Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union: Rapid Modernization at a Cost

Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union: Rapid Modernization at a Cost

Name: Emily Olijnyk

Student Number: 0784680

HIST*2510: Modern Europe Since 1789

Dr. William Cormack

Word Count: 2480

Joseph Stalin was one of the most significant political figures of the twentieth century. As the leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953, Stalin exhibited a totalitarian style of ruling, controlling all aspects of domestic and foreign policy and employing terror and propaganda to help solidify his position. Following the death of the Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Stalin waged a war for the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Union, which he finally consolidated in 1929. Stalin inherited a nation that was socially, economically, and politically backward compared to its Western and Central European counterparts. The nation was in disarray after the revolutions of 1917, the resulting civil war, and the disastrous exit from the First World War. While the tsars of Russia and Lenin had recognized that the Soviet Union was behind in the race for European power and had commenced industrial growth, the majority of the population of the Soviet Union still belonged to the peasant class and its economy was driven by agricultural production. Following his succession to the Soviet leadership, plans were announced for the rapid modernization of Russia through two major aims: the industrialization of the economy and the collectivization of agriculture. Stalin used these two policies to drive the Soviet Union into the twentieth century and consolidate the communist values of the Russian Revolution. Much of the controversy surrounding the Stalinist era lies in judging the effectiveness of these policies in advancing the place of the Soviet Union in the twentieth century, and whether the societal costs of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization of agriculture outweighed the benefits of modernizing so quickly. This paper will argue that Stalin’s domestic policies were able to successfully modernize the USSR in a remarkably short period of time, but the cost of associated human suffering was much too high for the value of modernization. This argument will be explored through critical analysis of the first two Five Year Plans (goals and targets of industrialization to be met within five years), the purging of the Kulak class, and the planned collectivization of all agricultural output in the early 1930s. These factors will be analyzed for their impacts on economic output as well as their associated effects on standard of living and human suffering.

The aims of industrialization were laid out in what would be known as the Five Year Plans. For the purpose of this paper, and the time frame that will be analyzed, only the results of the first two Five Year Plans will be analyzed. Stalin’s first Five Year Plan was first implemented in 1928. Following the Bolshevik revolution in October of 1917, industrial production had become stagnant. The Five Year Plans arranged quotas for production output in different areas of industry. The first plan focused majorly on heavy industry, specifically steel and iron manufacturing, electricity generation, machinery production, coal mining, and oil production^[1]. Heavy industry was made the primary focus of the plan in order to stimulate production for a stronger military defence system^[2].  In order for Stalin’s main goal of rapid modernization to be met, he had to condense decades of industrial production and development into only five years ^[3]. For example, the plan called for a 250% increase in overall production and a 330% increase in heavy industry expansion^[4]. As part of these plans, all industry was nationalized and came under the control of the Soviet government. Though not all of the goals were met, and some of the figures were grossly exaggerated, significant strides were made in industrial production. Coal, oil, and iron production, as well as electricity generation increased impressively^[5]. A report delivered by Stalin in January 1933 on the results of the first Five Year Plan highlights some of the most important outcomes that were achieved. For example, it states that over the few first years, unemployment in the USSR has been abolished^[6]. As well, the report addresses the important shift in the Soviet Union from an agriculturally based economy to an industrial one: “Our country has been converted from an agrarian into an industrial country; for the proportion of industrial output, as compared with agricultural output, has risen from 48 per cent of the total in the beginning of the five-year plan period (1928) to seventy per dent at the end of the fourth year of the five-year plan period (1932).”^[7] Finally, as one of the primary reasons for focusing on heavy industry in the plan was strengthening military technology, the report also states that this aim was achieved by the plan: “The Soviet Union has been converted from a weak country, unprepared for defence, into a country mighty in defence, a country prepared for every contingency, a country capable of producing on a mass scale all modern means of defence and equipping its army with them in the event of an attack from abroad.”^[8] Within the five years since the inception of the plan, national income grew by sixty percent, with income generated majorly from factories, transportation, and construction^[9]. The first plan was declared completed within four years, which was a year earlier than its estimated target^[10]. Overall, the first Five Year Plan was successful in stimulating industrial growth in the Soviet Union. Due to the apparent success of the first plan, the second Five Year Plan was implemented in 1933, which, like its predecessor, focused mainly on production within the heavy industry sector. However, unlike the first plan, the targets in each area of production were more realistic. More emphasis was given to developing sophisticated transportation systems, which proved to be one of the failures of the first plan. The plan also was designed to increase Russian self-sufficiency and reduce imports from other countries. While the second Five Year Plan did not have the same economic achievements as the first plan did, but major successes were achieved in communication and transportation industries, and the Soviet Union became one of the top steel producing nations in the world. Overall, between 1928 and 1937, the gross national product of the Soviet Union was increasing between 9.4 and 16.7 percent per year, with industrial producer goods increasing between 17.1 and 23.8 percent each year^[11]. Stalin’s aims of rapid industrialization were most definitely achieved through his implementation of the Five Year Plans. Between 1928 and 1937, coal production increased from 35.5 to 128 million tons^[12]. In the same time frame, iron production increased fivefold, oil production from 11.6 to 28.5 million tonnes, and electricity generation from five billion to 36 billion kilowatts^[13]. The Soviet Union was able to industrialize in a fraction of the time that it took its western and central European counterparts to accomplish the same successes. However, it is important to note that these achievements came at an extremely high cost in terms of societal losses.