The Stalin era: the Five-Year Plans and industrial change, 1928-41

Question 1

What did Stalin launch in 1928 which transformed the economy?

Answer 1

‘revolution from above’

Question 2

What did Stalin’s revolution end?

Answer 2

The NEP

Question 3

What did Stalin’s revolution introduce?

Answer 3

A command economy

Question 4

What is a command economy?

Answer 4

Where all resources are owned by the government or central authority, who decides what to produce, how to produce it and who for.

Question 5

What was the key thing introduced through Stalin’s FYPs?

Answer 5

Industrialisation

Question 6

Who were Stalin’s FYPs formulated by?

Answer 6

Gosplan

Question 7

Who were Gosplan?

Answer 7

Organisation responsible for economic planning in the Soviet economy

Question 8

What did Gosplan do for the FYPs?

Answer 8

Set targets for every factory, mine and workshop in the Soviet Union

Question 9

The FYPs were accompanied by massive propaganda which was designed to do what?

Answer 9

Inspire workers to support the new system

Question 10

Stalin argued he had created a ‘planned economy’.
Why was this not true?

Answer 10

His ‘plans’ were essentially a list of targets.
No attempt made to match resources to country’s needs.

Question 11

What is Stalin’s economy better understood as?

Answer 11

Command economy; where government controls production

Question 12

What were some of the reasons for Stalin introducing the FYPs?

Answer 12

Ideology
Economics
Military
Political

Question 13

What was Stalin’s ideological reason for introducing the FYPs?

Answer 13

Wanted to abolish the Capitalist market and lay the economic foundation for Socialism.

Question 14

What was the economic reason for Stalin introducing the FYPs?

Answer 14

The NEP had failed to lead to further industrialisation

Question 15

What was Stalin’s military reason for launching the FYPs?

Answer 15

Argued that Russia had to industrialise in order to prepare for war with capitalist nations

Question 16

What was the political reason for Stalin introducing the FYPs?

Answer 16

By abolishing capitalism, Stalin won the support of the Party’s left-wing.

Question 17

What was Stalin’s primary economic aim for the FYPs?

Answer 17

Build up heavy industry

Question 18

What did the government do the build up heavy industry?

Answer 18

Invested heavily in building new iron and steel factories and establishing new coalmines and oil wells.

Question 19

What did Stalin do to build up heavy industry?

Answer 19

From 1936, Stalin prioritised rearmament.
Did not focus on consumer goods to maximise resources for military and heavy industry

Question 20

Did Stalin’s first 3 FYPs succeed in industrialising the Soviet Union?

Answer 20

Yes

Question 21

What was the biggest success of the first 3 FYPs?

Answer 21

Heavy industry

Question 22

Why was heavy industry the biggest success of the first 3 FYPs?

Answer 22

Electricity output increased almost ten-fold (10x)

Coal and steel production went up almost 5x

Was a 3x increase in oil production

Question 23

What evidence shows that Stalin’s policies led to the growth of the transport infrastructure?

Answer 23

1935-The Moscow Metro’s first train line opened
1937-The Moscow-Volga Canal opened

Question 24

What happened to labour productivity during the First FYP?

Answer 24

Extremely low

Question 25

What did the government initiate to increase labour productivity?

Answer 25

The Stakhanovite Movement

Question 26

What was The Stakhanovite Movement?

Answer 26

Propaganda campaign praising work of coal miner Alexei Stakhanov, who mined 14x his quota (limit) in a single shift.

Question 27

What did Stalin authorise for The Stakhanovite Movement?

Answer 27

System of higher payments to reward the most productive workers

Question 28

How much did productivity rise by in Russia’s major industries because of The Stakhanovite Movement?

Answer 28

Between 25% and 50%

Question 29

What is labour productivity?

Answer 29

A measure of the amount produced by workers in a specified period

Question 30

Despite productivity of the workers rising, during the FYPs, give examples of industrialised nations they continued to lag behind.

Answer 30

USA
Germany
France

Question 31

Discuss rearmament during the FYPs.

Answer 31

Was also a success
By 1940 1/3 of government spending was devoted to military.
Plans led to the successful construction of nine military aircraft factories between 1939 and 1941

Question 32

What happened to quality during the FYPs?

Answer 32

Often low because factory managers rewarded for producing large quantities of material, regardless of quality

Question 33

What happened to efficiency during the FYPs?

Answer 33

Stalin’s economy=Very inefficient

Question 34

Why was Stalin’s economy very inefficient?

Answer 34

Gosplan did not make a plan for how to use the materials produced.

Question 35

What did the poor transport and communication of Gosplan mean for production?

Answer 35

Around 40 percent of what was produced was wasted

Question 36

How did Gosplan undermine the FYPs?

Answer 36

They set unrealistic targets

Question 37

How did Gosplan set unrealistic targets?

Answer 37

Gosplan officials had no idea how big the factories they controlled were or how much they could produce

Industrial managers lied about production levels to avoid punishment

Falsified data=economic management even harder (effective planning relies on accurate data)