Essay About Socialist Economy And Successful Was Stalin

How Successful Was Stalin in Creating a ‘socialist Economy’ in the Years 1929-1941?
Essay Preview: How Successful Was Stalin in Creating a ‘socialist Economy’ in the Years 1929-1941?
5 rating(s)
Report this essay
‘How successful was Stalin in creating a ‘Socialist Economy’ in the years 1929-1941?’If we are to deduce how successful Stalin was in ‘creating a socialist economy’ in the years 1929-1941, we must first understand what this socialist economy entails. For Stalin, a ‘Socialist Economy’ was the archetypal idea of economics in Lenin’s vision of Communism and can be split into three key parts. The first of which is the state control of the economy and complete disparagement of free market or capitalist competition in business. In this, there would be intense focus on heavy industry, factories and the working economy in order to further the Communist idealism of the proletariat and the working socialist man. The second entails the agricultural economy, collectivised in order to focus all effort on the city industry. The third is the re-distribution of workers away from the farms and into the cities in order to further infrastructure and populate factories for the direct use of the state. Moving from the NEP in 1929, an economic system littered with Capitalist ideas and private ownership, to the economy recognised in 1941, which was defined by a collectivisation of farms, government controlled economy and re-distribution of workers to the cities, it can be said that Stalin was overall successful in creating this ‘socialist economy’ throughout the time period. Yet, we must also consider that Stalin had not achieved a ‘socialist economy’ in its entirety, with Capitalist ideas re-emerging through wage differentials in factories and private ownership of land in the countryside lowering the extent of Stalin’s success. Too, the lack of skilled workers hindered the success in creating a ‘socialist economy’ as capitalist ideas of competition and private specialism began to rise. Despite this, it was Stalin’s success in industrialising Russia’s heavy industry, re-distributing the workers from the countryside to the cities in the form of collectivisation and the ideological sentiment this set for the ‘modern Socialist man’ that were the most the most important parts of Stalin’s movement toward creating a ‘Socialist Economy’. In achieving these three factors, we can conclude that Stalin was successful to a considerable extent in creating a new ‘Socialist Economy’ in the years 1929-1941.In re-structuring the agricultural economy in the early years of 1929-1934, Stalin had completed his first and one of his most important steps in creating a ‘Socialist Economy’ for Russia. The manner in which he collectivised farming was not only consistent with the Communist ideals that he was trying to emulate, but also pivotal in driving the peasants out of the farms and into work in the cities, where the real socialist economy was to be created. In it’s very notion, the collectivisation process that Stalin enforced on the agricultural economy was socialist in nature, removing the private ownership of land and instead replacing it with state led farms. Larger farms would enable more output for the cities, and would make farming more efficient, with less manual labour – freeing up more peasants to work in factories. Over the period of 4 years, Stalin planned to collectivise 250,000 farms into 25,000 – and modernise the farming method to adjust to the state-led farming techniques. By 1930, Stalin had effectively persuaded 58% of peasant households in the collective farming system, and by 1933, figures were as high as 99% of all farms in Russia were under collective farms. In instilling this new socialist system of farming, Stalin saw some considerable economic results, as grain harvest increased by 1.7 million tons, whilst state procurement of grain also increased by 12 million tons. In reality however, the re-structuring of the agricultural economy had been a disaster, with 25-30% of cattle shot and killed by peasants who slaughtered livestock before they were taken away by the state. Resistance was high to the collectivisation process as many were killed in their defiance, let alone from the famine of 1932-34 which claimed 7 million peasant lives. By 1931, 50% of peasants went turned their back on collective farms and turned back to their old ways of living, with Stalin admitting in the publication of ‘Dizzy with Success’ in 1931 that they could employ private ownership of land and sell their produce without state procurement. This inkling of capitalism does degrade Stalin’s success in creating this ‘socialist economy’ in the agricultural society somewhat. However, whilst there were some imperfections and failures in his re-structuring of the agricultural economy, these can largely be disregarded when looking at the overall success of creating a ‘socialist economy’. Whilst human lives were lost, and economic output from the countryside was dismal until 1933, the figure remains that by 1934, the entire countryside (99%) was collectivised and all peasants were enrolled in this state-led farming system. Whether he had done it with some back-lash, loss of human lives, or drop in economic output – the fact remains that by 1934 Stalin had enforced this new, socialist way of living in the agricultural countryside and thus was successful in completing his first step toward a ‘Socialist Economy’ in Russia.A key facet of Stalin creating a ‘Socialist Economy’ in the years 1929-1941 was his rapid industrialisation and development of the ‘heavy industry’ which was state controlled and pivotal in getting the ‘slow moving juggernaut that was the Russian economy rolling’. The infrastructure that it helped build and the factory cities that were a by-product of the industrialisation movement were key symbols of socialism and essential to creating the industrial side of the ‘socialist economy’. Stalin first started to create this ‘socialist economy’ when he revolutionised the factories by implementing his ‘top-down’ method of management, whereby worker control and target setting was laid out by Gosplan, a government agency. The focus that Gosplan set on heavy industries such as coal and steel (raw materials) were in line with a socialist economy that demanded the workers and factories to be solely providing for the state. Stalin saw remarkable increase in output by implementing this socialist system to the heavy industry – with a 300% increase in production of coal, iron, steel, oil and machinery, whilst the electric industry was boosted by 600%. In massively bolstering Russia’s heavy industry, Stalin had made Russia relatively independent in raw materials – thus one aspect of a ‘socialist economy’ (to be self-sufficient) was achieved. The development in infrastructure enabled by the industrialisation of the heavy industry was too a key success of Stalin’s and directly contributed to his success in creating a ‘socialist economy’. Development of factory-cities such as Magnitogorsk not only contributed to the economy through its industrial output, but set the sentiment of this ‘socialist economy’ whereby all efforts of the people were directly linked to the state – so much so that the people of Magnitogorsk lived in the factories, showing Stalin’s desire to encourage the people to work for the state first before themselves. The Moscow Metro built in 1935 was not only essential as a monastery of power and strength of the socialist movement, but also served to allow urbanisation and connected the peasant countryside. This allowed an influx of peasantry into the cities to work as opposed to the farms, thus creating a more socialist economy, whereby workers were concentrated in factories and cities. The Dnieporstroi Dam, opened in 1932 only furthered the socialist economy aim of being self-sufficient, with its hydro-electric power providing so much energy that it single-handedly powered nearby industrial cities such as Zaporizkia. Re-armament from 1938 onwards was another by-product of Stalin’s successful industrialisation of the heavy industry and was consistent with socialist economy aims of providing defence systems for the state. Without a doubt, the industrialisation of heavy industry, heavy industry and resulting re-armament was the most important factor in Stalin’s creation of creating a ‘socialist economy’. Whilst collectivisation was important in setting up the idea of a socialist economy, without the basis of heavy industry to build upon and the platform of government-controlled industry, Stalin would not have been successful in creating a ‘socialist economy’. In achieving the industrialisation of heavy industry, Stalin made another imperative and his most important step in creating a ‘socialist economy’.