants

  Provided industry with a plentiful and cheap supply of labour
• During the first Five Year Plan


  The state invested heavily in big construction projects and mining where this unskilled peasant labour could be used
• Managers organized their workforce

  Into small collectives or brigades on piece-rates where wages were dependent on the fulfilment of their norms
• Shock brigades


  • Formed with the best workers on the highest rates
• Socialist competition

  Encouraged between factories and work brigades to raise output, with league tables, medals and rewards for productivity
• Stakhanovism


  A movement named after the 'model' coalminer Aleksei Stakhanov who broke all records in 1935 by mining 102 tons of coal in less than six hours
• If fuel and raw materials were missing

  Workers could not meet their output norms and would suffer loss of pay
• Workers were quick to blame the managers of 'wrecking' or 'sabotage'
• The Shakhty Trial of 1928 saw a group of 53 engineers in the North Caucasian mining town of Shakhty tried for conspiring with the prerevolutionary owners of the mines to 'sabotage' the Soviet economy
• The Shakhty Trial was the first of the show trials and the start of the industrial terror when so-called 'bourgeois specialists' (engineers and technicians from before 1917) were rounded up as 'spies' or 'saboteurs' and shot or sent to labour camps
• Blaming 'wreckers' gave the workers a scapegoat and diverted anger from the state, whose impossible targets were the real cause of the problem
• Stalin: ''there are no fortresses the Bolsheviks cannot capture''
• Stalin defended the ambitious targets of the Five Year Plan and pointed to the failures of management as the only obstacle
• To slow down the tempo of industrial progress would expose the country to military defeat by hostile foreign powers, as had happened throughout Russian history
• Magnitogorsk was a new industrial city in the 1930s
• Statistically, through the Five Year Plans the Soviet Union achieved impressive rates of economic growth during the 1930s - a decade of depression in the capitalist states
• The comparison was underlined by Soviet propaganda, which convinced many to believe in the superiority of the Soviet planned economy
• The statistics of economic growth were not as good as the Central Statistical Administration (TsSU) made out
• According to the TSU, Soviet national income grew by 14% between 1928 and 1941
• More objective recent estimates have adjusted this figure to a growth rate of just 3 to 5% between 1928 and 1941
• Impressive gains

  • Heavy industries
  • Mining
  • Construction
• The Soviet Union became the world's leading producer of oil, coal, iron ore, and cement, and it became a major world producer of manganese, gold, natural gas and other minerals
• These gains enabled the USSR to develop the defence industries it needed to fight Hitler's armies during World War Two
• There were fewer gains for consumers, and people's living standards were seriously depressed during the First Five Year Plan
• In 1932, workers' real earnings were about one-tenth of their 1926 level
• The Soviet famine of 1932-33 affected tens of millions