Was Stalin Necessary

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Was Stalin Necessary?

Kate Ashton

To answer the question ‘was Stalin really necessary?’ it is important to look at what he achieved in his 24 years from 1929 as leader of the Communist Party in the then USSR.

Stalin was responsible for many good ideas. He wanted to modernize the USSR and as most of the industry was squeezed into just a few cities leaving the rest of this huge country in the same backward state it had been in a hundred years earlier, he realised that to be powerful he had to have more successful farming and industry as well as military power. He ended Lenin’s NEP (New Economic Policy) and set up a series of five year plans setting targets for the production of coal, oil and electricity in each region. Huge steel mills and dams were built wherever there was a natural resource and towns were built around them. Other countries were impressed and amazed at the speed at which these industries were started and made successful.

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In 1930 Stalin had realised that there was a general shortage of workers and so he decided to get women in to work by setting up thousands of new crèches and day care. By 1937 women made up 40% of the industrial workers, 21% of building workers and 72% of health workers.  By 1937 the USSR was a modern state and a powerful one. It was almost definitely that fact that saved it from defeat when Hitler invaded during the Second World War

By the end of the 1930’s most Soviet workers had very much improved conditions and ...

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