The period 1928 to 1933 marked a transition, perhaps the most decisive turning point in the history of the country of Russia. While the NEP system was not formally repudiated, official policies increasingly came to contradicts fundamental assumptions. The first five year plan (1928-1933) could be construed as a general success even though it did have its moment of failure. The first five year plan was introduced in Russia in an attempt to catch up with the more advanced west. As Stalin said 'We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years.' The focus of the first five year plan on heavy industry made huge strides in modernising industry and increasing output, in that 'Coal, iron, and the generation of electrical power all increased in huge proportion’s and Russia felt it could compete again on a scale with its western rivals. However, despite overarching economic development, many of the targets set by central panning didn't consider the quality of products or waste of materials and on reflection, highlight a number of fundamental flaws in the measurement of success of the first five year plan.

Stalin's idea of collectivisation forced the peasants to move to a commune, share the livestock and equipment whilst having to give the government their share of the revenue. 'The government figured that new technology and new farming machines, would allow mass production of food without the large amount of workers that was needed before'. Collectivisation was therefore introduced to increase efficiency and introduce mechanization. This added urgency to increase output meant that high targets were set which were met by use of the carrot and the whip, incentives but also punishments, pushing the economy towards its maximum potential making the essential contribution to the transformation of the Russian economy.

By 1940, 99% of land was collectivized. Exports such as grain, increased from 0.3 million tons in 1928 to 1.69 million tons in 1933. This helped significantly with the economies output as Russia was receiving more money from foreign countries in that the government could then spend on new, modern technology to further increase production .However Collectivisation under Stalin came to a halt when the Kulaks resisted his plan. The Kulaks fiercely refused to collectivise their farms and cooperate in giving their grain harvest to the government. This made grain output slump this is shown when the overall grain output in 1928 was 73.3 million tons and then two years after the first five year plan grain output had declined to 67.6 million tons in 1934 . These output figures are in stark contrast to the relative success in improving output seen under new economic policy. During the new economic policy grain produce increased from 37.3 million tonnes to 51.4 million tons which shows more of a growth in economic output than the first five year plan boasts with collectivisation. New economic policy however was in a time of recovery and so the economic output figures for the new economic policy are bound to be greater than that of the figures in collectivisation.

One key problem in raising output through agricultural collectivisation was that the more successful peasants - branded ‘Kulaks’ – refused to adhere to Stalin’s plan and impeded collectivisation which led to agriculture being badly damaged after the first five year plan resulting in it not recovering until the end of the Second World War. Since the government desperately needed capital for investment in industry, it tried to economise by keeping grain prices low. The unwillingness of the peasants to sell to the government at artificially low prices directly threatened the ambitious industrialisation program.

Peasants viewed Dekulakization as serfdom all over again which led them to resist more, peasants would resist in ways that would delay agricultural productions. As Sheila Fitzpatrick has suggested in her study of the Russian peasantry, 'some forms of resistance included stealing, ignoring instructions, refusal to sow the fields and overall sluggishness’ . Due to the resistance, there wasn’t enough grain to farm thus McNeil observing that this in turn lead to a larger problem in that, 'As a result, a famine occurred from 1932 until 1933' . The peasants were devastated by the famine and the government didn't do anything to help the situation. The-year long famine was man-made and not caused by the weather what so ever. Had Lenin's NEP plan still been in effect, none of this devastation would have happened .The evidence for NEP, most recently collated by Danilov, shows for a start that by the mid-twenties grain yields and harvests had matched or even substantially exceeded the pre-revolution 1909-1913 benchmark. The arable hectarage devoted to relatively input-intensive, high yielding commodity (industrial) crops had doubled.

The country's livestock herds had recovered from wartime losses and, after recovery, continued until 1928 to grow at an annual rate of 3-4 percent compared to the dormant pre-revolutionary precedent of less than one percent. Quantitative growth in livestock was accompanied by improvements in milk and meat yields. This shows that economic output was increasing within the Russian economy. However when this is compared with Livestock figures when Stalin had decided to revive collectivisation, livestock figures took a heavy fall in numbers. This became obvious more so when output of agriculture declined with cattle figures going from 52.3 million in 1930 to 38.4 million in 1933 and the harvest of grain being 83.5 million in 1930 lowering to 68.4 million in 1933. Economically, collectivisation appears to have been a disaster and clearly failed to successfully change economic output. The fact that grain harvests dropped dramatically in the early 1930s when grain was most needed and did not recover to their 1928 level (apart from 1930 which was an exceptional year) until the latter half of the 1930s is a damning indictment. However, although the overall grain harvest declined in the early 1930s, state procurements did show a success. The state collected the grain it needed to feed the rapidly growing workforce and to sell abroad to pay for industrial equipment. What is more, dispossessed peasants from the overpopulated countryside fled to the towns as Raya Dunayeskaya states that 22.8 million individuals left the farms and the peasant population declined by 20 per cent. This did however provide labour for the new factories in the towns of Russia, although this being said peasants who had only recently moved to the towns had little experience of industrial work and many perished in the hastily constructed factories. In order to increase productivity amongst these unskilled workers, labour discipline was harsh, lateness was criminalised, strikes were outlawed and workers who broke machinery were accused of being capitalist saboteurs. The enormous pressure however was counterproductive, and absenteeism and low productivity increased during the plan. In comparison, in the countryside resistance was almost exclusively passive taking such forms as the slaughter of domestic animals. Such behaviour had lasting consequences for Soviet agriculture and made recovery very difficult. Active struggle amounted to nothing more than occasional haphazard, senseless, and desperate violence – assassinations of party and Soviet leaders and the burning down of Soviet buildings. Despite such attempts to resist collectivisation, the policy succeeded in its main purpose - to provide the resources for industrialisation and increased economic output within Russia suggesting that the FFYP was successful in changing economic output in Industry despite failing to do so in agriculture.

