First Five-Year Plan

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The First Five-Year Plan was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the USSR's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. Launched by Stalin in 1928 and administered by the Gosplan, the First Five-Year Plan employed tactics such as keeping detailed records on every item manufactured in the nation and shipping it to where it needed to go at the right time.

One of the primary objectives of Stalin's First Five-Year Plan was to build up Russia's heavy industry. In 1929, Stalin edited the plan to include the creation of kolkhoz, collective farming systems that stretched over thousands of acres of land and had hundreds of peasants working on them. The creation of collective farms essentially destroyed the kulaks as a class, and also brought about the slaughter of millions of farm animals that peasants would rather kill than give up to the gigantic farms. This disruption led to a famine in southeast Russia that killed millions of people. Besides the ruinous loss of life, the introduction of collective farms allowed peasants to use tractors to farm the land, unlike before when most had been too poor to own a tractor. Government owned Machine Tractor Stations were set up throughout the USSR and peasants were allowed to use these public tractors to farm the land, increasing the food output per peasant. Peasants were allowed to sell any surplus food from the land. However the government planners failed to take notice of local situations. In 1932 grain production was 32% below average^[1] to add to this problem procurements of food were up by 44%. Agricultural production was so disrupted that famine broke out in several districts.^[2] According to historian Robert Conquest the famine of the early 1930s in Russia can be blamed quite flatly on Stalin.^[1]

After the First Five-Year Plan was declared successful in 1932, agriculture was still not the highest point of the Soviet economy, but the introduction of collectivization spurred industrialization in the nation as millions of people moved from the country into the city. While the plan encouraged industrialization it damaged Soviet agriculture to such an extent that it didn't recover until after the Second World War. The plan was considered by the Soviet leadership so successful in this sense that the second Five-Year Plan was declared in 1932, lasting until 1937.