The Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the USSR (
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
: пятилетка,
Pyatiletka) were a series of nation-wide centralized exercises in rapid
economic developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. The plans were developed by the
GosplanGosplan or State Planning Committee was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Planirovaniyu...
based on the
Theory of Productive ForcesThe Theory of Productive Forces is a widely-used concept in communism and Marxism placing primary emphasis on technical advances and strong productive forces in a nominally socialist economy before real communism, or even real socialism, can have a hope of being achieved.The concept has been used...
that was part of the general guidelines of the
Communist PartyThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the ruling and only legal political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the...
for economic development. Fulfilling the plan became the watchword of Soviet
bureaucracyBureaucracy is the collective organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations and government...
. (
See Overview of the Soviet economic planning process)
The same method of planning was also adopted by most other
communist stateIn political science, a Communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule of a Communist party and a professed allegiance to a communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state....
s, including the
People's Republic of ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
. In addition, several capitalist states have emulated the concept of central planning, though in the context of a market economy, by setting integrated economic goals for a finite period of time. Thus are found "Seven-year Plans" and "Twelve-Year Plans".
Several five-year plans did not take up the full period of time assigned to them (some were successfully completed earlier than expected, while others failed and were abandoned). The initial five-year plans were created to serve in the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, and thus placed a major focus on
heavy industryHeavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...
. Altogether, there were 13 five-year plans. The first one was accepted in 1928, for the five year period from 1929 to 1933, and completed one year early. The last, thirteenth Five-Year Plan was for the period from 1991 to 1995 and was not completed, as the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.
Background
Joseph Stalin inherited from Vladimir Lenin, and retained, the
New Economic PolicyThe New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin to prevent the Russian economy from collapsing...
(NEP). In 1921, Lenin had persuaded the
10th Party CongressThe 10th Congress of the RCP was held during March 8-16, 1921 in Moscow. Major points discussed included:*Internal party factions banned in a secret resolution.*The New Economic Policy was decided....
to approve the NEP as a replacement for the
War CommunismWar communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in the Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
that had been set up during the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
. In War Communism, the state had assumed control of all the means of production, exchange (trade), and communication. All land had been declared nationalized (by the
Decree on LandThe Decree on Land, written by Vladimir Lenin, was passed by the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies on 26 October, 1917, following the success of the October Revolution. It decreed an abolition of private property, and the redistribution of the landed estates...
, finalized in the
1922 Land CodeThe 1922 Land Code of the RSFSR was the first principal document that systemized land legislation in the RSFSR...
which also set collectivization as the long-term goal), although the peasants had been allowed to work the land they held, with the production surplus to their needs being bought by the state on the state's terms (the peasants cut production, whereupon food was requisitioned); money gradually came to be replaced by barter and a system of coupons.
Under the NEP, the state controlled all large enterprises (i.e. factories, mines, railways), as well as enterprises of medium size, but small private enterprises, employing fewer than 20 people (mostly tradesmen and shopkeepers) were allowed. The requisitioning of farm produce was replaced by a tax system (a fixed proportion of the crop), and the peasants were free to sell their surplus (at a state-regulated price) - although they were encouraged to join state farms (Sovkhozes, set up on land expropriated from nobles after the 1917 revolution), in which they worked for a fixed wage like workers in a factory. Money came back into use, with new bank notes being issued, backed by gold.
The NEP had been Lenin's response to a crisis. In 1920, industrial production had been 13% and agricultural production 20% of the 1913 figures. Between February 21 and March 17, 1921, the sailors in
KronstadtKronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt is a Russian seaport town, located on Kotlin Island, thirty kilometers west of Saint Petersburg near the head of the Gulf of Finland. It is under the administration of the federal city of Saint Petersburg and is also its main port...
had mutinied. In addition, the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
, which had been the main reason for the introduction of
War CommunismWar communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in the Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
, had virtually been won and so controls could be relaxed.
In the 1920s, there was a great debate between Bukharin,
TomskyTomsky , Tomskaya , or Tomskoye may refer to:*Mikhail Tomsky , Russian Bolshevik leader*Nikolai Tomsky , Russian sculptor*Tomsky District, a district of Tomsk Oblast, Russia...
, and Rykov on the one hand, and Trotsky,
ZinovievGrigory Yevseevich Zinoviev was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician.-Before the 1917 Revolution :Gregory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad , Ukraine,...
and Kamenev on the other. The former group considered that the NEP provided sufficient state control of the economy and sufficiently rapid development, while the latter argued in favour of more rapid development and greater state control, taking the view, among other things, that profits should be shared among all people, and not just among a privileged few. In 1925, at the 14th Party Congress, Stalin, as he usually did in the early days, stayed in the background but sided with the Bukharin group. However, later, in 1927, he changed sides, supporting those in favour of a new course, with greater state control.
