Topic 2 - Industrial and Agricultural Policy Under Stalin

Question 1

What were Stalin’s main policies regarding agriculture and industry?

Answer 1

Agricultural - Collectivisation
Industrial - 5 year plans

Question 2

What were Stalin’s industrial and agricultural aims and how did he want to achieve them?

Answer 2

• Stalin wanted to close the gap between the USSR and the West in terms of industrial and agricultural output
• To do this in industry, Stalin proposed a series of rapid, centrally directed industrialisation through 5 year plans
• To do this in agriculture Stalin proposed a system of collectivisation

Question 3

What was collectivisation?

Answer 3

Made up of collective farms - farmers would exchange land, animals, and equipment for wage based on the value of produce sold and number of workdays completed - farms independent from state but would have to meet a quota set by the state and could sell the rest of their surplus (most surplus came from private plots as these quotas were very high)

Question 4

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1926?

Answer 4

1926 - 50% of grain requisition - Kulaks blamed

Question 5

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1927?

Answer 5

1927 - Grain crisis threatens industrial progress and Stalin urges collectivisation at the Party Congress

Question 6

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1928?

Answer 6

1928 - Continued grain shortages - Forced grain requisitioning introduced

Question 7

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1929?

Answer 7

1929 - NEP ended - extensive use of forced collectivisation - Stalin launches forced collectivisation in Dec and his intention to ‘annihilate’ the kulak class

Question 8

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1930?

Answer 8

Famine in 1930 - collectivisation paused - peasants allowed to own a small plot of land

Question 9

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1931/32?

Answer 9

Collectivisation restarted - 2/3rds of of villages collectivised by 1932

Question 10

Collectivisation timeline - What happened in 1932/33?

Answer 10

Famine - most bad in Ukraine - around 8 million dead - Stalin blames the Kulaks and declares war on the Kulaks

Question 11

Collectivisation - dekulakisation

Answer 11

Brutal policy - as many as 10 million kulaks removed from their farms - their crime was success in farming - CP removed 10 million of their best farmers - in opposition peasants killed 25-30% of livestock across the USSR - didn’t return to previous levels until 1953

Question 12

What happened by the time collectivisation finished in 1939?

Answer 12

• 99% of land collectivised
• Farming run by the state

Question 13

Flaws of collectivisation

Answer 13

• Stupid high quotas meant peasants handing over almost all of their grain -
• Party activists who ran many farms had no farming experience
• The famine of 1932-1933 was one of the worst in Russian history and was started by a man-made drought in 1931 through collectivisation - around 8 million dead at least

Question 14

Collectivisation conclusions

Answer 14

• While the countryside was successfully collectivised the human cost was massive
• Stalin’s grip on the countryside increased but the challenges to collectivisation were arguably the most significant opposition during his rule - the policy was at first in line with Communist ideology but this was abandoned through the rise of private plots

Question 15

How did the peasants view collectivisation

Answer 15

Peasants saw collectivisation as a ‘second-serfdom’ and many left the countryside to join the urban workforce

Question 16

What was the first 5YP?

Answer 16

1928-1932

Question 17

Industry - Aims of the first 5YP?

Answer 17

• Heavy industry - Coal, iron, oil, machine building - triple output (80% of total investment)
• Light industry - consumer goods - double their output

Question 18

Successes of the first 5 year plan (5)

Answer 18

• Electricity production trebled
• Coal and iron output doubled
• Steel production increased by ⅓
• Engineering industry developed increased output of machine tools
• Finishing a year early claiming great success

Question 19

Weaknesses of the first 5 year plan? (7)

Answer 19

• Very little growth, even a decline, in consumer industries such as house-building and textiles
• Chemical targets not fulfilled
• Lack of skilled workers due to poor education
• Transport not developed sufficiently
• Chaos - managers desperate to achieve their targets resorted to bribery, false accounting, and illegally taking resources from other factories
• Set the tone of quantity over quality for the 5 year plans

Question 20

When was the second 5YP?

Answer 20

1933-1937

Question 21

Successes of the second 5YP? (6)

Answer 21

• Electricity production continued to grow rapidly
• Heavy industry benefited from plants set up by the first 5 year plan
• By 1937 the USSR was virtually self-sufficient in machine working and metal working
• Transport and communications grew rapidly
• Chemical industries were growing
• Some growth in consumer industries EG footwear production and bakeries

Question 22

Weaknesses of the second 5YP? (5)

Answer 22

• Overall consumer goods still lagging well behind industrial goods
• Oil production did not make the expected advances
• Issues of quantity over quality remained
• 5 year plan disrupted by purges
• Resources increasingly diverted to defence projects

Question 23

When was the third 5YP?

Answer 23

1938-1941

Question 24

Successes of the third 5YP? (2)

Answer 24

• Continued growth in heavy industry
• Defence and armaments grow massively as resources were diverted to them

Question 25

Weaknesses of the third 5YP? (5)

Answer 25

• Third 5 year plan got off to a really bad start with a harsh winter in 1938
• Continued disruption by the purges
• Steel output barely grew
• Fuel crisis when oil production failed to meet its targets
• Consumer industries took a back seat as defence took centre stage

Question 26

First three 5YPs - Positives (6)

Answer 26

• Massive heavy industry output increase -
• 4x increase in steel production
• 6x increase in coal production
• 3x increase in oil production
• Soviet state run economy fitted with Communist ideology and outperformed a Great Depression hit West in the 1930s
• Military much better equipped than before

Question 27

First 3 5YPs conclusions - Negatives (4)

Answer 27

• Quantity over quality and a system based on corruption became the norm as managers feared the consequences of not meeting targets
• Continual shortage of consumer goods as a result of prioritisation of heavy industry, poor planning and poor production techniques
• 5YPs required a huge increase in the urban workforce but housing was never built to match this
• 5YPs failed to end the black market - made worse due to shortage of consumer goods