The transformation of the USSR into a highly developed industrial and military power began with the Stalinist five-year plans, with the five-year plans for the development of the national economy. These were state long-term plans for the economic and cultural development of the Soviet Union.
The first five-year plan fell on 1928-1932, the second - in 1933-1937, the third began in 1938 and was supposed to end in 1942, but the implementation of all plans of this period was prevented by the attack of the Third Reich in June 1941. However, the Union has stood the test of the war. At the end of 1942, our country produced more weapons than Hitler's "European Union" - Germany with its united Europe.
It was a real Soviet miracle. The country, which in the 1920s was an agrarian country with a weak industry, has become an industrial giant. Thousands of large enterprises and dozens of new industries were created in the USSR. Already in 1937, more than 80% of industrial products were produced in new factories and plants. In terms of industrial production, the Union came second in the world, behind only the United States, and first in Europe, overtaking such strong industrial powers as Germany and Great Britain.
Taking into account the fact that Soviet Russia was constantly under the pressure of a new war with the West or Japan, great efforts and funds had to be spent on the development of the military-industrial complex in order to equip the army with new weapons and equipment: aircraft, tanks, ships, guns, air defense systems and etc. The threat of an attack from the West and the East predetermined the accelerated development, its mobilization nature.
"Industrialization - the path to socialism." Poster. Artist S. Ageev. 1927
At the same time, there was a threat from within - from the “fifth column” (Why Stalin's repressions were necessary). From the very beginning, the Bolshevik (Russian Communist) party had two wings: the Bolshevik statesmen led by Stalin and the internationalist revolutionaries, cosmopolitans, Trotsky was the leading figure among them. For the latter, Russia and the people were "dung" for the implementation of plans for a world revolution, the creation of a new world order based on false communism (Marxism), which was one of the scenarios of the masters of the West to create a global slave-owning civilization. This is the "secret of 1937". Russian communists were able to take over the cosmopolitan internationalists. Most of the "fifth column", including its military wing, was destroyed, part of it was hidden, "repainted". This made it possible to prepare for and win a world war.
During industrialization, much attention was paid to the spatial development of Russia. The development of the Urals and Siberia. Already on the eve of the adoption of the first five-year plan, it was planned to locate strategic production facilities there. This speaks, firstly, of the need to develop the Russian expanses in the east of the country. Second, the Kremlin's understanding of the fact that the traditional industrial regions of Russia in the west of the country - Leningrad, the Baltic States, Ukraine, are vulnerable to enemy invasion. Later this policy was continued. In 1939, a new program was adopted for the construction of backup plants beyond the Urals and in Siberia. Also in the east, a new agricultural base of the country was created. In 1934, the task was set to create a powerful agricultural base beyond the Volga.
Great importance was attached to the country's connectivity and the construction of new transport arteries. In particular, they developed communications linking the European part of Russia with the northern and eastern regions of Siberia. They created the Northern Sea Route. Air transport was also developed in these regions, which was later based on small aircraft. The cruises of the icebreakers Krasin (formerly Svyatogor) and Chelyuskin, Chkalov's flights and other significant events were not only separate heroic milestones, but a chain of events for the consistent development of the Russian North. Soviet Russia systematically mastered the vast expanses of the Russian Arctic and Siberia.
The USSR of the 1920s was a poor, agrarian country that barely overcame the devastation, huge losses of the First World War and the Civil War. Russia was plundered, having experienced the largest plunder of the country in its history. Therefore, it was extremely difficult to carry out industrialization, money was sorely lacking.
Later, a liberal myth was created that Stalin's industrialization had to be carried out at the expense of plundering the Russian countryside and "tightening the belts" of the entire country. But these statements are not true. The impoverished village of the 1920s, already devastated and plundered during the world and civil wars, intervention, peasant war, simply could not provide such funds. In general, the people were poor. Russia has already been robbed. It is clear that there is some truth in these statements, blown up into a whole anti-Soviet myth. Obviously, the period of mobilization presupposed the "tightening of the belts", industrialization temporarily slowed down the pace of improving the well-being of the people. However, the standard of living of the people grew from year to year, and as hundreds of new factories and factories appeared, the construction of roads and power plants, etc., the growth of well-being increased. These were long-term investments that formed the basis of the well-being of many generations of people in the USSR-Russia, including the present ones.
The main source of funds was that the Russian communists no longer allowed the masters of the West to parasitize on Russian wealth. Both external and internal parasites were shortened. For example, this is precisely the reason for the current poverty of the majority of the population of Russia and Ukraine. Capitalism is a parasitic, predatory, unjust system. The poor get poorer all the time, and the rich get richer. Therefore, from year to year in Russia there are more and more billionaires and multimillionaires, and more and more beggars and poor. This is an axiom. The oligarchs and the bureaucracy participating in the robbery of the country, their entourage, get rich, seizing 80-90% of the country's wealth, and the rest exist and survive.
As soon as the process of plunder from the inside and from the outside was stopped in Soviet Russia, funds were immediately found for industrialization, for the creation of powerful armed forces, the development of education, science and culture. Nothing has changed at the present time. There is no development, “there is no money,” so Russian wealth is devoured by external and internal parasites.