The driving principle of the First Five Year Plan was to increase production of heavy industry and with this came a growth in economic output for Russia. This heavy industry was favoured massively over consumer goods such as textiles and food though the rise in such essential materials such as coal and steel was seen as a phenomenon within the years of 1928 - 1933 too this contributing to economic output massively and was mainly due to how little output there was of these goods before this time. One example of this being Coal production this increased from 35.4 million in 1928 to 65.4 million in 1932. Stalin was so enthusiastic and confident in the production of heavy industry that he frequently visited steel works and other big industries. In Magnitogorsk alone there was an improvement in output of cast iron producing 14.5 million tons in 1937 and 17.5 million tonnes of steel. The problem was that Magnitogorsk was near a massive mountain with vast lumps of iron but it was nowhere near the markets to get resources and sell produce. The contrast between the vision and reality was stark, as of this problem of transportation of resources to be able to meet targets of Gosplan, Corin & Fiehn show western estimates of outputs compared to the actual Russian figures which also points out the problems with Magnitogorsk in terms of infrastructure. The figures showed that despite a growth in economic output the targets being set were not being met for example oil grew from 12 million tons in 1927 a year before the first five year plan to 21 million tons in 1932 but did not meet the targets of 22 million.

The ministries responsible for Gosplan established what and how much was to be produced, as well as which technology would be used, where the factories were to be, how prices would be fixed, and what salaries would be paid. By the setting of strict targets and production criteria Gosplan essentially determined both all aspects of production and areas for future investment .

A corollary of this focus on central planning was that the data was open to political manipulation. Economists disagree about the extent of industrial growth during the first five year plan, because soviet statistics are not altogether trustworthy. The official soviet estimate of Gosplan targets being met in the first plan being 100.7% yet the Western estimate of Gosplan plan targets being met in the first plan was 65.3%. By having Gosplan in place the policy was directly focussing on economic output through target setting. In hindsight this had been far more rigorous and carefully ordered than previous attempts in implementing targets and also was far more open to political manipulation. Additionally Soviet statisticians expressing national products according to pre-plan prices overstated the extent of the growth, since the product mix to which those prices corresponded was altogether different.
Although there were problems integrating the new policy of heavy industrialisation into factories Im-pressive production facilities were constructed eventually allowing Russia to become a major global industrial player. Impressive results were achieved by a mixture of propaganda and coercion. During the years of the first five year plan, the citizens of Russia experienced a sensation that they were living in extraordinary times, where normal rules had ceased to apply. The Stalinists resurrected the utopian mentality, suspended the market mechanism and reintroduced rationing. Robin Bunce suggests that those workers were sustained by rations which provided a diet significantly poorer than that available under the NEP. Furthermore working and living conditions declined under the first five year plan as Russia concentrated on industrialisation rather than consumerism. Peasants who had only recently moved to towns had little experience of industrial work and many perished in the hastily constructed factories. Miners were allowed to work in unsafe conditions because their managers were more con-cerned about meeting government productions targets under Gosplan. This was because performances of factories were evaluated exclusively in quantitative terms, with no attention paid to quality. The So-viet government, by keeping down consumption and investing an extraordinary large share of the na-tional product in the production of goods, managed to bring about an industrial transformation in eco-nomic output. Although central planning proved to be inefficient, huge progress was made under Gos-plan due to the hard work of millions of Russian workers who laboured under the shortcomings of the system.

Aditionally, the reforms introduced by Alexander II were also embraced. The emancipation had had significant social outcomes but it failed to contribute much to Russia’s economic development. The industrial workforce expanded from 860,000 to about 1,320,000 by 1887 . Alexander's reforms also had positive effects on output, increasing raw materials such as oil from 8912.00 tons of oil in 1865 to 244,000 tons in 1887. However, you compared with the first five year plan it was considerably slower in expanding economic output than heavy industry.

