Neither Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev successfully addressed fundamental economic problems which increasingly dogged the USSR after the Second World War How far do you agree with this statement?

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“Neither Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev successfully addressed fundamental economic problems which increasingly dogged the USSR after the Second World War” How far do you agree with this statement?

        After the war, the USSR was destroyed both physically and economically. The challenge for Stalin therefore was to attempt to rebuild the USSR, particularly focusing on industry and the economy in order to ensure that Russia would remain a world superpower. By the end of Brezhnev’s era however, the situation was very different. The country had undergone a period of stagnation whereby the economy had failed to improve and grow over his period in power. This was due to his lack of willingness to implement new policies in preference of a “period of stability”. I would suggest that although Brezhnev achieved very little, changes were implemented under both Stalin and Khrushchev. However, these changes were often not always overly successful.

        

Stalin did attempt to address the economic damage that the war had caused and therefore try to rebuild the economy. One way in which he did this was to alter the systems in place already in order to tackle the new problems faced. For example, he addressed the growing complexity of the economy by creating more economic ministries. Further than  this at the end of 1947, he adapted Gosplan in order to make it more focused on the economy and therefore limited the State Planning Commission to only planning (therefore transferring its previous responsibilities to arrange the necessary supplies elsewhere).  He also adapted where investment was distributed to after the war such as early investment after the war went to regions which had been occupied by the Germans (for example, Donets Region).

        Stalin also created new policies in order to boost the economy and increase production, in the form of the fourth year plan. This was successful in the way that it effectively produced large amounts of raw materials such as coal (149 million tons in 1945 to 261 million tons in 1950) and oil (19 million tons in 1945 to 40 million tons in 1950). He used shorter term targets for individual enterprises to meet. P Kenez said “even if we take into consideration the exaggerations built into soviet statistics, it is still indisputable that the Stalinist methods worked, and that the speed of reconstruction was impressive”. Overall the USSR managed to produce a 75% increase on the production of 1940 which shows its extensive success and therefore disagrees with the statement that as a leader he failed to address the economic problems faced.

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        Although it can be suggested that Khrushchev faced less of challenge than Stalin, he still introduced new economic policies which had wide spreading effects. An example of this is introducing the minimum wage in 1956 which guaranteed the workers an increased standard of living and prevented exploitation.

        Foreign trade hugely increased under Khrushchev due to his extended relationship with the west. Two thirds of the foreign trade was with Comecon countries in Eastern Europe which was also beneficial for communist relationships.

        Unlike under Stalin, Khrushchev successfully addressed the poor living standards and increased these considerably. Although they were ...

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