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The economic programs of Lenin and Stalin
An essay about stalin's economic policies
An essay about stalin's economic policies
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The Success of Stalin's Industrial Economic Programme During the 1930's In the first five year plan the importance was on heavy industries which included coal, oil, iron and steel, electricity, cement, metals, and timber. This accounted for 80% of total investment and 1500 enterprises were opened. I believe that the first five year plan was a failure although there were sectors that were successful. Targets were not reached this was especially apparent for chemical targets. Another problem was the lack of skilled workers which created major problems. In addition to this workers frequently changed their jobs so there was no organisation and this caused instability. Small workshops were squeezed out; this was due to the shortages of materials and fuel and also the drive against the Nepmen. Another big problem with this five year plan was that productivity was very low. There was very little growth and consumer industries faced a decline which included house building, fertilisers, food processing and woollen textiles. But although it was deemed to be a complete failure the first five year plan did bring some success. Growth did occur in some areas such as Electricity where production trebled, coal and iron produce doubled and even steel production increased by one third. The engineering industry developed and increased output of machine-tools, turbines, etc. Huge new industrial complexes were built or if they weren’t they were in the process of being built. Tractor works were also built. They were huge and were built in Stalingrad, Kharkov and other places to meet the needs of mechanised agriculture. So it wasn’t a complete failure. But there were still many targets which weren’t met. The Great Depression caused the price of grain and raw materials to be driven down so the USSR therefore couldn’t compete internationally as they could not earn enough from exports to pay for all the machinery it needed. A great deal of money of went into the investment of agriculture because of the forced collectivisation programme. However, the impressive growth in certain sectors of the economy and there was