Joseph Stalin gained the effective leadership of Russia in 1929. Stalin's time, as leader of Russia, was to gain fame for three reasons; 1.The Five Year Plans 2.Collectivisation 3.The Purges. This essay will look at the short-term significance of Stalin’s 5 year plans. Stalin introduced the Five Year Plans as he realised that if Russia was to become a key player within the global market then the country needed to industrialise rapidly and increase its production. This brought all industry under state control and all industrial development was planned by the state. The state would decide what would be produced, how much would be produced and where it should be produced. An organisation called Gosplan was created to plan all this out. The first five year plan was from 1928 to 1932.The second five year plan was from 1933 to 1937 and the third five year plan was from 1938 to 1941 when the war interrupted it.
The five-year plans had a social impact. One example of this is the harsh living conditions. The demands which were placed on the workers, in Russia at the time, meant that millions of workers lived in harsh conditions, working on the vast projects on the interior of Russia. At the time the large emphasis on the heavy industries meant that the consumer goods were high in demand. Shops were empty, clothing was in short supply and many household items were not available. One example of the lack of consumer products is that of the fall in the standard of living due to the huge influx of people leaving the cities for the countryside. There were insufficient medical facilities, houses and schools. A second example is the propaganda that the industrial workers were encouraged to work hard by. The propaganda bombarded the workers in all directions and it played on the belief that if most workers did it then the rest would follow on as they did not want to be seen as different. A third example is that of the harsh