Stalin: Nep and the First Five Year Plan

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was a measure implemented in order to counter the arguably disastrous effects War Communism. The New Economic is controversial. Some historians argue it allowed the Soviet economy to solidify and begin to recover, and also allowed the Bolsheviks to retain control over Russia. Others, like Orlando Figes, state it was ultimately a failure, arguing that under the NEP the peasants grew away from the Bolshevik regime, inviting a future, and brutal, reassertion of central control.s This essay will discuss the effectiveness of the NEP economically and politically as well as outlining War Communism and why it failed

In 1917, Russia was crumbling into pieces. The World War I was draining all of Russia’s resources. There was shortage of food throughout the country, which left people starving. At the battlefront, millions of Russian soldiers were dying, they did not possess many of the powerful weapons that their opponents had. The government under Czar Nicholas II was disintegrating, and a provisional government had been set up. In November of 1917, Lenin and his communist followers known as the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and set a communist government in Russia. However, in 1924, Lenin died and Josef Stalin assumed leadership of the Soviet Union, which was the name for the communist Russia. Stalin was a ruthless leader who brought

Communism is a political and social act where everything was controlled by the Government and the citizens having no say. Life in Russia has forever been different than that of Canada. Although Russia claims to be a democracy, its citizens do not fully know the idea of freedom. Joseph Stalin had a plan to make Russia the super power of the world but ultimately failed because communism never works. Stalin released new ideas that he thought would help improve the economy but never actually did. From the time that Stalin came into power in 1924, up until his death in 1953 he transformed Russia’s previously more week society into an active military and industrial superpower striking fear and terror into its citizens. Stalin did play a huge role in defeating the Axis power in WWII but is seen as a communist who was a ruthless ruler responsible for the deaths of over 20 million people. Although some people believe that Joseph Stalin’s plan for communism was good, in reality many horrors affected his people, the economy, and the future of Russia.

Historians argue that the 1917 Russian Revolution represents a major turning point in world history. Two specific pieces of evidence that support this argument is that the Revolution led to the spread of communism with the formation of the USSR and the emergence of Russia as a world power. Both of the pieces support the argument. The Revolution led to the formation of the USSR, otherwise known as the world’s first nation to base its government on the teachings and writings of Karl Marx. This event would not only be groundbreaking for Russia, but the entire globe. The formation of a communist nation meant a new battle was about to start -- the battle between communism and capitalism. The formation of the USSR would directly lead to the Cold

8. Stalin said: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The Five Year Plans were certainly not the most humane method to industrialise the country, but Stalin - and most other members of the Politburo - believed that the whole revolution was at risk from invasion. You have to remember that the allies had occupied most Russian ports and there was a real fear of them doing so again. Their fears were borne out when Hitler came to power, espousing extreme hatred of the Bolsheviks, and a desire to expand into the Soviet Union. The New Economic Policy, although it was more humane and less of a terrible burden on the Soviet people, was a slow, gradualist approach to modernisation - it would not have built the armament factories or so militarised the population that they would accept the privations

The USSR also known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic is a group of countries controlled by communist leaders. Created in response to WWl this time period is known as the Cold Era war.

Many reforms occurred after the end of the communist government. In the early 1990’s Leszek Balcerowicz attempted introducing many economic reforms centralizing on the idea of both liberalized foreign and domestic trade and also cut subsidies to small industries and agriculture. These reforms allowed the inflation to drop very quickly yet the economy continued to decline and the support for these programs led to a very steep economic decline. Luckily Poland was able to stride past the temporary setback and slowly climb its way up due to the guidance of the coalition government. The finance minister of the coalition, Gregorz Kolodko did not agree on overlooking the fiscal policy but in the end the coalition worked toward a market economy. Although Polish politics and their economy fluctuated a lot between power of center and center-right the ultimate goal was to reach a market economy. “By the mid 1990’s, when parliament finally passed a plan to privatize many of the largest and most politically sensitive firms, debates about economic policy were well within the framework that one would find a typical middle income market economy” (Frye, pg 221). This reform allowed Poland to reach new goals and continue in its process for a market

