Stalin’s Five-Year Plan: Economic, Political, And Social Systems Of The Soviet Union

Economic, Political, and Social Systems of the Plan

The 19^th century era was characterized by the implementation of plans and policies that looked to make the nations powerful than others. The ideologies of Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism mostly focused on making the country militarily powerful even at the cost of its own citizens. The Soviet Union under the regime of Stalin witnessed several changes in the economic and political policies. Joseph Stalin, a revolutionary and the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, ruled the nation during the 1920s for almost three decades before finally expiring in 1953. After attaining supremacy of the Soviet, Stalin began to solidify his position by eliminating all the threats including Trotsky. He made sure that he cleaned his political party, the citizens and even the army of those whom he thought to be his threat. When he was sure that he had no opposition or threat, Stalin began to transform the Union in all spheres. One of his first moves was to introduce an economic policy that would take the country at the peak of political power. Based on this idea, he introduced the first five-year plan in 1928 until 1932. The plan listed the economic goals created by Stalin that was based on the Socialism in One Country policy. The plan launched by Stalin was referred to as the “revolution from above”. The concept referred to the idea that the nation would witness revolution brought about by the elite class. It was designed to improve the domestic policy of the Soviet Union. The main plan however, was focused on rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. Under the new plan, Stalin wanted to rid the Soviet Union of capitalism. His scheme was to industrialize the economy of Soviet Union that was predominantly based on agriculture.

The initial need for developing such a plan came from the increasing threats from both internal and external sources. In 1927, a fear of war arose when countries in the West began to cut all diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union. Great Britain was the first nation to end the diplomatic relationship it held with country. This led to a growing fear amongst Soviet citizens that their country might be attacked. In addition to that, the occupation of several portions of the Russian territory by foreign powers further escalated the fear. In view of all this, the need for heavy industrialization in order to increase the country’s war making ability and to confront the foreign powers began to surface. The five-year plan is a result of this need.  

Reasons Behind the Five-Year Plan

In order to understand clearly Stalin’s main motive behind introducing the plan, it is important to break it down to economic, political and social systems. It was clear from the agenda of the five-year plan that it aimed to bring about new changes within the economic sphere of the country by shifting the focus of agriculture to industry. As per the new plan, the economic focus of the country would now be directed towards manufacturing. The major reason for introducing industrialization as an economic policy was to win wars with countries that posed any threat. The other reason was the common notion that Soviets held, which was the efficiency of industrialization in developing communism. Stalin knew the importance of industrialization as it was the most potent way to reply to all the external and internal threat. This aspect of the plan referred to Stalin’s political motive.

As already mentioned, after Stalin’s ascendance to the throne of the Soviet Union, he faced several threats from other political parties. In fact, Stalin’s acquisition of the Soviet power was in doubt, as the former leader of the Soviet, Lenin, had not approved of him. However, the proposition put forth by one of his supporters to make him the leader convinced the party to announce Stalin as the new general secretary.  Stalin knew that he would face opposition from many of his party and hence, he wanted to introduce a plan that would make him politically more powerful. He wanted to make sure that his political supremacy was not challenged by anyone, from either within the country or outside. Stalin’s rejection of the New Economic Policy (NEP) introduced by Lenin that encouraged free market and capitalism both under the control of the state conveyed clearly his political intentions. He wanted to bring about a new system where his decisions were not influenced the ideologies of the previous leaders. 

In the social sphere, the collectivized agricultural system of the five-year plan brought about the destruction of many farming communities like the kulaks. The process of repressing, arresting and executing the kulaks by designating them as class enemies, known as dekulakization led to starvations on a mass scale. The strategy was to decrease the influence of the kulaks in the Soviet society and bring about the supremacy of the Agitprop group within the social sphere. Around five million kulaks lost their lives due to the human-led famine. On the positive side, the plan also aimed to improve the condition of the peasants by providing them with machines that they could never afford due to poverty. The peasants now had tractors to farm their lands resulting in an increase in food production. The social status of the peasants began to improve. The focus on rapid industrialization also resulted in the cultural transformation of the Soviet Union. The majority population in Turkmenistan protested against the new policy because they had to face severe problems while shifting their cotton production. As evidence from these incidences, Stalin wanted to dominate the social system by silencing every protest and opposition.

