4 & 5 Plans Flashcards
By the end of the war, the damage
In Nazi-occupied areas had reduced overall production:
steel Production had fallen to 12 million tones in 1945 compared with 18 million tones produced in 1940; oil production was less than
two-thirds and wool production less than half of that produced
in 1940.
In agriculture, the situation was also desperate: DURING WAR
With the most
able-bodied men from the collectives conscripted into the armed
forces, and farm machinery and draft animals requisitioned by
the Red Army, the impact of the war on food production was
devastating. Grain output fell from 95 million tones in 1940 to 30
million tonnes in 1942, and the number of cattle halved. In these
circumstances, the government lifted restrictions on the cultivation
of private plots to provide an incentive for peasants to keep up
production.
By. the end of the war, much of the western part of the USSR
was devastated;
25 million people were homeless and over 1,700 towns and 70,000 villages were classified as ‘destroyed.
Reconstruction would be an enormous undertaking.
The Fourth Five-Year Plan
(1946-50): economic
reconstruction. Many
factories that had been converted to the production of wartime
goods needed to be converted back to civilian production. Large
industrial plants needed to be rebuilt. In order to achieve these
aims, rigid state control was reinforced over the war-shattered
economy.
One advantage that the USSR could now exploit after WW2
its control
over Eastern Europe. Much of the region had fallen into the hands
of the Red Army after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Large amounts
of machinery were taken from East Germany as reparations,
although once transported to the USSR it was often left to rust as
workers were unable to reassemble them. Trade agreements were
signed with the new Soviet-dominated governments of Eastern
Europe, which were so one-sided to the advantage of the USSR
that they amounted to little more than economic exploitation.
The Fourth Five-Year Plan (1946-50) aimed, through a
programme of reconstruction, to
restore the economy to pre-war
levels, a massive undertaking in so short a time.
4th Plan successful?
Industrial production recovered quickly, helped largely
by the use of over two million slave labourers from the Gulag.
Strong central planning by the government was an important
factor in achieving such quick results.
The government was able
to redirect wartime labour for the purposes of reconstruction
Retraining programmes were effective at ensuring workers had
the basic skills needed for the jobs now in demand. Penalties for
slackers remained harsh. The focus was placed on heavy industry
(as before the war), with the production of armaments receiving
special attention. The metal industry and heavy engineering were
especially successful.
Failures of 4th plan
The Plan was overfulfilled, but problems
persisted and consumer industries remained neglected. Moreover
the economy had returned to the priorities of the 1930s. a
feature reinforced by a failure to adopt new technology, such as
developments in plastics and chemicals.
The Fifth Five-Year Plan
(1951-55)
The Fifth Five-Year Plan set out to achieve continued growth, albeit at a slower and perhaps more
realistic rate.
The emergence of the Cold War resulted in
an increase in arms expenditure as the
military budget increased year on year. Growth in other industries was less impressive.
Large amounts
of resources were diverted into the building of grandiose projects which had limited economic value:
The Volga-Don Canal was a huge undertaking that resulted in a canal that carried very little traffic but
was adorned with many statues of Stalin. The construction of large government buildings in Moscow
made use of resources that could have been used to deal with the severe shortage of housing.
5th plan success?
Overall, the performance of Soviet industry in the immediate post-war period was impressive and,
from 1948, living standards in the towns started to recover. Price reductions eased conditions, and
from 1952 real wages for urban workers reached the level of 1928. Conditions in the countryside
recovered much more slowly.
Agriculture- During the war, the government had given some concessions to the peasants in order to sustain food production:
A Link’ system was promoted whereby small groups of peasants were given
responsibility for areas within the collective farm. As long as targets for food deliveries to the state
were met, the peasants could sell the remainder for profit.
With the war over, the Party leadership
moved quickly to reimpose control over agriculture:
the Link system was abolished. Taxes were raised on private plots in a bid to reduce their importance. Supervision of agricultural resources was concentrated into the hands of the Party through the Machine and Tractor Stations.
