How far were the socio-economic policies of Stalin aimed towards the modernisation of Soviet Russia?

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Stalin was under a growing amount of pressure from the deadlines of the five-year plans, he needed desperately to find a quick solution, collectivisation seemed like a way, not only to stay on track with the deadlines, but it seemed like a way to modernise the economy. Making peasants work collectively for little or no profit as a unit seemed like a more efficient way to generate economic growth. Collectivisation was said by historians such as Robert Conquest to be 'unjustifiable', however there is a bias that Robert is not Russian and is writing over 40 years later. It is clear that collectivisation did achieve at the very least, hope for the success of the five-year plans, a secure grip on communism and a rising productive efficiency.

Foreign invasion was feared by Stalin but was becoming very common, Stalin wanted to ensure the safety of the USSR by increasing agriculture. Stalin needed food for his soldiers and he needed a source of income, he used collectivisation to produce copious amounts of food which could be traded to other countries. Although the results of collectivisation were violent and it has now been estimated that ten million peasants and Kulaks died. Stalin did use the opportunity to reduce foreign threat by not only collectivising the countries agriculture but collectivising the countries people.

The first of the five year plans was named collectivisation, it was an idea mening that all the peasant farmers were to work on one big farm to benefit the state. Many say that Stalin enforced collectivisation to tighten his grip on the Soveit Union, Stalin used the Kulaks as a scapegoat to blame and by sending millions of them to labour camps it diverted the attention from his wrong doings onto the Kulaks. This is known as using terror tactics, scaring peasants into complying with his demands. By using collectivisation Stalin is cleverly dispersing any remaining forms of capitalisim out of Russia, because many capitalists will not want to comply with these rules, they will move, this is further securing his grasp on leadership. This would severly reduce the chance of a threat via revolution, although peasants would not like the plan as they are excluded from making any surpluses.

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 There is alot of convincing evidence which suggests that the cultural revolution was a policy aimed directly at modernising The Soviet Union and after the NEP comprimised, the cultural revolution was viewed as a radical step towards a socialist utopia, many young communists were given promising job opportunities. This suggests that Stalin wanted everyone in job occupation so that Russia could be at full productive output. Stalin wanted to convert Russia into a technological metropolis, this is suggested by ' the space race '. Stalin in just 30 years wanted to compete with the USA and brake the boundaries ...

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