How Successful Were The Five Year Plans In The Years 1928 39

Stalin believed Russia was a backwards country and had been beaten throughout history because of this. The USSR was 50­100 years behind the most developed countries in the world and would have to industrialise quickly or be beaten again. To do this he developed the five year plans as part of his New Economic Policy, they set targets for factories and workers to help increase production and industrialise Russia. The first five year plan was focussed on increased output in heavy industry for example coal,oil,iron,steel and electricity. The targets were set high with a demand for a 110% increase in coal production, a 220% increase in iron production and a 335% increase in electricity generation. Because these targets were very hard to reach, they often were not met, leading to falsification of many figures but there was still a great increase in output with iron and steel production doubling and electricity generation trebling. This increase led to great efforts in construction like the building of the Belomor Canal. Ben Walsh shows that this was a success of the plan as it “created a foundation on which to build the next five year plans”. This shows the first plan was successful as the rise in output allowed for the construction of new enterprises and supported the further development of industry in the next plans. However some argue that the first five year plan saw a great deal of inefficiency and waste. The workers were often very poorly trained and were more focussed on meeting targets than producing quality work which led to insuffcient goods.The historian from fhshistory.com believes that “the quality of production was often so poor that the output materials were not fit for use”. This was a weakness of the plan as it meant materials could not be used for anything more than meeting quotas. The first five year plan created new opportunities for women who wanted to work, they were provided with childcare so that they would be able to get