The Soviet Union [8], officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR[9], Russian: СССР) also known unofficially as Russia[10][11], was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple equal national Soviet republics,[a] its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Russian nation had constitutionally equal status among the many nations of the union but exerted de facto dominance in various respects.[12] Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata and Novosibirsk. The Soviet Union was one of

At the end of the Cold War, Russia was faced with many problems, a decaying military, a failing economy and a population who was learning how to change from a communist country to a democratic country. The Cold War Period had greatly affected Russia and one of the first things to be noticed by the people were when prices on goods were no longer fixed. The idea of a free market system was new and not everyone was ready to except this new Russia. The country essentially had to rebuild itself. Former satellite countries were declaring independence as quick as they could. As people throughout the world watched, they were unsure if Russia would ever be able to shake their socialist/communist history. Currently Russia is one of the leading

As we all know, the Russian was divided from Soviet the largest nation of socialism in the 20th century. But how it became Soviet in the past time? Russia has a long history and played a different role in the European world, because it have different weather and different geographic environment, the Russian history have a myth with wars and revolutions. Moscow, the main city in Russian history, plays an important role in this great empire. And it really became an empire in the hundreds of years. Same as all empires, the land was never enough; thus, the Russia started to expand. According to Woodruff’s words, in less than a century Russians had a success expand in crossing all of the northern Asian and arrived to Sea of Okhotsk (107). With those expand Russian become the largest country in the world. Tsar, the leader of Russia, has a huge wild ambition, because he had have powerful arms, during the time that world has been change, he gained many land and became way more powerful. As a result, Russia with tsar played a important role in that

Lenin's government faced a strong opposition from those who supported the tsarist regime what resulted in a long civil war that left Russia devastated. To rebuild it, the government had to abandon some socialist principles. Through the New Economic Politic (NEP), the country became to use capitalistisc ways of

Unfortunately, the NEP did not survive after Lenin’s death in 1924. His successor Joseph Stalin would usher in the Five-Year Plan replacing the NEP. Although, the NEP had improved the Soviet Union’s economy it had not been the success, the NEP it had only restored the economy to how it was during World War I. The peasants were meeting the expectations of the government which meant that although progress had been made in contrast to the discord of the days of War Communism not enough progress had been made. The New Economic Policy was created to restore a time of economic decline, poverty, and unemployment. However, the problem was in the transitioning from imperialism to communism which affirms the basic laws of social and economic laws

Many policies were reactionary to keep the Bolshevik party in power rather than to advance Soviet Russia. In 1918 there was an economic crisis within the USSR due to both the civil war and the workers and peasants gaining control of the factories and land. The government handed over the control of the factories to the workers’ committees; however industry fell apart as they were incapable of running the business. The committees were causing chaos by introducing huge pay raises and even stealing goods to sell illegally on the black market. This eventually led to hyperinflation, as there was such a severe shortage in commercial goods and the value of the rouble collapsed. This was not necessarily the fault of Lenin as it was a consequence of the poor years in both a political sense and in agriculture. The years of unrest due to the turbulence and disagreements between the Tsars and the revolutionaries had led to an economic crisis as governance of the country had been severely compromised. In 1918, after the October Revolution, Lenin pushed to introduce War Communism. The main features of this included grain requisitioning, banning of private trade, nationalisation of industry, increased labour discipline and rationing based on class system. Although this helped, it also caused additional issues and by 1921 the economy had deteriorated again at which point Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) to try to ensure the survival of the

Such economic changes didn’t go well with communists parties such as the Leon Trotsky, The Bolsheviks and various Red Army Leaders. Stalin was even blamed for the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 but he stood strong and tackled these soviet issues considering he was also entrapped deeply in the World Wars.

In 1928, the first of Joseph Stalin’s Five Year Plans, a series of nation-wide centralized economic plans for the Soviet Union, imposed communal farming on its citizens, Herbert Hoover, running on a platform of continued peace and prosperity, was elected 31st President of the United States, (“News and Events of 1928”) and Jan Tschichold, a bold, self-confident, young, typographer from Germany, published Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography), a radical new view of type and design. At first glance, the release of Tschichold’s book may not appear to carry the same significance to the world stage as Stalin’s and Hoover’s policies. While this may be true, The New Typography had a profound impact on the world of design, influencing