Alexander's economic reforms included the expansion of Russia's rail-road system, which at the time of the Crimean War consisted of 650 miles of tracks. It was American money and engineering that between 1842 and 1851 had built Russia's first rail linking St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the 1870's the government initiated several large infrastructure programs, particularly emphasising the construction of railways. New rail-roads soon linked Russia with Western Europe, which facilitated the sale of Russian grain and oil, as well as the importation of Western goods, capital and ideas.

The 1880s saw the emergency of Sergei Witte, a qualified mathematician with a proven track record of achievement, both in the tsarist bureaucracy and the private sector. In 1889 Witte was placed in charge of the Russian railway system, where he oversaw the planning and construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Workers also constructed damns, roads and canals, which all helped to expand industry and manufacturing and led increased economic output. In the years 1861-1901 Witte’s increased the railway network from 2.2 (000 Km) to 56.4 (000 Km) though it was a commendable rate of growth in a period of just forty years, so much more could have been achieved if Witte had had access to the same resources as the policy of forced labour had.

Somewhat controversially if compared to forced labour during the expansion of heavy industry where gulags had authority to force peasants to work in poor conditions, forced labour may, in fact, been more effective in increasing economic output than Witte’s reforms and projects. ‘In the eyes of the authorities, the prisoners had almost no value, those who died of hunger, cold, and hard labour were replaced by new prisoners because the system could always find more people to replenish the labour camps’. Although forced labour may in some cases have been more effective than Witte’s reforms and policies, showing the potential of Russia’s economic output, it was used more as a political than an economic tool.

Soviet industrialisation was not planned to bring about balanced growth. The planners established class A and class B industries. Class A industries included producer goods, such as coal and iron and machine building which lead to a massive change in output as coal went from 35.0 in 1927-1928 to nearly double that in the years 1932-1933 being 65.0 but retrospectively had some drawbacks with some changes in economic output being miniscule to say the least with pig iron increasing from 3.2 in 1927-1928 to 6.2 in 1932 . Class B industries included consumer goods. Central planning called for much higher rates of growth in class A than in class B industries. In an economy of scarcity, where decisions constantly had to be made about the allocation of scarce resources, the economy functioned on the basis of the priority method. If resources had to be allocated to which industry they had to go to then priority would be that of heavy industry over a stagnating, and on occasion even declining, light industry. In reality the disproportion of growth was far greater than anyone originally envisaged.

Plans produced by, Gosplan, with the authority to organise the production of the entire Soviet nation, placed emphasis on capital investment for building industrial capacity in heavy industry and placed light industry on a secondary footing. In comparison, NEP did allow the development of light industry an example of this being the new small businesses and market stalls appearing in the towns of Russia . This however lead to a political problem with the growth of NEP men. The subsequent disapproval of the NEP system meant a declaration of war on ‘class enemies’, as defined by the new Stalinist leadership, as NEP men were dispossessed and Capitalism made a comeback, the kulaks destroyed, the leadership also attacked what it considered a remnant of the social order. The activists called for a new ‘cultural revolution’, which would contribute to the transformation of the social political order. Many activist especially the young, had found the policies in the 1920’s unacceptably liberal. As Fitzpatrick, R W Davies and L Viola have all found evidence of the pressures to modernise from the rank and file of the Communist Party their research shows that there was a high level of disillusionment with the compromise of the NEP. Thus the forced industrialisation of the FFYP was supported by sections of the population in a view that challenges the notion that the economic policy was merely an instrument of Stalin’s dictatorship. This demonstrates that industrialisation was introduced to change Russian economic output than just to strengthen Stalin's dictatorship and was successful in doing so.

The first five year plan established a framework for Soviet economics within which the country operated as long as it existed. Works by Western commentators during the 1930’s tended to see Stalin’s reforms in a positive light. Commentators with communist sympathies reported about the ‘Great Socialist Experiment’ and were generally positive. Subsequently Russia achieved more than it ever thought it could do. Russia did not have an iron and steel industry for the basis of industrialisation before this time and now they had one amongst other industries they had never had before such as a chemical industry. In addition to this Russia did not only create these great new industries but they created them on such a scale and dimensions that competed with the scale and dimensions of the European industries. As a result of this Russia had been converted from an agrarian into an industrial country; for the proportion of industrial output, as compared with agricultural output, has risen from 48 per cent of the total of the beginning of the first five year plan period (1928) to 70 per cent at the end of the fourth year of the five year plan period (1932). Although the Economy was unbalanced and focused far more on heavy industry output this aspect of the economy was by far the most successful change to economic output. It wasn’t necessarily that the whole economy prospered in increased economic output within the first five year plan but rather that economic output was skewed towards the class A industries.

