Stalin's Five Year Plan
By: Andrew Chase, Kyle Sweda, and Nathan Fulgham
The First Five Year Plan
The Second Five Year Plan
Stalin expanded the goals of his previous plan and placed an emphasis on heavy industry. This plan aimed to advance the Soviet Union’s communication systems, especially railways, which improved in both speed and reliability. This plan incorporated newer methods of increasing production, including incentives, punishments, and the introduction of childcare, which motivated mothers to work and further contributed to the plan’s success. The Second Five Year Plan focus shifted toward military goods and heavy industry. The lower availability and quality of consumer goods hurt the economy. Oftentimes, factories inflated their production figures, and the products created were too low in quality to be used.
The Third Five Year Plan
The Success of the Five Year Plans
The success of the Five Year Plan was that the Soviet Union began its journey to becoming a world superpower through industrialization. The Five Year Plan also began to prepare the Soviet Union to win in the Second World War. Without the initial five-year plan, and the ones that followed, the Soviet Union would not have been prepared for the German invasion in 1941. Due to the rapid industrialization of the plan, the Soviet Union was able to build the weapons it needed to defeat the Germans in 1945.