To what extent were Stalin(TM)s five-year plans successful?

The first 200 words of this essay...

To what extent were Stalin's five-year plans successful?

In 1931 Stalin addressed the public of Russia with a speech that showed Stalin felt Russia had fallen behind greatly in terms of economic growth when compared to the leading countries of the time. He also clearly showed his fear of being attacked and taken over by these other countries if they did not quickly make up the lag. In order to do this, Stalin went through three, five year plans, that were set to bring the country very quickly and efficiently up to the level of the countries he feared would try to "crush" his country of communism, namely capitalist countries such as the United States of America and Great Britain.

Stalin proposed his first five year plan started in 1928 and was initially supposed to work through its course and end five years later, but in December of 1929, Stalin declared the plan was now being moved into a four year plan and thus the progress would have to be made faster and quicker.

Collectivization was introduced into the system. The idea was all small plots of land used by the peasants to