★ Great Turn, Collectivisation and Industrialisation

Question 1

★ What was the Great Turn?

Answer 1

★ A change from NEP to Rapid Industrialisation

Question 2

★ How was the NEP by 1928?

Answer 2

★ Not producing enough grain for industrialisation
★ 1926 exports were at 33% and imports 58% of their 1913 levels
★ Agriculture still very backwards
★ Deterioration of relationship between Peasants and Government

Question 3

★ Was the NEP working for Factory Workers?

Answer 3

★ No, high levels of unemployment despite better working conditions (8 hour work days, trade unions)
★ Housing still a problem, many lived in low-quality flats

Question 4

★ Why did Stalin want to industrialise the USSR so quickly?

Answer 4

★ Increase military strength
★ Achieve self-sufficiency
★ Increase grain supply
★ Threats from foreign intervention after WW1
★ Move towards a Socialist society
★ Improve standards of living

Question 5

★ What were FYPs and the Gosplan?

Answer 5

★ Five Year Plans were a method of planning economic growth over limited periods of time by using quotas
★ Gosplan was responsible for supervising all aspects of the plan, set targets for all factories

Question 6

★ What did the First Five Year Plan contain?

Answer 6

★ Plans for a Collective farm
★ Central Committee introduced a policy of sending 25,000 industrial workers into the countryside to accelerate the development of collective farms.
★ In December 1929, Stalin announced to the Party Congress his readiness to improve forced collectivisation without any restraint: to ‘smash the kulaks as a class’.