Emilia Perkins Year 11 History How successful were Stalins economic policies?

As soon as Lenin died, Stalin was put into power he had a fixed opinion of what he was going to do with the Soviet Unions future; he wanted to modernize the USSR. In order to achieve this goal Stalin needed to implement industrialization and collectivization. His main aim was that by achieving this goal he could erase all trace of capitalism Lenin previously left, leading into a complete socialist and industrialized state. There were many reasons for Stalin to industrialize the USSR. As he said in one of his speeches in 1931 Russia has been beaten again and again because she was backwardbecause of her military, industrial and agricultural backwardnessif you are backward an d weak, then you are in the wrong and may be beaten and slaved. But if you are powerful, people must beware of you Clearly in the previous extract of Stalin he seems upset by the way he refers to the Soviet Union as a loser who has been stayed at the back. The Soviet Union has been beaten due to the fact that she is not advanced in its military, industrial nor agricultural aspects. Therefore in order to make the Soviet Union powerful just as Stalin wanted he had to modernize the Soviet Union; collectivization and industrialization were the two main steps needed to be taken. The Five Years Plan were invented by Stalin, these had very ambitious aims to improve the production in vital heavy industries such as coal, iron, oil and electricity; all of the targets were set up in such a way that by the year of 1929 every worker knew what goal had to be achieved.
The first economic policy consisted of collectivization, a big issue was occurring in Russia. This issue consisted that as industrialization was creating more towns, more people needed to be fed. This can be appreciated as by 1928 the USSR was lacking 20 million tons of grain to feed the towns. Therefore as a solution Stalin saw that he needed to revolutionize the agriculture in the Soviet Union to feed his work force. Therefore this law consisted in making farmers work more in the agriculture to farm more and sell their crops to the government, this way the crops could be sell to the government and hence feed the workers and besides export the grain abroad to make a profit out of it. This policy was very successful in different aspects. One of Stalins successes was the fact that agriculture and life of peasants improved. In Kolkhoz which were small farms put into huge collectives was worked with more modern tools, providing better equipment for workers. This is evident by the tools they were given do their labour. This is evident as the government supplied the modern tools to the peasants for example the government gave peasants tractors provided by them from the MTS (motor tractor stations). This clearly shows that this policy helped these people and their lives as they made their lives easier, this is so because the farmers are able to plant more crops in less time therefore providing more profit to the government and not such a tired work for their selves. An increase in profit can be observed as by 1937, 97 million tons were produced for the export. Another success which Stalin managed to achieve was the fact that communism took control over the entire USSR. This can be observed as Stalin through propaganda persuaded

people or either with fear, therefore there was no room left for capitalism. This is a success because it shows that there is no opposition therefore no space for any type of revolution to take place. Nevertheless, there were several failures caused from the collectivization policy. One of those failures is the fact that stock in the Soviet Union fell incredibly this can be seen in the following table:

Source: http://www.johndclare.net/Russ10.htm Production 1937 97 ? 51 66 1933 69 23 38 50 1928 73 11 70 150 (Millions) Tons of Grain (State Procurement, tons) Head of cattle Head of sheep & goats

As it can be seen in the table above there is a siginificant amount of stock which is decreasing as time passes. This shows that there was a failure by Stalin because even though he tried to improve the agriculture, by looking at the stock decreasing instead of increasing it is immediately appreciated that Stalins attempts to improve production failed as there was no profit. Besides from the decrease in stock another failure was the problem the country faced which was lack of food. This food shortage and not being able to feed al Russian people led into a big failure by Stalin. This famine which occurred in 1932-1933 left around 10 million people dead. This is a big failure as it showed everyone Stalins evilness and made everyone live with fear.

Industrialization was another area which Stalin made in order to complete his modernization plan. This policy consisted in to improve production in steel, coal, oil and gas. New dams and hydroelectric plants needed to be built in order to create energy for the new industries. All of this progress demanded a lot of work and effort. The targets for the workers, industries, mine and factory were set up by the GOSPLAN which was the commission in charge of planning were very strict this forced people to work hard and always give their best. Industrialization brought many successes to the soviet union. One of the successes obtained was an increase in industrial production. This an be seen as coal increased from 35.4 million tons to 64.3 million tons between 1928-1933. This shows that the government was doing an excellent job and therefore this transmits that Stalin was a good leader as he managed to improve Russian industry. Another success reached by industry was that by the year of 1938 Russia had overtaken both Britain and Germany in industrial output. This shows as a success because

being over Britain and Germanys industrial output proves the fact that Stalin did a good labour on improving the industrial output over the ones from powerful countries. Although there were successes, there were big failures caused in industrialization. The first failure is the bad treatment from the government to the workers. The government was unfair and brutal with the workers. This can be appreciated by the fact that there was a period of time where workers had to work 24/7 and they could not rest as they were forbidden with abstinence and lateliness. Therefore it is obvious that workers carried a very harsh and trying schedule which is the same as torture because they could not have a rest. Apart from the terrible way of working of these workers, there is another failure which is a decrease in wages. There was a decrease in the wages from the years 1928-1937. Having a decrease of wages for 9 years is a torture for workers as they have families to maintain and they would not last with the poor wage they are receiving. This is a failure because this shows that Stalin was not so organized as he did not take any alternative for this problem during a long period of 9 years. In conclusion throughout this essay it was seen that as soon as Stalin was in charge of the Soviet Union he decided to modernize the country by his communist government. In order to complete his modernization dream he needed to achieve his collectivization and industrialization plans. Both policies were very helpful and had a big impact on the actual Russia. It was obvious that neither industrialization nor collectivization were perfect as they both had succeses and failures. Therefore in my opinion I think Stalin as a leader was not completely successful in his policies due to the fact that even though the policies were extraordinarily well planned, the way in which they were executed or the secondary effects were the main problems which led this policies into having failures. Collectivization was great as it improved the way people used to work, nevertheless I think collectivization was not so successful as the final product did not end in product instead it ended up having deficit in profits. In second place industrialization was more successful because even though workers worked in terrible conditions and were tortured at least an excellent product with profits was obtained. In summation I think Stalin was successful in his policies, but he needed to improve his ways of preventing secondary effects and having people working in good conditions.