1st Five Year Plan

Question 1

Stalin’s aims

Answer 1

• Expand heavy industry e.g. Coal, iron and steel, shipbuilding
• Mass mobilisation of the people
• Used military language to inspire them

Question 2

The Command economy

Answer 2

• Government in charge
• GOSPLAN - replaced Vasenkha - ran the economy from Moscow
• Industries marked as priority were set production targets

Question 3

What happened to NEPMEN

Answer 3

• They disappeared as small business and shopkeepers = forced to join state cooperatives
• A series of public trials - accused of sabotaging the economy and working for foreign agents

Question 4

Magnitogorsk

Answer 4

• New industrial cities were built
• 1929 = a village of 25 people
• 1932 = a major industrial centre for steel making with a population of 250,000

Question 5

Changes to the workforce

Answer 5

• Every worker had a target to meet
• New crime of sabotage = Any behaviour that hindered economy
• e.g. being late
• Use of ‘shock brigades’ = best workers who would be brought into a new project to set an example to the other workers
• Managers had targets for their factories - could be executed for not meeting them

Question 6

Slave labour

Answer 6

• Use of slave labour from the Gulags
• Building of the White Sea Canal 1931-2
• Estimated that 10K died building it

Question 7

Success of the 1st Five Year Plan

Answer 7

• Russian economy growing at 14% a year
  = A remarkable achievement for the time as the 1930s
• The period of the World depression
• The results buttered the economy under the Tsars and under NEP
• Major projects completed e.g. Magnitogorsk/White Sea Canal

Question 8

Limitations of the 1st Five year plan

Answer 8

• Targets were too optimistic
• Transport system couldn’t cope
• Lack of planning
• Quantity targets = low quality products - e.g. Lorry tyres only lasted a few weeks
• Bribery and corruption