Terror Used to Impose New Ideas and Systems

Stalin was always apprehensive of the fact that the people might not welcome his policies and systems. Therefore, he wanted to make sure that all those who oppose his policies are either exterminated or punished severely. After coming to power, he became anxious about the external and internal forces that might pose a threat to his supremacy. In order to diminish these threats, he employed the tactics of the five-year plan. He began with the task of forming an economic committee and then put all the force behind it to terrorize and force the people to accept his plan. With a view to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial hub, Stalin started appointing task forces in all parts of the USSR and builds new factories, railroads, roads and coalmines. Specific goals were set for agriculture, industry, trade, and energy and railway construction. Educating the peasants was also a part of the goals. It was evident that to implement a plan of this scale, Stalin required massive human resource. The USSR being an agriculturally dominant nation, as mentioned already, had majority population of farmers and peasants. These farmers and peasant were accustomed to the work of ploughing and irrigating in the field. Thus, they needed to be convinced first and then trained to work in order to build factories, roads, and coalmines. The process could not have been smooth because making the peasants work in places where they had no expertise was difficult. Many farmers and peasants protested against the plan. They were then forcefully dragged to work in factories and mines.

Stalin incorporated every possible rule to ensure the success of his five-year plan and that included the atrocities of millions of Soviet citizens as well. In order to guarantee the success of the goals, the number of days of work was increased from five days to seven days. Added to that, the workers were put on rotational shifts that meant they had to work day and night in the factories. The workers had no breaks from work and if someone skipped their work for even a day without valid reasons, they were either made homeless or fired from the job. Further, the workers had no scope to move to other jobs because the secret police under Stalin had a close watch on them. In fact, the government introduced internal passports for the workers to move from one to another. The workers had to register with the police in order to stay in or move out of a town. Stalin imposed these measures because without it, achieving all the goals would not have been possible. The workers were compelled to carry notebooks that catalogued all their jobs in the past, the problems they faced and involvement in work offenses and so on. It meant that although Stalin wanted huge task force, he made sure that he had only competent workers. Despite this tightly controlled system, the goals of the five-year plan kept on moving at a past pace largely due to the terror of Stalin and his secret police. 

Impact on Workers and Peasants

In spite of the fact that a majority of people in the USSR did not approve of the methods used by Stalin to achieve the goals of his five-year plan, the younger generation of communists were enthusiastic. Their enthusiasm assisted in moving the goals forward. Addressed as “shock brigades”, these young communists carried the terror of Stalin forward by showing competitiveness and spying on other workers to gain advantage. These advantages came in the form of better food, better place to stay, and special medals as rewards for their exceptional work. These strategies used by Stalin clearly indicated that he was successful in achieving the goals of the plan not just by brutal force but also by playing with minds of the younger generation.  

Workers to work for the success of the five-year plan not only comprised the peasant’s community, but also included the prisoners of USSR. Viewing the need for more labor force, Stalin decided to use the prisoners as labors for achieving the goals. Earlier, the Soviet leaders were in favor of driving the prisoners away from the country in order to conserve the resources but later, these prisoners were sought to assist in the completion of the five-year plan. The need increased so much that Soviet leaders began orchestrating the increase of prisoners’ population. Many peasants who had opposed to work in factories were taken in as perpetrators and made to work as prison laborers. In fact, most of the prisoners that worked as laborers in factories were peasants. The tactic was used to acquire free labor so that the country did not have to bear financial burden. Although, the tactic incurred minimum financial stress and maximum workforce, it led to the imprisonment of several innocent Soviets. These were mostly those peasants who had refused to involve in the accomplishment of the five-year plan goals.

Stalin integrated these terrorizing tactics because he knew that he had to make the plan succeed within the given five years and protect his country from external attack. Further, Stalin’s rise to power was against the support of the common masses hence he used force and terror to stay in power. In addition, the Party opposed the policies of Stalin’s plan and threatened to boycott it, which ultimately compelled Stalin to purge the party in order to gain a free hand to carry out his plans. He also schemed to centralize the government in order to guarantee that he had full control of the decisions he made regarding the success of his plan.  According to him, the plans of rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture to compete with the West needed a disciplined workforce comprising obedient peasantry. These would have been possible, in the eyes of Stalin by using brute force and terror.

The Young Communists and Shock Brigades

The five-year plan had both positive and negative effects on the Soviet Union. On the positive side, the goals set by Stalin for the five years were accomplished well within the given period. Further, the West recognized and acknowledged the massive industrial growth and economic boom of the USSR. Most importantly, the country embarked upon the journey of becoming an industrial and economic superpower of the world. The five-year plan also encouraged the participation of women in areas where they were previously not even allowed to enter. However, it had to pay a huge price for achieving this feat as it cost the lives of millions of Soviet citizens. The great famine in Ukraine, which led to the death of more than ten million citizens, mostly peasants, demonstrated the failure of the plan.

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