History, Stalin and the first Five-Year Plan - Essay Example

The method dealt here is to access and analyze the discussed sources, learning through the sources the viewpoint held by the authors and discussing their utility in providing knowledge about the plan while at the same time critically analyzing the plan itself. Joseph Stalin, Soviet Communist leader, became famous for his ‘flaws’ as much as for his ‘ambitious industrial drive’. Both the characteristics are contradictory as are the views that various people hold about him. As the USSR went through turmoil after WWI and the civil war Stalin’s Five Year Plan ostensibly set out to provide greater strength to USSR in order to keep the Western Capitalist influences at bay.

Through the evidence suggested, it however becomes clear that the results of five-year plan were more a ‘fantasy’ than ‘reality’. However, disregarding the plan as complete failure would be a failure on our part to access the plan completely. The plan was implemented with the single objective in mind, that of technically advancing the USSR in order to cut down its dependence on western countries and to provide a means for working class people to believe in the socialist system. The plan was a success in that while the capitalist countries were suffering the effects of the great depression and, mass unemployment, the USSR was going through a rapid change in terms of its industry and agriculture.

It is important to note that USSR implemented its plan without the help of foreign investments. There were huge investments in heavy industry as well as light industry. The development programs included the tractor plants of Kharkov and Stalingrad, the AMO 1automobile factory in Moscow, the automobile plant in Nizhni-Novgorod, the Dnieprostroi hydroelectric project, the mammoth steel plants at Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, the network of machine shops, and chemical plants in the Urals. The face of Moscow changed in a short span with new buildings, schools, hospitals