Joseph Stalin Case

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Stalin wanted to turn the the Soviet Union from a farm and peasant country, to an industrial superpower. The New Economic Policy was created by Vladimir Lenin to solve Soviet Union’s economic flaws, and was mostly successful. Lenin came up with this policy because his previous policy of War Communism had failed. The New Economic Policy was a policy that was more capitalist based. At first, Stalin did not favor this policy because it was not fully communist, but then he realized that it was in favor of collectivization. Stalin knew that he had to sacrifice communism for the time being, in order to achieve it later. This was a policy that Stalin made appear somewhat more in their favor

for the people, but after time, it built up a strong backbone to achieve collectivization. As shown, Stalin did not back down to nearly anything when it came in between him and central control of the government.

In partnership with As shown, Stalin was a leader whose tactics and policies made him upon one of the most famous leaders of all time to this day. Stalin is a leader that will always be remembered, for the good or the bad. It was things like his labor camps, his terrifying amounts of executions, burning down Moscow, or taking over nearly every farm and industrializing the Soviet Union that set him aside from others. Though most will argue that Stalin only brought horror to the Soviet Union, many would also say that Russia would not be the world superpower it is today without Stalin.

Joseph Stalin’s obsession with central control of the economy, he forced collectivization of agriculture that affected almost every family in the Soviet Union. Collectivization was one of the 2 parts of the 5-Year Plan. It was a form of expropriation, which was the government taking land for the better of the people. Some say collectivization was meant to improve productivity of agriculture and create reserves of grains for the urban labor force. Collectivization truly was the government seizing private land owned by peasants, owners of small farms, so they could grow crops, sell them, and force peasants into industrial work. Stalin wanted to turn small family farms into a large system of farms run by the government. Nearly all all of these farmers were not in favor with Stalin and his plan of collectivization. Many of the executions and people sent to labor camps were men and women who once worked on farms but then rejected collectivization. By the end of the 5 years, almost 97% of farms were run by the government, leaving only a few privately owned farms. Stalin viewed this as a success, but most viewed this a period of depression due to the millions killed either in the labor camps or the famine that was caused by Stalin and collectivization. Stalin mainly enforced collectivization because it forced those who worked on farms, to go out and seek new jobs. The new jobs were in industries that were owned by the government and worked to achieve the economy being fully owned by Stalin and his government.

Stalin’s most famous and successful policy during his reign was rapid industrialization.

Rapid industrialization was part of Stalin’s 5-Year Plan and wouldn’t have been possible without collectivization. Collectivization forced former peasants to work in industries and evidently allowed industrialization to happen rapidly. More workers would lead the business to become stronger, and a stronger business meant that it would thrive and rapidly progress. Another reason rapid industrialization occured was because of the goals that Stalin set. His goals were a 250% increase in development, and a 350% increase in heavy industry. These goals were so unrealistic that though they were not achieved, they were so high that even the fraction they did achieve allowed industrialization to be very successful. Though industrialization happened efficiently and rapidly, there were also a great negative. These negatives were that the entire country suffered from famine due to all of the invested money into unrealistic goals, and not farm food. Overall, Stalin did mostly achieve rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union.