Stalin's and the Economy, 1926-1941

Key Dates:

• 1928- Start of Collectivisation, Start of the First Five Year Plan
• 1933- Start of the Second Five Year Plan
• 1938- Start of the Third Five Year Plan
• 1941- Operation Barbarossa

The Second Revolution:

The second revolution was the term used by Stalin referring to the future push to industrialise Russia. Stalin himself said that the aims and achievement of industrialisation would need to be done in 10 years to prevent them being crushed. The main aims of this were to increase output in order to make the country self sufficient enough to survive any hostilites, and as such also move towards a socialist economy

Collectivisation:

Collectivisation was the main method used by Stalin to increase agricultural output. Stalin believed that private farms presented a threat on their own, so he gave the option for farms to either form collectives by banding together into groups of 50-100, or become state owned farms. A lot of people went for the former under the belief it retained their independence from the state. This was also helping industrialisation due to the equal mechanisation push at the time, reducing the labour needed on Farms.

However, opposition to the plan was also prevalent in the countryside. The peasantry who opposed either option and wanted to stay as things were were labelled Kulaks, and accused of being enemies of the people and with-holding grain that was meant to be handed over for redistribution. Despite the fact that this was a myth, Stalin had OGPU (the Cheka's new name) start to de-kulakise the…