Stalin: Nep and the First Five Year Plan

Before the nation of Russia became the international powerhouse that we knew as the USSR, it was first the small backwater country, whose economy ran on the use of serfs, Czar's ruled every aspect, and the chance of growth was limited; however, once the year 1917 came along, the entire aspect of what was to be the Russia nation changed into a very strange and new one, called the United of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was, at one point, second only to the United States of America and had the power to destroy the entire planet with the single acknowledgement of their leader, because of their nuclear capabilities and their political power. The Russian country became the great Communist powerhouse after a great revolution in 1922, when the provisional government was overturned and the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, took power over the chaotic and backward country. Once the Communist's took power over the nation, they began to make sweeping changes that would, eventually, lead the people into a golden age, where Russia had true power and could sway other countries into joining them because of their great power; the hopes and dreams of a nation, that they would one day reach such great political and military might, were realized due to the surrender and defeat of Nazi Germany at the end of World War Two, because, before the war had started the Soviet Union hardly had any industrialization or protection for any for of mechanical or modernized fighting force; though, because of the actions and plans laid out by Stalin, the USSR was able to overcome and triumph over the technologically advanced nation. Along with the creation of the new state, new leaders and statesmen emerged from the great cauldron known as the Communist party, some of these included Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Although there were many great leaders of the nation, this paper will consist of Stalin and what his impact on the Soviet Union was, as a result of the NEP and the Five Year Plans, first and second. The aspects of the first five year plan instituted by Stalin include the collectivization of farms and the peasantry, massive industrialization of the city and factories and a dramatic increase in the level of raw goods procured by the mines, farms, electricity facilities, and factories. As with war communism and the NEP, the Five Year Plan was introduced in order to provide the means with which to begin the rapid growth of the Soviet economy and industry; the reason for Stalin's want to industrialize his nation was due to the fact that at the end of 1926, it was predicted that it would take almost fifty years to catch up to other foreign economies. After the NEP ended, the first five year plan was initiated; the main points of the FFYP (First Five Year Plan) were the development of heavy industries and national defense. Was Stalin's introduction of the First and Second Five Year Plans the reason for the immense growth of the Soviet nation, or was it another nail in the coffin of the slowly dieing state?

Due to the low level of development and stagnant economy, the Communists began to formalize a new type of economic policy after the realization that the previous one, War Communism, began to erode the already fragile nation; therefore, Lenin began to design and instigate a new policy called the New Economic Policy. The problem with promoting the NEP, was not the actual action there of, but was, in fact, the political ramifications of doing so; Communism is the policy of a centralized government, with no private ownership, and the New Economic Policy actually proposed that peasants would be allowed private ownership, there within held the problem. Many of the original and new Bolsheviks felt that the NEP would infringe on the basic Marxist-Communist policies and began to bring Capitalism back into Russia. However, as close as the NEP got to capitalistic idea's, it kept the fundamental heavy industries which were foreign trade, banking and the heavy industries; therefore, the use of the NEP was allowed for the following years. After the experiment with the New Economic Policy was tested for almost seven years, it was decided that it would be ended, due to the ever growing need for faster and better development of the Soviet economy, technology and industrialization. The NEP was primarily used to bring the nation out of a deep economic and social trough, which had killed millions of people, because of famines and revolts. While the Marxist-Communist idea was indeed kept throughout the entire endeavor, capitalism was brought back into the economic side of Russia; it was felt that the NEP would be "Building Socialism with Capitalist Hands" , though the idea of using any form of capitalist ideas or practices would explicitly go against the Marxist, communist and socialist policies, that was the main feeling behind many of the leading Soviets at the time.

As despised as the idea of using Capitalist values in a Communist nation, certain problems incurred the leaders to go even farther away from the policy of the New Economic Policy: the hyper-inflation and the "Scissors Crisis". During the beginning of the new policy, the economy was almost about to collapse and the prices especially those contributing to agriculture, were absurdly high, causing the government to change their money policy to one of a Gold standard, or a chervonets. The new policies on money gave a small reprieve to the ever growing inflation problem, though it also caused difficulties in wage payments at factories, which instigated strikes and disorders. The "Scissors Crisis", of 1923, was when the retail prices of industrial goods were three times greater then they had been in relation to agricultural goods, as related to 1913. The crisis was caused by the influx of agricultural goods, causing their price to lower, while the price of industrial goods continued to grow, at one point tripling since 1913. Because of these problems, a few of the original followers of the NEP went against it, even further following those against capitalism; at this point, one begins to see the end of the New Economic Policy and the beginning of Stalin's great plans. The reason for this change from the New Economic Policy was because of these mounting problems: poverty, ill-health and illiteracy; urban unemployment; military insecurity; problems in industrial production; the spread of political apathy; the isolation of the party from most sections of society. With the build up of all of these problems, Stalin was able to begin the break up with the NEP and move towards his Five Year Plan.

At the beginning of 1928 Stalin began to break down the system of the New Economic Policy, in order to lay down the road for his Five Year Plan, which he felt would help to bring the economy back to primarily Communist ideals and into the