Comprehension Check

1. A policy of War Communism was characterized by…
2. Was the policy of War Communism successfully finished?
3. What did the New Economic Policy allow peasants?
4. What was determined as ‘commanding heights’?
5. How can the Soviet New Economic Policy be characterized?
6. Was the heavy industry recovering with the same speed as agriculture?

Collectivization and Industrialization – First Steps to Independence

Joseph Stalin adopted a new economic policy of an attempt to produce the material basis of communism quickly under unfavorable conditions. It was called " socialism in one country", which favored concentrating on economic development of the country. In that respect, he also favored extensive exports of grain and raw materials; the revenues from foreign exchange allowing the Soviet Union to import foreign technologies needed for industrial development.

At the 15^th Communist Party Congress in December 1927, Joseph Stalin abandoned the NEP. Warning delegates of an impending capitalist encirclement, he stressed that survival and development could only occur by pursuing the rapid development of heavy industry. Joseph Stalin remarked that the Soviet Union was " fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries" such as the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, and thus had to narrow " this distance in ten years". Joseph Stalin declared, " Either we do it or we shall be crushed". This new policy became the key turning point in the Soviet history, establishing central planning geared toward rapid heavy industrialization as the basis of economic decision-making. This new policy aimed at an incredible and rapid process of transforming a largely agrarian nation consisting of peasants into an industrial superpower.

The new economic system put forward a complicated series of planning arrangements. The first Five-Year plan focused on the mobilization of natural resources to build up the country's heavy industrial base by increasing output of coal, iron, and other vital resources. At a high human cost, this process was largely successful, forging a capital base for industrial development more rapidly than any country in history.

Exercise № 72. Answer to the following questions according to the text above.

1. At the time of industrialization there was insignificant gap between the Soviet Union and the advanced countries, wasn’t it?

2. The Soviet economy aimed at extending the distance between the Soviet Union and advanced countries, didn’t it?

3. What was put forward by the new economic system?

4. What was the NEP focused on?