The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union sparked its first paths of development towards a communist economy through a five-year plan in 1938. The plan called for government controls and government regulation for their workers. This planned also controlled prices and wages for the workers to control the standard of living and to keep the needs of the common man minimal. The government wanted control of all private industries so that they can push for a rapid industrial society. Benefits such as health care and public housing were terminated to help the Soviet government with their plan. The Soviets wanted to combine their work force with their investments in coal, steel and iron to boost their capital and help them create a super nation.
After Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 a change began to occur in the Soviet Union. A new set of reforms was set up which were to reestablish welfare programs and public housing. This plan that was coined the destalinization effort, was used to introduce the new market strategies, expanding production and raising the profit margin. However politically th...
The United States and The Soviet Union were originally joined together by the want to defeat The Nazi army, in 1941-1945. The alliance remained, and strengthened, among the two until the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, a rupture between the two occurred. The differences began earlier, but there was a straw that broke the camels back. The reason The United States and The Soviet Union’s alliance did not work out is because The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies.
The First Five-Year Plan. The first five-year plan, approved in 1929, proposed that state and collective farms provide 15 percent of agriculture output. The predominance of private farming seemed assured, as many farmers resisted collectivization. By late 1929, Stalin moved abruptly to break peasant resistance and secure the resources required for industrialization. He saw that voluntary collectivism had failed, and many “Soviet economists doubted that the first plan could even be implemented.
Mau, Vladimir. " The road to 'perestrokia': economics in the USSR and the problem of
The terms hawks and doves' were quick labels attached to politicians in order to categorize their views on war and foreign policies, as to make them understandable and accessible for the public. However, these labels were not always accurate and in some cases could be quite misleading; it would have been more accurate not to label individuals as either Hawks or Doves, but instead, what they stood for.
QUESTION 2: The Cold War is an international conflict, a global fight between the United States and the Soviet Union that began in Europe in the wake of World War II but quickly expanded into Asia and the Third World. These international events, however, undoubtedly influenced domestic American politics between 1945 and 1965. How did the international Cold War shape, influence, or change domestic American politics in the first twenty years of the conflict?
The Soviet citizens during the 1930s, particularly the younger ones, believed “they were participants in a history process of transformation, their enthusiasm for what was called ‘the building of socialism’” (68). The Soviets built hotels, palaces, and had blueprints displayed all throughout “that was supposed to set a pattern for urban planning throughout the country and provide a model of the socialist capital for foreigners” (69).
His involvement with domestic and foreign policies cast his shadow upon the world at the end of World War II with his radical ideals. The policy of socialism, the Five Year Plan, and the collectivization of Agriculture were all of Stalin’s key methods of casting this impactful shadow on the world. Socialism was designed to strengthen the gains of the social revolution. By the ideals of Orthodox Marxism, it claims that a socialist revolution in a country must be followed by similar revolutions in the advanced industrial countries to survive. The Five Year Plans built vast factories in places such as Stalingrad, Leningrad, and several others across the Soviet Union.
In the late 1920’s, living in Lenin’s shadow, Stalin decided that the New Economic Policy would introduce the Five-Year Plan.
During the late 1920’s up until World War II, the United States went through a period of severe economic depression, also called the “Great Depression”. Multitudes of Americans everywhere were inadequately clothed, nourished, and sheltered. As hunger and unemployment reached never before seen levels, despair reigned. During these times Labor Union enrollment dramatically increased and Americans were searching for a panacea to their social and economic problems. It was at this time that groups of citizens, jobless and hungry, looked upon Communism favorably. These individuals longed for what seemed to be a utopian society, which they viewed in the USSR, where everyone was employed and cared for. Communist political parties sprung up everywhere, literature and newspapers in support of Communism proliferated. More and more, seeing the success and the promises, the enrollment in Communist parties increased. Members of the American Communist party idealized the leaders of the USSR, Lenin and Stalin.
Documents two, three, five, and eleven exemplify the positive aspects of Stalin’s policies. Document two, from the text book History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (1948), tells of all the achievements of Socialism in Russia. Some of the achievements were the rejoicing to the Party, workers and collective farmers, the Soviet intelligentsia, and the honest citizens of the Soviet Union. This document celebrates the demolition of the enemies of the Party, the consolidation of the ranks, and the classless Socialist society (Doc. 2). In document three Alec Nove’s An Economic History of the USSR (1969) shows the positive impact of the five-year plans through a chart. The chart lists the increases in coal, oil, pig-iron, steel, electricity, and wollen cloth. Coal went from 35.4 (millions of tons) in 1927 to 128 in 1937. Oil increa...
The purpose of this investigation is to assess how significant Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost, and Perestroika polices contribute to the collapse of the USSR. In order to understand how significant of a factor Gorbachev policies were to the collapse of the USSR, we will investigate from how significant were the reforms emplaced by Gorbachev, to how the USSR was doing economically from the time Gorbachev came into power. The main sources for this investigation range from an Excerpt from The cold war: The United States and the Soviet union by Ronald Powaski who states facts about both the economic and political issues of the time. Excerpts from “New political thinking” from perestroika by Gorbachev which states how he believes new political ideas are for the good for the USSR. Finally in The Dissolution of the Soviet Union by Myra Immell who goes over many of the factors of the USSR’s collapse.
In 1945, most of the countries around the world are devastated further to World War II which had stroke the globe for six years. Only the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, also called USSR, seem to be in a stable economic situation despite weighty losses. Both states are considered to be the great winners of the war and this is the beginning of a confrontation between two superpowers but also the confrontation between two distinct ideologies: communism and capitalism.
The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government needs a strong economy to maintain its power and influence, but in this case the economic planning of the Soviet Union was just not working, which had an influence in other communist nations in Eastern Europe as they declined to collapse.
Among the first policies enacted toward economic prosperity and industrialization were the Five Year Plans. The first Five Year Plan included rapid collectivization of the villages in the countryside in order to make enough agricultural profit to fund industrialization efforts. This period was plagued with violence, unattainable production targets and the destruction of traditional village life. The Second Five year plan began in 1933, in 1935 the term stakhanovite began to be used to identify those workers who developed new innovation that allowed them to greatly surpass average production. The term was named after Aleksei Stakhanov who was a miner.(Fitzpatrick and Slezkine 2000) “Speeches of Stakhanovites” is comprised of several speeches given at national Stakhanovite meetings that included member of the Politburo and Stalin himself. From these speeches we can see that there was a very positive image of Stalin among the Stakhanovites.They all begin and conclude by praising Stalin and the party. This shows that they clearly supported the policies of the Five Year Plans even though they demanded overoptimistic goals of produ...
Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. His rule was one of tyranny, and great change from the society that his predecessor, Lenin, had envisioned (Seton, 34). Stalin put into effect two self proclaimed "five-year plans" over the course of his rule. Both were very similar in that they were intended to improve production in the nation. The first of these plans began collectivization, in which harvests and industrial products were seized by the government and distributed as needed. The government eliminated most private businesses and the state became the leader in commerce. Stalin also initiated a process called "Russification". (Great Events, 119)"