Although the objectives of the first five year plan had not been fully reached there was tremendous growth in industry between 1928 and 1933. Stalin had taken a huge step towards Russian industrialisation albeit at the expense of the citizens who were starved and overworked. Eighty years later it is clear that extreme industrialisation was not the right choice for the Russian economy. More concentration on agriculture (without collectivisation) and consumer goods would surely have been better for the health and contentment of its workers. In my view, too much investment in heavy industry and lack of attention and detail to consumer demand ultimately led to the break up of the Russian republic in 1990.

Section B

To get a broad perspective of the period within which the question applies, I used Peter Oxley's 'From Tsars to Commissars'. Significantly the book showed the development of the Russian economy as a whole. This was particularly helpful as this book combined extended period cover with accessible text supplemented by 'Spotlights', providing detailed study of sources on key policies such as NEP and Alexander the II's reforms. The source was limited in some aspects however being as it is written specifically for the new AS/A2 examinations and so because of this overlooked some important issues an example being the policy of collectivisation.

In addition to this, the next source I used was S. Philip’s 'Stalinist Russia'. This source like Oxley produces an extended cover of the period, producing a balanced piece of work especially since Philip’s has written other works for examinations on the same historical period such as ‘Lenin and the Russian Revolution’. The A2 section also includes a variety of historical interpretations from the likes of revisionist historians S. Fitzpatrick, R. W. Davies and L. Viola and outlines issues such as NEP which I have referenced in my work to support my enquiry. Conversely the source is limited as it was written fourteen years ago so will not include recently discovered information on Russia’s economic output of that time period, as well as including an unfocussed overview of the period with simplistic tables lacking depth.

Also in my enquiry I used the article 'Stalin and the Soviet Economy'. This source was especially useful as it's overview of the first five year plan gave me insightful knowledge into which policies were introduced within the period of 1928-1933 and gave me precise figures on Russia's change in economic output particularly showing me growth in producer goods such as iron ore and coal. The source also explored industrialisation thoroughly and explained why the first five year plan's economic output prospered from this policy. The source as mentioned however is a brief overview of the entire first five year plan and like Oxley overlooks collectivisation only mentioning it slightly.

However the most useful source I used focuses more on the policy of collectivisation. I used J. Lewis' and P. Whitehead's 'A time for judgement'. This source was useful as unlike Oxley and the article 'Stalin and the Economy' it concentrated more in-depth on collectivisation and how its grain requisitioning policies changed economic output. Subsequently the authors of this biography have travelled to the homes of the survivors of Stalin's time where they have gathered contemporary information from witnesses of Stalin's regime. This makes the authors works reliable as they produce a direct view of changes in Russia's economic output with the combination of eyewitnesses and hindsight of the period.

In Conclusion, I am satisfied with the sources I chose to help in my historical enquiry. I feel that after studying the different perspectives that they raised, I was able to draw on my own balanced conclusion on the subject in question.

Bibliography
Bunce. R & Gallagher, L. ‘Edexcel AS History Unit 1 Stalin’s Russia 1924-1953’ (Harlow, 2008)
Corin, C & Fiehn, T. Russia under Tsarism and Communism, (London, 2002)
Danilov, P. Sovetskaya, dokolkhoznaya, derevnya: naselenie, zemlepol'zovanie, khozyaistvo, (Moscow, 1997)
Dunayevskaya, R. ‘An Analysis of Russian Economy – Mechanization and Unemployment in the Countryside’ in New International 1942, IV (1943).
Fitzpatrick, S. Stalin's Peasants (Oxford, 1994)
Lewis. J & Whitehead, P. Stalin: A Time for Judgement (New York, 1990)
Mcneal, R. Stalin: Man and Ruler (New York, 1988)
Nove, A. An Economic History of the USSR, 1917-91, (1992)
Oxley, P. Russia 1855-1991 from tsars to commissars (Oxford, 2001)
Philips, S. Stalinist Russia (Harlow, 2000)
Pravda. 1913, 1922 and 1928 figures from Gosplan: State Planning Commission for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR: The Five Year Plan; 1932 and 1937 figures from Gosplan: Results (of respective plans); 1940 figures from re-ports to the eighteenth conference of the Russian Communist Party, appearing in Pravda, February 18-21, 1941.
Shulman, E. Stalinism on the frontier of Empire: Women and State formation in the Soviet Far East (Cambridge, 2012)
Tarr, J. R. Worksheet from Economic figures 1861-1901

Online resources:
Gulag:Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom" (PDF). Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Retrieved November 15, 2012. www.historylearningsite.co.uk/collectivisation.htm www.studymode.com/essays/How-Far-Do-You-Agree-That-1309612.html

Word count excluding Bibliography: 3,999