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History > Stalin - Economic Policies > Flashcards

Stalin - Economic Policies Flashcards

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1
Q

Which trial of 1928 created a ‘war scare’ deliberately to terrify the people into working harder to defend themsleves against the west?

A

Shakthy

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2
Q

In what year did Stalin say ‘We are 50 to 100 years behind the west. We must catch up in 10 years. Either we do this or they crush’ ?

A

1931

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3
Q

Stalin recognised that industrial production needed to keep pace with agricultural production to avoid a ‘….’ crisis.

A

scrissors

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4
Q

Stalin was fearful that the proletarian needed to be expanded in numbers and influence for Bolshevism to survive. What did Trotsky say that expresssed this fear?

A

We have too little proletarian yeast in our peasant dough.

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5
Q

The name of the state planning agency responsible for carrying out the five years plans was…?

A

Gosplan - It formulated production of targets for every factory mine and workshop.

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6
Q

The first five year plan focused on which section of the economy?

A

Heavy industry

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7
Q

The second five year plan set more realistic targets for heavy industry and encouraged the production of what?

A

Consumer goods

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8
Q

A gigantic steel works was built at…?

A

Magnitogorsk - had state of the art housing for the factory managers. Normal workers lived in wooden shacks.

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9
Q

In which city was an underground railway built?

A

Moscow

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10
Q

The achievements of the five year plans were more impressive given that they were carried during…?

A

The Great Depression

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11
Q

An Irish playwrite who paid a visit to the USSR and reported back to the west that the five year plans were successful and popular?

A

George Bernard Shaw

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12
Q

Stalin built his industrial feats deep in the eastern zone of the USSR. In other words, beyond the…

A

Ural Mountains

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13
Q

In the first five year plan marxist ideology was compromised by employing which capitalist firm?

A

Ford

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14
Q

In the second five year plan marxist ideology was compromised by giving wage incentives to elite workers called…?

A

Stakhonovites

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15
Q

In the second five year plan marxist ideology was fulfilled by encourage which sector of the population to enter the work force?

A

Women

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16
Q

The building of which canal led to deaths of 100,000 by slave labour?

A

Belomor Canal

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17
Q

What were Stalin’s slave labour camps called?

A

Gulags

18
Q

During the five year plans women who went to work were rewarded with…?

A

Free childcare

19
Q

During the five year plans industrial production increased by what percentage?

A

200%

20
Q

The economic growth was from what economists call a…?

A

Low Base (meaning industrial production was very poor to begin with)

21
Q

Give the dates of the three pre-war five year plans.

A

1) 1928 - 1932 (Cut short due to problems with the plan)
2) 1933 - 1937 (Cut short due to Gosplan economists being purged)
3) 1939 - 1941 (Cut short due to Nazi invasion)

22
Q

What were the general aims of the plans?

A
  • Industrialise Russia. Stalin believed Russia was 100 years behind the West but could catch up in 15 with the help of planning.
  • Elimination of Nepmen
  • Introduce state controlled production and distribution.
  • Create an economy that was modern enough to support effective defence programmes (German threat)
  • Stalin wanted to assert his own authority by completing major industrial feats.
23
Q

How did Stalin try to inspire the workers to achieve the unrealistic goals set by the plans?

A

Massive propaganda campaigns which:
- showed the objectives of the plan to be heroic
- celebrated the sucess of the plans
- promised a modernised industrial future.
However, the plans were a list of targets backed by propaganda, not actual ‘action plans’.

24
Q

What was the increase in the production of coal and steel between 1927 and 1940? (Over the course of the first three 5 year plans)

A

COAL: 1927 = 35.4 millon tons, 1940 = 165.9 million tons
STEEL: 1927 = 4, 1940 = 18.3
Heavy industry was the major success of the five year plans.

25
Q

What was the issue with labour productivity in the USSR?

What initiative was launched to combat this problem?

A
  • Very unproductive workforce, far more unproductive than western workforces.
  • Due to long hours, little pay and lack of incentive.
  • Stakhanovite initiative launched in 1935: A reward system for workers who exceeded their production quota. Stakhanovite workers were asked to teach other workers how to be more productive.
  • Very effective, productivity in electricity rose by 51%, 25% in coal mining.
26
Q

What production problems are associated with the five year plans?

A
  • Quality of good v.low. Quotas encouraged quantity not quality.
  • Plans undermined by Stalin’s terror as he executed/ imprisoned workers being accused and saboteurs and did the same to economists who suggested there were issues with the plans.
  • Materials produced were often wasted, as much as 40% wasted in some regions.
  • It was supposed to be a planned economy but there were no real plans, only targets.
  • Managers falsified data in order to meet production targets. Made accurate analysis v.difficult.
27
Q

What was the availability of consumer goods through out the plans?

