First five-year plan

This article is about the first five-year plan in the Soviet Union. For other topics, see Five-year plan (disambiguation).
Propaganda stand dedicated to the first five-year plan in Moscow. 1931 colour photo by Branson DeCou.

The first five-year plan (Russian: I пятилетний план, первая пятилетка) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economic goals, implemented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, based on his policy of socialism in one country. Leon Trotsky had delivered a joint report to the April Plenum of the Central Committee in 1926 which proposed a program for national industrialisation and the replacement of annual plans with five-year plans. His proposals were rejected by the Central Committee majority which was controlled by the troika and derided by Stalin at the time.[1] Stalin's version of the five-year plan was implemented in 1928 and took effect until 1932.[2]

The Soviet Union entered a series of five-year plans which began in 1928 under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Stalin launched what would later be referred to as a "revolution from above" to improve the Soviet Union's domestic policy. The policies were centered around rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. Stalin desired to remove and replace the mixed-economy policies of the New Economic Policy.[3][a] Some scholars have argued that the programme of mass industrialisation advocated by Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition was co-opted after Trotsky's exile to serve as the basis of Stalin's first five-year plan.[4][5][6][7][8] According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters as industrialisation and collectivisation.[9]

The plan, overall, was to transition the Soviet Union from a weak, poorly organized agricultural economy, into an industrial powerhouse. Its grand and idealistic vision, enforced through Stalin's various ministries, saw planners and builders often disregarding practical constraints as they worked to meet demanding schedules, with the possibility of facing severe consequences for failure to do so.[10][11]

  1. ^ Rogovin, Vadim Zakharovich (2021). Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Mehring Books. p. 358. ISBN 978-1-893638-97-6.
  2. ^ "The First Five Year Plan, 1928–1932". Special Collections & Archives. 2015-10-07. Retrieved 2019-02-23.
  3. ^ Kotkin, Stephen (2017). "Chapter 1: Triumph of the Will". Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1594203800.
  4. ^ Carr, Edward Hallett; Davies, Robert William (1971). Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926–1929. Macmillan. p. 199.
  5. ^ Phillips, Steve (2000). Stalinist Russia. Heinemann. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-435-32720-0.
  6. ^ Fitzpatrick, Sheila (2008). The Russian Revolution. OUP Oxford. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-19-923767-8.
  7. ^ Lee, Stephen J. (2005). Stalin and the Soviet Union. Routledge. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-134-66574-7.
  8. ^ Payne, Anthony; Phillips, Nicola (2013). Development. John Wiley & Sons. p. 1936. ISBN 978-0-7456-5735-6.
  9. ^ Fitzpatrick, Sheila (22 April 2010). "The Old Man". London Review of Books. 32 (08). ISSN 0260-9592.
  10. ^ "Collectivization and Industrialization". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  11. ^ Holland, Hunter (1973). "The Overambitious First Soviet Five-Year Plan". Slavic Review. 32 (2). Cambridge University Press: 237–257. doi:10.2307/2495959. JSTOR 2495959. S2CID 156723799.


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