Stalin's Russia: Economy

Stalin's Russia and it's economy:

Before Stalin was in power, there was an ecnomic plan set in place to bring about improvements. This was the NEP (new economic policy). This was an idea proposed by Lenin as a form of temporary capitalism. This legalised private trade, replaced grain requisitioning with 'tax-in-kind', and eventually re-introduced money.

However, things soon changed as many communists didn't agre with the capitalist idea's, and wanted a more idealogical economy. Stalin set about doing this in several ways. One way he did this was through collectivisation. This was a plan where by all of the farmers of Russia would come together to work collectively and boost grain production and increase yield.

Problems: There were several problems with this idea. For one, Stalin had set about purging all of the farmers which had profited during the NEP, called kulaks. This was known as dekulakisation, and it left Russia with only famers who were not all that successful at what they did. Another problem with collectivisation is that most farmers did not want to be part of it. Many of them, particularly in the later stages of the plan, would burn the grain so that the state could not have any. And finally, with emphasis from the stae being put on urbanisation (moving into urban areas), the size of the work force was dramatically decreasing, only making the over all problem worse.

The First 5 Year Plan (October 1928- December 1932):

This was another plan set by Stalin which outlined targets that needed to be met within 5 years. The main aim of the first plan was to increase heavy industry productions, which…