Industrialization in the Soviet Union was achieved at amazing rates and is considered to be one of the most impressive achievements of the Stalin Era. Across the board, production numbers indicate an astonishing rise in output, especially that of heavy industry. However, the policies undertaken by Stalin during the industrialization drive were not prudent by any measure. The social measures introduced in conjunction with the industrialization initiative did more harm than good. In the midst of a dire shortage of technical experts, Stalin allowed and encouraged the arrest and execution of educated individuals merely because of social background and former (sometimes suspected) party affiliation. Aside from the needless loss of life, this did …show more content…
Stalin’s Five Year Plan came about after the collapse of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1928. The NEP wanted peasants off of their land on into tents and housed factories in which they would live and work there. During the time of the NEP everyone was class conscious except for the Russian peanants. With the Five Year Plan in place, Stalin wanted the USSR to be in equal if not more than the rest of the world. Unlike the NEP, the Five Year Plan had no more supply and demand. During Stalin’s Five Year Plan, peasants had more motivation to make their farms grow more. In return their goods would be sent east in return for machinery and technology. These machines only lasted for a short while due to the fact that no one in the Soviet Union knew how to make any sort of repairs on them once they broke down. In return the peasants own people were starving to death because of all of their goods from their farms were being sent away. The Great Famine peaked at this point in time claiming thousands of lives. Peasants began to store and hide their items whether it was goods or foods. Peasants were burning their own crops, slaughtering their own cattle and attacked any communist that had approached them. This was known as collectivization, unlike the NEP which was for stopping collective agriculture. The collectivization wanted to abolish the Kulak group of people