Assess the economic and social costs to the soviet people of the great patriotic war of 1941 to 1945

Assess the economic and social costs to the soviet people of the great patriotic war of 1941 to 1945, in the years to Stalin’s death in 1953
Introduction
Social costs during the war
Social costs after the war
Economic costs during the war
Economic costs after the war

The patriotic war caused great destruction in the USSR in terms of social and economic. Many people were killed and many more left in a poor state, much of the industry was destroyed and the USSR would take years to recover fully. But in despite all the negatives the USSRS heavy industry was the highest it has ever been
In terms of social the soviet people experienced the same harsh treatment during the war as before the war in terms of punishment. There was less purges during the war but the NKVD was still active during the war, led by Beria they still punished the soviet people if they were dishonest and disloyal to the soviet people. They were still very harsh and the soviet people despite dealing with a war also had to deal with this. The war killed up to 1 fifth of soviet people, both innocent people and soldiers, this had major impacts on the soviet people due to many families being destroyed and manpower was drawn short so people had to work longer hours in the factories. Other social costs during the war consisted of many of the soviet people being took by the Nazis and put into labour camps. These labour camps meant certain deaths and up to 100 000 soviet people were took into these camps and not many of them were to return after the war. Also during the war Stalin did some good for the ordinary people in terms of that he did reintroduce the churches to give people hope in terms of religion. This increased morale within the soviet people and made people maybe appreciate Stalin more.
The soviet during the war expected to receive great rewards in terms of their hard work during the war and they expected to receive greater personal freedom and living standards. But the people were very wrong due to the life of soviet people not changing at all after the war. They was no personal freedom like before the living conditions were also were very poor still with the needs of the ordinary population being ignored for the needs for the government. The people of Russia were de moralised because of these. After the war they started to see the western way of life which Stalin made forbidden. The western way of life had greater living conditions and the people had greater quality of living conditions. This made Stalin paranoid of the way of life which his great new enemy’s had. He therefore banned all western arts from being shown and also western fashion was banned. Therefore the Russian people continued to have extremely poor standards in terms of living standards and way of life. The ordinary people unlike the government were not allowed to leave the country. After the war they was also many more purges due to Stalin becoming more paranoid in his old age. He targeted the Jewish people in which they was persecuted in the doctor’s plot. The Jewish people all over Russia was affected badly and were fired and arrested and even executed. But mainly the soviet people still didn’t have a voice in terms in how the country was run, and even they did question the way things worked within the country they were to be persecuted by the government. The soviet people were to still live in fear for many years to come after the war due to the government not changing at all. Therefore the social costs of the war were great but the war also didn’t change much within Russia which is negative but the war didn’t have an effect on it.
The economics costs of the war were huge many of the factories were destroyed and much of the western side of the country were destroyed. Even though much of the industry was destroyed the heavy industry within Russia was higher than it was ever previously, it out produced any great power in the war in Europe in terms of the arms it could make in a certain amount of time. Many roads and railways were destroyed during the war which caused the rebuilding of the country to be even a harder task then it previously would have been without it. The war also killed many people so the factories which were now built may have had not enough man power in which they would have liked in order to deal with the new demand. The agricultural areas in Russia were also destroyed by the Germans which would could a food shortage. Even though heavy industry increased by up to 200% the overall costs of the war on the country of Russia were very high.
In terms of rebuilding Stalin reintroduced the five year plans which were in working before the war. The fourth five year plan was too rebuild the country and focused on out producing its new enemy the USA. The plan was to fix major buildings such as dams and bridges within Russia. Stalin also heavily invested in electricity. Even though the fourth year plan had great ideas like the others it was poorly attempted at. It had the problems all the other plans had such as lack of planning and due to high quotas people lied about how much they produced in their factories. Linking to social the factories which were built were still focused on the government’s needs rather than the ordinary people and the consumer products remained very poor in compared to America and other European countries. The industry side of Russia improved dramatically over this period despite its draw backs they were now one the major super powers in the world due to amount of power had within its borders due to the increase in industry. But even though the industry increased the agricultural did not recover and was still very poor due to lack of investment and people went starving all around Russia.
So overall the social costs were much higher than the economic costs during the war due to the mass devastation the war brought upon the soviet people.