A
  • Constant shortages of everyday necessities.
  • Plans underestimated the needs of consumers
  • Uneducated workforce could not managed the industrial processes to make consumer goods.
  • Rationing of consumer goods from 1928, severe shortages in the 1930s which led to queues of 6000 people for clothes in leningrad.
  • Constant shortage of housing, factory building was the priority.
28
Q

How did a Black Market emerge during the five year plans?

A
  • Constant shortage of consumer goods meant the black market filled the gap.
  • Workers would steel materials from factories and then sell them on to the highest bidder.
  • They could falsify paperwork to cover up the theft.
29
Q

When did the collectivisation drive begin?

A

1929 - but there was a pause in 1930 due to the chaos caused. Reinstated in 1931.

30
Q

What were the causes of collectivisation?

A

1) Communist ideology
- make a more egalitarian society by abolishing private farming
- suspicious peasant farming was driven by individualistic material concern. Supposed rise of capitalist Kulaks.
2) Failure of NEP
- industrial production fell back down to 1926 levels in 1928
- Grain procurement crisis in 1927 (farmers stopped producing as much grain in order to up agricultural prices)
3) Leadership struggle.
- Collectivisation was a left wing policy and Stalin needed the support of the left in order to secure his power base.

31
Q

What was Dekulakisation?

A
  • When peasants resisted the grain requisitioning with violence Stalin claimed it was an attack on socialism by the capitalist Kulaks.
  • He initiated the ‘liquidation of Kulaks as a class’.
  • Mass deportations and executions
  • 1.5 million kulaks sent to Gulag labour camps.
32
Q

What did the collectivisation process involve?

A
  • Farms forcibly merged together. Sometimes contained as many as 150 families.
  • Equipment taken from richer peasants and given to poorer ones.
  • Very small amount of grain given to peasants living in collective farms, the rest was used to feed the industiral workforce of exported.
  • This released money for investment in industry.
33
Q

What were the consequences of collectivisation?

A

1) Destruction of Soviet farming
- peasant destroyed crops and livestock rather than hand them over. Millions of animals slaughtered.
- Skilled and experienced farmers killed in Kulak liquidation. Grain harvest dropped below 1929 levels in 1931
- absence of any incentive for farmers to be productive
2) Famine
- Especially in the Ukraine
- Grain exported for foreign currency so farmers left to starve. 5m died in the Ukraine.
3) Long term agricultural problems
- failings became apparent during ww2
- Had to rely on US imports of food, made up 1/5 of the Red Army diet.
- private farming was only 7% of farming but it made a huge contribution because it was far more production?

34
Q

How much more productive was private farming than collective farming?

A
  • On average private farms produced 410 kilos of grain per hectare
  • Collective farming produced 320 kilos per hectare.
35
Q

What was the nature of the fourth five year plan? (The post-war plan)

A
  • Reconstruction of USSR’s industry which had been devastated by ww2
  • 88% of investment into heavy industry, caused industrial output to increase by 80% between 1945 to 1950.
  • Production of consumer goods doubled but they still continued to be scarce. Only 12% of investment.
  • Wages kept low for free up money for investment in industry and force women to work as well.
  • Between 1945 and 1950 USSR economy became the fastest growing in the world.
36
Q

What changed in agriculture after ww2?

A
  • Stalin reimposed strict state control over farming.
  • Stalin had allowed some private farming during ww2 because he had needed the extra food supplies.
  • Agricultural production reached its pre-war level by 1952.
37
Q

What were the implications for the economy with the start of the cold war?

A
  • Huge amount of military spending due to arms race.
  • By 1952, the total amount of military expenditure about 1/4 of the state budget.
  • Meant less money was available for investment in other sectors of the economy.
38
Q

What did Stalin’s economic policies mean for the future of soviet economy?

A

He had established the basic nature of the soviet economy right up until 1990:
- low labour productivity, inefficiencies in agriculture, huge defence budget, consumer goods shortages.

39
Q

When were the first train lines opened in Moscow?

A

1935

Meant more efficient transport of goods.

40
Q

What was the state of soviet industry in 1945?

How does Stalin respond?

A

Industry devastated:
- 25m homeless
- Industrial output 2/3 of 1940 level
- Infrastructure largely destroyed due to scorch the earth policy in ww2
- Progess made in first three 5 year plans lost.
Stalin responds with more five year plans.

History (5 decks)

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