FOURTH YEAR GCSE

AN EVALUATION OF INDUSTRIALISATION UNDER STALIN

Stalin’s industrialisation - evaluation:



According to official figures production in engineering, electrical power, tractors, iron, steel and chemicals, coal and oil developed dramatically
However,
many of the figures were faked / inflated

Probably:
Coal production: rose from about 40 m. to about 132 m. tons.
Steel production : rose from about 4.9 m. to about 18 m. tons.
Oil production : rose from about 13.8 m. to about 32.2 m. tons.

Industrial production: the true rate of growth was probably only about 3.5 percent per annum, about the same as that of Germany over the same span of time.

* Initial enthusiasm of workers tailed off when targets increased dramatically and became completely unattainable.

* Gosplan made no allowance for local conditions and often had no knowledge of the industries it was dealing with (the planners were only party officials)

* sometimes the targets were irrational (not uniform within an industry)

* the first plan was cut short by one year

* agricultural production fell disastrously as peasants flocked to cities in search of higher wages in industry (12.5 million new workers were reported to have entered urban work, 8.5 million of them from the countryside)

* these workers were often poorly educated and were inexperienced at handling machinery

* many engineers, technical experts and skilled workers were arrested (eg Donbass area half of engineers and skilled workers were arrested by 1931 in so called Skakhty Trial)

* the emphasis was on quality rather than quantity (eg 1928-32 50,000 tractors built, 50% broke down)

* there was insufficient investment capital (most of this was supposed to come from increased production)

* the Baltic–White Sea Canal, supposedly completed in 1933, employed some 200,000–300,000 forced labourers but proved almost useless

* The characteristic fault was “giantism”—the party's inclination to build on the largest and most ostentatious scale. One result was that there were continual organisational problems.

* maintenance and infrastructure were neglected, with negative long-term results.

* there was a 40% drop in workers' buying power between 1927/28 and 1930/31, while at the same time the cost of living went up by 150-200%.