Discuss the implementation of the Five-Year Plans in the Soviet Union and their political, social, and economic effects

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Stalin's Five-Year Plans were intended to gear up the USSR's industry to compete effectively with the rest of the world, as well as to show the viability of communism to skeptics. It was reasoned that, having demonstrated that socialism in one country would work, other states would fall in line and the revolution would take place on a world scale as true communism was implemented. In reality, the Five-Year Plans were a means for Stalin to enforce his dictatorship and kick-start the economy of the USSR to prepare it for war. The Five-Year Plans were initially successful in industrializing Russia, but at great cost: in effect, Stalin declared war on the peasantry by enforcing collectivized agriculture and demanding quotas of grain and agricultural products both to feed industrialized urban areas and to provide surplus for trade. While the economy of the Soviet Union did prosper during the post-Depression years and was even one of the few places in the world that didn't suffer dramatic effects from the Depression, those who cooperated were generally fanatical communists and those who resisted or protested were exiled, killed, or sentenced to the gulag. The Five-Year Plans did, however, open positions for women in the workplace that were previously unavailable.