To change from the muzhik horse of poverty to the horse of large-scale machine industry – such was the aim of the Party in drawing up the five-year plan and striving for its fulfilment.
-Joseph Stalin [The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, Report Delivered on January 7, 1933 in Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the CPSU(B) (January 7-12, 1933)]
By 1927, the task of reconstruction had been completed, and production figures in both agriculture and industry had surpassed the peak of those of Tsarist Russia (1913). This was followed by the December 1927 Fifteenth Congress decision to start the five-year Plans, which gave another boost to the process of socialist construction.
First Five-Year Plan (1928–32):
The first five-year Plan commenced on October 1, 1928. It aimed to transform the USSR from an economically backward, agrarian country, dependent on the whims of capitalist countries, into a powerful, self-reliant, and independent industrial country that would be capable of reorganising itself on the basis of socialism and defending itself from the attacks of capitalist countries. The primary objective was to completely eliminate capitalist elements, develop a socialist form of economy, and establish the economic basis for the abolition of classes in the USSR towards building socialism.
Despite the remarkable success of the New Economic Policy, the bourgeoisie and its press ridiculed the five-year plan. They dismissed the five-year plan as mere fantasy, delirium, and utopia. But the Party’s faith in the working class and its confidence in the feasibility of the five-year plan were so strong that the Party found it possible to fulfil this difficult task not in five years, as planned, but in four years. Stalin understood that capitalist powers would continue to conspire against a solitary socialist state and would strive to weaken it in order to bring it down. In the speech ‘The Tasks of Business Executives’ delivered at the first conference of managers of socialist industries (February 4, 1931), he said, “We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries of the world. We must cover this distance in ten years. Either we achieve this, or they will crush us.” Therefore, new massive industrial centres were established. Stalin, by laying a strong foundation for heavy industries in the First five-year Plan, resolved to make the Soviet land industrially self-reliant.
By the Sixteenth Party Congress (June 26, 1930), significant successes had been achieved in both agriculture and industry, and socialism was prevailing on all fronts. The kulak class had been eliminated in rural areas, and collectivisation had advanced on a large and solid scale. At this Congress, the slogan was raised: “Complete the Five-Year Plan in four years. Then, prepare for the Second Five-Year Plan.” Later, the five-year objectives were completed in just four years, or, strictly speaking, in four years and three months, by December 31, 1932.
The extent of industrial progress can be gauged from the fact that industrial output was 334% of that of 1913 and 219% of that of 1928. Previously, Tsarist Russia did not produce tractors, automobiles, machine-tools, agricultural machinery, airplanes, etc., and relied on Europe and America for most of its machinery. The First five-year Plan made the Soviet Union self-reliant in these areas, even a giant airplane was constructed without using any components imported from abroad, except for the rubber tyres of its wheels. During this period, the Soviet Union surpassed other countries in the production of petroleum and coal, etc., becoming the world leader. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, where industry used to be negligible, solid industrial foundations were established. Unemployment was eradicated. In 1928, 7.23 million workers were employed in factories, but by 1932, this number had surged to 31 million, more than quadrupling the workforce. Thousands of new factories were built.
Between 1925 and 1958, production of the means of production in the Soviet Union increased 103 times. These successes in industries were also mirrored in agriculture. Crop-area increased by 21 million hectares. By the end of 1932, the Soviet Union transformed from a country of small peasant farms into a large-scale agricultural country based on collective farms (Kolkhozes), state farms (Sovkhozes), and the extensive use of machinery in agriculture. By 1932, the contribution of socialist industry was 70% of the national economy, and two-thirds of agriculture was organised into collective farms. These achievements of the USSR become more important as in the same period the capitalist nations suffered economic crises (the Great Depression of 1930), their industrial outputs decreased (In USA 84% drop compared to 1913 and in Britain 56% compared to 1928, similar for Germany and others), and unemployment increased (in the USA employment decreased from 8.5 million to 5.5 million).
In all branches of the national economy, the socialist victory countered the exploitation of man by man. Alongside the increase in production and industrial enterprises, remarkable success was achieved in the field of education, healthcare, transport, science, and technology (e.g., the literacy rate in the Soviet Union, which was ~28% before 1917 and 67% in 1930, rose to 90% by 1933). The Soviet Union proved that it is possible to become industrially prominent without relying on foreign capital.
Now, the imperialist media that had ridiculed the five-year Plans earlier, calling these exaggerated results, started to accept their successes. The French newspaper ‘Le Temps’ (April 1932) conceded: “Communism is completing the process of reconstruction with enormous speed, whereas the capitalist system permits only progress at a slow pace… In France, where the land is infinitely divided up among individual property owners, it is impossible to mechanise agriculture; the Soviets, however, by industrialising agriculture, have solved the problem… In the contest with us the Bolsheviks have proved the victors.” The British magazine ‘The Round Table’ wrote: “The development achieved under the five-year plan is astounding. The tractor plants of Kharkiv and Stalingrad, the AMO* automobile factory in Moscow, the automobile plant in Nizhny-Novgorod, the Dnieprostroi hydro-electric project, the mammoth steel plants at Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, the network of machine shops and chemical plants in the Urals – which bid fair to become Russia’s Ruhr** – these and other industrial achievements all over the country show that, whatever the shortcomings and difficulties, Russian industry, like a well-watered plant, keeps on gaining colour, size and strength… She has laid the foundations for future development… and has strengthened prodigiously her fighting capacity.”
*Moscow Automotive Society
**Major industrial centre of Germany
