STALIN´S ECONOMIC POLICES: SUCESS OR FAILURE? INDUSTRIALISATIONCOLLECTIVISATIONReasons the policy was adoptedThe policy was adopted because Russia was a country in which almost the industry was concentrated in just a few cities and whose workers were unskilled and poorly educated. Many of the regions were in the same backward state as they had been 100 later. Stalin said:” If you are backward and weak you may be in the wrong and may be beaten and enslaved. But if you are powerful people must beware you”Stalin needed to modernize the USSR´s agriculture. This was vital because the population of the industrial centres was growing rapidly and in early 1928 the country was 2 million tons short of grain it needed to feed its workers. Stalin also wanted to try to raise money for his industrialisation programme by selling exports of surplus food abroad.Measures to be takenHe set a series of FIVE-YEAR PLANS.He set the GOSPLAN: target for production in the vital heavy industry: COAL, IRON, OIL, ELECTRICITY. Each region was told its targets, then each mine, factory, etc, then each manager, then each foreman, then each individual worker. By 1929 every worker knew what he or she had to
achieve.Peasants were to put their lands together to form large join farms ( kolkhoz) but could keep small spots for personal use.Animals and tools were to be pooled together.Motor Tractor Stations (MTS) , provided by the government, made tractors available.Ninety per cent of Kolkhoz produce would be sold to the state and the profits shared out.The remaining ten per cent of produce was to be used to feed the kolkhoz. Government tried to sell these ideas offering free seed and other perk to peasants.Successes of the policyFirst new dams and hydroelectric power fed industry´s energy requirements.Then heavy industry was still ...
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achieve.Peasants were to put their lands together to form large join farms ( kolkhoz) but could keep small spots for personal use.Animals and tools were to be pooled together.Motor Tractor Stations (MTS) , provided by the government, made tractors available.Ninety per cent of Kolkhoz produce would be sold to the state and the profits shared out.The remaining ten per cent of produce was to be used to feed the kolkhoz. Government tried to sell these ideas offering free seed and other perk to peasants.Successes of the policyFirst new dams and hydroelectric power fed industry´s energy requirements.Then heavy industry was still a priority: Stalin exploited Siberia´s rich mineral resources.Transport and communications: new railways and canals were built. Most spectacular: Moscow underground railway.Productions of tractors and other farm machinery increased.In four years they had: iron and steel industry, machine tool industry, modern chemicals industry, and agricultural machine industry.By late 1930 workers had improved their conditions by acquiring well paid jobs. Unemployment was almost non-existentEducation became compulsory for all: Stalin invested huge sums of money in training courses in colleges and work place.In 1940 Russia had more doctors per head of population than in BritainThe collective farms despite their inefficiencies, did grow more food than the small farms.Collectivisation also meant the introduction of machines into countryside.Two million peasants leant how to drive a tractor.New methods of farming were taught by agricultural experts.The countryside was transformed.By 1934 there were no kulaks ( prosperous peasants who owned small farms)By 1941 almost all the agricultural land was organized under the collective system. Stalin had achieved his aim of collectivization. Stalin said that collectivization had been a success.Failures of the policyLife was harsh. Factory discipline was strict and punishments were severe.TO prevent workers from moving to other jobs the secret police introduce internal passports which prevented free movement of workers inside the USSR .Concentration on heavy industry meant that there were few consumer goods ( such as clothes or radios) which ordinary people wanted to buy.Stalin was asking peasants to abandon a way of life that they and their ancestors had led for centuries. The human cost of the policyShortage of workers: in 1930 the government concentrated in drafting more women into industry.On the great engineering projects( dams , canals) many of the workers were prisoners who had been sentenced to hard work for being political opponents, or suspected opponents of Stalin, for being kulaks ( rich peasants) or for being Jews.There were many deaths and accidents: 100.000 workers died in the construction of the Belomor Canal.Most housing was provided by state, but overcrowding was a problem: most families lived into two rooms which were used for living, sleeping and eating.Wages fell between 1928 and 1937. Stalin wanted industrialization even with the cost of destroying the way of life of the Soviet people.Muslim leaders were imprisoned or deported, mosques were closed and pilgrims to Mecca were forbidden. The peasants were concerned about the speed of collectivization. They disliked the fact that the farms were under control of the local Communist leader.Kulaks who owned their own lands were opposed to this collectivisation. Soviet propaganda tried to turn people against the kulaks, so requisition parties took the food required by the government, often leaving the peasants to starve. Kulaks were arrested.Countryside was in chaos.Food production fell and there was famine. We think that Stalin used human beings to achieve material things : industries, railways, dams, canals , big farms, high exportation of food to foreign countries, economical development but his aim was not the people, his aim was to be a powerful country ready to afford new wars and not to be beaten , he wanted to have the most powerful country in Europe. To achieve this, the workers, the peasants, the owners of farms, that´s to say the low classes, suffered , they were the ones who died while building big canals or railway, they were the ones who suffered famine, they were the ones who lived in inhuman conditions sharing crowded rooms , they where the ones who had to give the government their small farms and their production. We think that in a way it was a slavery system, they couldn´t have their own property or choosing their own job. People could not be free, and if they dare to think differently and say so, if they tried to change job, they received severe punishment. From the point of view of Stalin, both polices were a success, because Russia became the powerful country he wanted it to be, but the human cost was high. The measures taken to achieve the aims were not the proper ones, because the centre of those polices should have been the human being. Stalin didn´t mind about the human being, he didn´t mind about the human sacrifices , the human suffering and the human lost to achieve his aims.
