Five Year Plan

FIVE YEAR PLAN The first Five Year Plan introduced in 1928, concentrated on the development of iron and steel, machine-tools, electric power and transport. Joseph Stalin set the workers high targets. He demanded a 110% increase in coal production, 200% increase in iron production and 335% increase in electric power. He justified these demands by claiming that if rapid industrialization did not take place, the Soviet Union would not be able to defend itself against an invasion from capitalist countries in the west.

FIVE YEAR PLAN Every factory had large display boards erected that showed the output of workers. Those that failed to reach the required targets were publicity criticized and humiliated. Some workers could not cope with this pressure and absenteeism increased. This led to even more repressive measures being introduced. Records were kept of workers' lateness, absenteeism and bad workmanship. If the worker's record was poor, he was accused of trying to sabotage the Five Year Plan and if found guilty could be shot or sent to work as forced labour on the Baltic Sea Canal or the Siberian Railway.

FIVE YEAR PLAN With the introduction of the Five Year Plan, Stalin argued that it was necessary to pay higher wages to certain workers in order to encourage increased output. His left-wing opponents claimed that this inequality was a betrayal of socialism and would create a new class system in the Soviet Union. Stalin had his way and during the 1930s, the gap between the wages of the labourers and the skilled workers increased.

How was it achieved. 1.   Plans were drawn up by GOSPLAN (the state planning organisation) 2.   Targets were set for every industry, each region, each mine and factory, each foreman and even every worker. 3.   Foreign experts & engineers were called in 4.   Workers were bombarded with propaganda, posters, slogans and radio broadcasts. 5.   Workers were fined if they did not meet their targets. 6.   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. 7.   (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. 8.   For big engineering projects such as dams or canals, slave labour (such as political opponents, kulaks or Jews) was used. 9.   There was a concentration on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods or good housing. 10.  Stalin attacked the Muslim faith because he thought it was holding back industrialisation. 

Successes The USSR was turned into a modern state (which was able to resist Hitler's invasion).   There was genuine Communist enthusiasm among the young ‘Pioneers’.        There were huge achievements in the following areas: new cities dams/ hydroelectric power transport & communications the Moscow Underground farm machinery electricity coal steel fertilizers plastic no unemployment doctors & medicine education.  

Failures Poorly organised – inefficiency, duplication of effort and waste.    Appalling human cost: discipline (sacked if late) secret police slave labour labour camps (for those who made mistakes) accidents and deaths (100,000 workers died building the Belomor Canal) few consumer goods poor housing wages FELL no human rights     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.

Quality of Government Standard of Living A Meaning to Life Period Quality of Government Standard of Living A Meaning to Life Before 1917 (Tsarist) Autocratic (Tsar Nicholas ignores the Duma) Oppressive (Okhrana secret police/\press censorship/ Cossack soldiers suppress peasant riots) Inefficient (huge size, many nationalities/ Tsar insists on doing work himself/ mistakes during the war – takes over army & ignores Rodzianko) Corrupt (Rasputin) Opposition (Social Revolutionaries, Communists/ assassinations) Peasant poverty (out-of-date farming methods/ periodic famines) Factory conditions Living conditions in towns (‘corner dwellers’) Rich nobles (= unfair distribution of wealth) (After 1914) war chaos (15 million deaths/ famine/ inflation). Love of the Tsar as a ‘father’ (damaged on Bloody Sunday 1905, but restored by the successful tercentenary celebrations in 1913) Orthodox religion (taught people to accept their position and sufferings).

Changes Period Quality of Government Standard of Living A Meaning to Life 1928-1941 (Stalin’s) Dictatorship Oppressive (Terror/ NKVD/ Show Trials and purges/ 20 million dead/ Gulag/ kulaks ‘eliminated’/ ‘Russification’) Corrupt (‘Apparatchiks’ get all best houses/ jobs) No human rights Collectivisation (peasants lose land/ slaughter of animals/ famines 1932-3) Five-Year Plans (crèches/ day-care centres/ women workers/ Underground/ no unemployment/  doctors/ education/ New Towns) BUT (Until 1933) less food producedthan in 1914 Concentration on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods or good housing, although industrial production increased. Terrible working conditions (labour camps - slave labour/ accidents/ poor housing) Cult of personality Communist zeal of ‘Pioneers’ (propaganda – Stakhanovites) Stalin attacked Muslim faith