After, Lenin’s death in January 1924 and Stalin had overcome the other candidates in the power struggle; he needed to formulate a plan that would rapidly boost the country’s economy and industry, in order to compete with the western world. The main reason for doing this is Stalin’s paranoia, over in Germany Hitler was gradually turning the country towards fascism by any means possible, including the extermination of communists. This forced Stalin to rapidly industrialise with the intention of the USSR being able to defend itself from invasion.
Due to the fear of invasion as mentioned above and the fact that Russia were up to 50 years behind the developed countries. Russia began to rapidly industrialise with the main focus being on industry. This meant vast factories were constructed and immense show pieces were erected such as the Moscow underground. This, however, was accomplished at great cost for example 100,000 workers died in the construction of the Belamor canal. Stalin viewed the Russia as a whole and appeared not to care about the deaths of the workers, as they were part of the greater good. However, with the benefit of hindsight, Stalin was right as more would die in World War 2 if Russia had not begun to rapidly industrialise. However, Stalin’s ridiculously high targets did have a negative effect on Russia as officials began to steal resources from other factories just to reach targets. In addition to this, many factories lied about their production rates, so Russia’s industry was not as high as they claimed it was. Nevertheless, taking all this into account, the five year plan proved to be a success, with the poor, experiencing an improvement in their economic status. The production of both iron and coal quadrupled. Simultaneously, electric power production increased and 1500 new industrial plants were built. Gradually, Stalin introduced the policy of