The absence of the rich estates, the “chosen ones,” parasitizing the masses, also saved funds in the country. Since capital, money was not exported from Russia and was not spent on overconsumption, the pleasures of the "elite". The criminal world was also pinned down, the officials were not allowed to steal, for this they were severely punished. At the same time, during the "Great Purge", it was possible to return part of the capital, money, which had previously been taken abroad by representatives of the "elite". These funds were also used for development. Thus, the main source of financial resources for development is to stop the plunder of the country from inside and outside.
It is clear that funds were also collected by other methods: the USSR conducted foreign trade, sold certain goods and raw materials; for the sake of a great cause, it was necessary to sell cultural, historical values (later, they were able to return some of them), the Soviet government resorted to state loans (in 1941 there were 60 million subscribers), the average citizen of the USSR borrowed the state an amount equal to 2-3 salaries per year, etc. etc.
The secret of the Stalinist economy was that resources were used much more efficiently under Stalin than after him. For example, in the field of weapons. Thus, the German military-political leadership during the Second World War scattered funds and resources, chased many "hares". Dozens of repeating works were carried out in the German military complex. In the Soviet economy of Stalin's time, all forces were concentrated on several most important, breakthrough areas, for example, this is a nuclear project, the creation of an air defense system. After the Great War, the Soviet Union did not ruin itself with a hopeless race with the USA, the West, build hundreds of heavy bombers - "flying fortresses", dozens of aircraft carriers. The Kremlin has found a cheaper and more effective answer - intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Stalin did not live to see their first launches, but it was he who laid the foundation for the project.
In the Stalinist USSR, they knew how to save not only in the military sphere. So, in the Stalin years, the priority was in the construction of small inter-collective farm hydroelectric power plants, which provided cheap electricity. Mini-hydroelectric power plants saved oil and coal, did not cause such great damage to the environment as large hydroelectric power plants.
In the Stalinist USSR, the system of providing the village with agricultural machinery was well thought out. So that each collective farm or state farm does not spend on its own technical staff, a fleet of equipment, so that it does not stand idle, but works with full dedication, MTS was created - machine and tractor stations, which served several collective farms at once. After Stalin, under Khrushchev, the MTS was liquidated, and it immediately made agriculture very costly.
Another example of the reasonable approach of the Stalinist government to the problems of the development of the national economy is the plan for the transformation of nature. A comprehensive program for the scientific regulation of nature in the country, which began to be implemented in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The plan was adopted in 1948, influenced by the drought and famine of 1946-1947. It was based on afforestation to protect fields, the introduction of grass crop rotations, irrigation - the construction of ponds and reservoirs to ensure high yields in the steppe and forest-steppe regions. This plan had no analogues in the world. So, in the European part of Russia, it was planned to plant forest belts in order to stop dry winds (hot southeastern winds) and change the climate on an area of 120 million hectares (these are several large European countries combined). In particular, large protective forest belts were planned to be planted along the banks of the Volga, Don, Seversky Donets, Khopra, Ural and other rivers.
Forest shelter belts, reservoirs and the introduction of grass crop rotations were supposed to protect the southern regions of the USSR-Russia - the Volga region, Little Russia, the Caucasus and Northern Kazakhstan, from sand and dust storms, droughts. This also led to an increase in yields, a solution to the problem of food security. In addition to the state forest protective belts, local forests were planted along the perimeter of fields, along the slopes of ravines, along existing and new water bodies, on sandy terrain, for its consolidation. Also, progressive methods of processing fields were introduced; the correct system of application of organic and mineral fertilizers; sowing selected seeds of high-yielding varieties that have been adapted to local conditions. The grass-field farming system was introduced, when part of the fields was sown with perennial grasses. They served as a fodder base for animal husbandry and a natural means of restoring soil fertility.
Thousands of new reservoirs have dramatically improved the environment, strengthened the waterway system, regulated the flow of many rivers, provided the country with a huge amount of cheap electricity, so necessary for industrialization and agricultural development, improved the possibilities for irrigating fields and gardens. New reservoirs were used for fish farming, which also solved the problem of feeding the population and strengthened food security. Also, new reservoirs have improved the situation with fire safety.
Thus, the USSR was solving the problem of food security and from the second half of the 1960s it could start selling domestic grain and meat abroad. In addition, new forest belts and reservoirs were to significantly diversify, restore the living world (flora and fauna). That is Stalin's plan provided for both the solution of economic and environmental problems. At the same time, it was very important that the European (Russian) part of the USSR was developing. With such a plan, the Russian village was promising and had a future.
The results of the program were excellent: an increase in grain yields by 20-25%, vegetables - by 50-75%, grasses - by 100-200%. A solid fodder base was created for animal husbandry, there was a significant increase in the production of meat, lard, milk, eggs, and wool. Forest belts protected southern Russia from dust storms. For example, Little Russia-Ukraine forgot about them. Unfortunately, with the current barbaric destruction of forests in Ukraine, including forest belts, they will soon become commonplace in the southern part of Russia-Russia.
During Khrushchev's "perestroika-1", many rational and long-term Stalinist plans were scrapped. The Stalinist plan for the transformation of nature, which promised the country so many positive results, was also forgotten. Moreover, Khrushchev put forward his radical, ill-conceived and destructive plan: a sharp expansion of sown areas due to the development of virgin lands. The results were sad. Extensive methods caused a short-term sharp increase in yields, and then led to soil destruction, environmental disaster and food crisis in the USSR. Moscow began to buy grain abroad.
Soviet poster dedicated to the implementation of Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature
