The First Five-Year Plan is a conventional name for the first five-year plan within the framework of the accelerated industrialization of the USSR in the late 1930s. Thanks to this period of time, the country received a powerful industrial and military complex.
What were the prerequisites for the forced industrialization of the Soviet Union? The failed New Economic Policy, or NEP, namely the grain procurement crisis in 1927-1928, led the leadership to decide to change the economic course and to start reforming the entire Union system.
Years of the first five-year plan - 1928 (date of adoption of the plan) - 1932 (end date, that is, the completion of all the tasks of the first stage of industrialization).
The transition to a new policy and the adoption of the first five-year plan was announced at the 16th conference of the AUCP(b). The first five-year plan began in October 1928. It was then that the plan was adopted, but there were no clear objectives yet.
What goals did the government of the USSR set for itself? First, it was necessary to overcome the technical and general backwardness of the country; secondly, the Soviet Union had to get rid of economic dependence, primarily on military supplies; third, beforethe authorities had an important task: the creation of a powerful military-industrial complex; fourth, industrialization was supposed to provide a strong basis for collectivization.
The first five-year plan has its own characteristics:
- high pace (industrialization was called "forced");
- short deadlines (famous calls "You give a 5-year-old in 4 years!");
- disproportion in development: the predominance of heavy industry over light industry;
- implementation of industrialization through domestic savings.
The leadership of the Soviet Union used every means to attract people to the mass "construction". Hundreds of people, seeing the propaganda appeals, went and built factories, laid railways, and participated in the construction of power plants. In this era, a lot of famous Soviet posters appeared, reflecting the essence of the self-consciousness of the people at that time.
Also, during the first five-year plan, collectivization was launched, which was accompanied by dispossession. The second year of the first five-year plan would later be called "the year of the great turning point." However, not everyone knows at what cost the collective farms and factories were created. How many ruined families were deprived of their homes, how many people died from the cold…
In 1932, the first five-year plan ended. Its results were as follows:
- a powerful defense complex was created;
- unemployment was eliminated;
- economic independence of the USSR was achieved;
- the planned system of the economy of the Soviet Union has developed;
- five-year plan stimulated the country's extensive development.
The first five-year plan was successful in terms of fulfilling the tasks: DneproGES, Uralmash were created, giant metallurgical plants appeared, including a plant in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Norilsk and Novokuznetsk. The first subway was opened in Moscow, tractor factories began their work in Stalingrad and Kharkov. Thus, the USSR received huge military power and industrial independence.
