Stalin's Five Year Plan Speech
Primary Source for 04/28/2010, Joseph Stalin:
Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death in 1924. In 1928 Stalin began the First Five-Year Plan, an ambitious attempt to quickly modernize the Soviet economy. In the speech below, given in 1933 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Stalin explained the goals and results of the Five-Year Plan.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to convert the U.S.S.R. from an agrarian and weak country, dependent upon the caprices of the capitalist countries, into an industrial and powerful country, fully self-reliant and independent of the caprices of world capitalism.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was, in converting the U.S.S.R. into an industrial country, fully to eliminate the capitalist elements, to widen the front of socialist forms of economy, and to create the economics base for the abolition of classes in the U.S.S.R., for the construction of socialist society.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to create such an industry in our country as would be able to re-equip and reorganize, not only the whole of industry, but also transport and agriculture—on the basis of socialism.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to transfer small and scattered agriculture to the lines of large-scale collective farming, so as to ensure the economic base for socialism in the rural districts and thus to eliminate the possibility of the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R.
Finally, the task of the Five-Year Plan was to create in the country all the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for increasing to the utmost the defensive capacity of the country, to enable it to organize determined resistance to any and every attempt at military intervention from outside….In order to carry out such a plan it is necessary first of all to find its main link; for only after this main link has been found and grasped can all the other links of the plan be
Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death in 1924. In 1928 Stalin began the First Five-Year Plan, an ambitious attempt to quickly modernize the Soviet economy. In the speech below, given in 1933 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Stalin explained the goals and results of the Five-Year Plan.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to convert the U.S.S.R. from an agrarian and weak country, dependent upon the caprices of the capitalist countries, into an industrial and powerful country, fully self-reliant and independent of the caprices of world capitalism.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was, in converting the U.S.S.R. into an industrial country, fully to eliminate the capitalist elements, to widen the front of socialist forms of economy, and to create the economics base for the abolition of classes in the U.S.S.R., for the construction of socialist society.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to create such an industry in our country as would be able to re-equip and reorganize, not only the whole of industry, but also transport and agriculture—on the basis of socialism.
The fundamental task of the Five-Year Plan was to transfer small and scattered agriculture to the lines of large-scale collective farming, so as to ensure the economic base for socialism in the rural districts and thus to eliminate the possibility of the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R.
Finally, the task of the Five-Year Plan was to create in the country all the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for increasing to the utmost the defensive capacity of the country, to enable it to organize determined resistance to any and every attempt at military intervention from outside….In order to carry out such a plan it is necessary first of all to find its main link; for only after this main link has been found and grasped can all the other links of the plan be