The Plans
Each five-year plan dealt with all aspects of development: capital goods (those used to produce other goods, like coal, iron, and machinery), consumer goods (e.g. chairs, carpets, and irons), agriculture, transportation, communications, health, education, and welfare. However, the emphasis varied from plan to plan, although generally the emphasis was on power (electricity), capital goods, and agriculture. There were base and optimum targets. Efforts were made, especially in the Third Plan, to move industry eastward to make it safer from attack during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Because meeting the goals of the five-year plans had top priority as a measure of progress toward a communist utopia, official lying about productivity became part of the economic system. The attempt to turn an illiterate peasant society into an advanced industrial economy in a single decade brought intense suffering, but hardship was tolerated because, as one worker put it, Soviet workers believed in the need for "constant struggle, struggle, and struggle" to achieve a Communist society (Hunt 845-46). These five-year plans outlined programs for huge increases in the output of industrial goods. Stalin warned that without an end to economic backwardness "the advanced countries...will crush us." (Hunt 845)
The First Plan, 1928–1932
Stalin introduced the first plan in 1928, and its success in achieving its goals was declared ahead of schedule, in 1932. Stalin made his motivation in formulating the plan clear when he stated, in a speech to factory managers in February 1931, that Russia was "fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us."
The First Five-Year Plan emphasized heavy industry to lay the foundations for future industrial growth. Stalin argued that if rapid industrialization did not occur then Russia would be at risk from aggressive foreign, capitalist countries. The five year plans did have some remarkable results, if only in industrial sectors. For instance, coal and iron production both quadrupled their output, electric power production increased and 1500 new industrial plants were built. The First Five-Year Plan led to marked improvements in heavy industry, but not without commensurate failures in consumer goods production and agriculture. There was also a great deal of suffering for many peasants. Prisoners were forced into work at Gulags, or labor camps, and the chances of freedom were slim.
During this period, Stalin pursued the policy of "collectivization" in agriculture to facilitate the process of rapid industrialization; this involved the creation of collective farms in which peasants worked cooperatively on the same land with same equipment. This was intended to improve the efficiency of agriculture and eliminate the "
kulakKulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged as a result of the Stolypin reform which began in 1906...
" class of landowners, which was deemed hostile to the Soviet regime, while improving the position of poor peasants. The disruption and repression associated with collectivization was a primary cause of the famine of 1932, which resulted in millions of deaths.
During 1928 and 1940 the number of Soviet workers in industry, construction, and transport grew from 4.6 million to 12.6 million and factory output soared. Stalin's first five-year plan helped make the USSR a leading industrial nation; albeit at the expense of many lives and a decline in the standard of living.
The Second Plan, 1933–1937
Because of the success of the first plan, the government went ahead with the Second Five-Year Plan in 1932, although the official start-date for the plan was 1933. The Second Five-Year Plan gave heavy industry top priority, placing the Soviet Union not far behind
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world. On top of this communications, especially railways, became faster. As was the case with the other five-year plans, the second was not uniformly successful, failing to reach the recommended production levels in such crucial areas as coal and oil. The second plan employed incentives as well as punishments and the targets were eased as a reward for the first plan being finished ahead of schedule in only four years. Women were encouraged to participate in the plan as childcare was offered to mothers so they could go to work and not need to worry about their children.
During this time, the new Soviet system of government continued to evolve as different solutions were applied in an attempt to revive the agrarian sector of the country's economy, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful because almost all of the farmers had already been evicted, imprisoned and systematically murdered as the political persecutions shifted into high gear, culminating in the
Great PurgeGreat Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of...
. The sum total of The Second Five-Year Plan was a deterioration of the standard of living because the focus of "planners' preferences" replaced consumer preferences in the country's economy, with an emphasis on military goods and heavy industry, so that is what the economy provided. The people paid the price because very little attention was applied to consumer goods of any kind.
The Third Plan, 1938–1941
The Third Five-Year Plan ran for only 3 years, up to 1941, when the Soviet Union entered the Second World War. As war approached, more resources were put into developing armaments, tanks and weapons.
The first two years of the Third Five-Year Plan proved to be even more of a disappointment in terms of proclaimed production goals. Even so, the value of these goals and of the coordination of an entire economy's development of central planning has been undeniable. For the 12% to 13% rate of annual industrial growth attained in the Soviet Union during the 1930s has few parallels in the economic history of other countries. Since Russia's economy had always lagged behind the rest of Europe, these increases appeared all the more dramatic. Additionally, this high rate of growth was continued after World War II, as much devastation needed to be repaired, and continued into the early fifties, after which it had gradually declined
The Fourth and Fifth Plans, 1946–1950 and 1951–1955
After the Second World War, the emphasis was on
reconstruction, and Stalin in 1945 promised that the USSR would be the leading industrial power by 1960.
Much of the USSR at this stage had been devastated by the war. Officially, 98,000 collective farms had been ransacked and ruined, with the loss of 137,000 tractors, 49,000 combine harvesters, 7 million horses, 17 million cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep; 25% of all capital equipment had been destroyed in 35,000 plants and factories; 6 million buildings, including 40,000 hospitals, in 70,666 villages and 4,710 towns (40% urban housing) were destroyed, leaving 25 million homeless; about 40% of railway tracks had been destroyed; officially 7.5 million servicemen died, plus 6 million civilians, but perhaps 20 million in all died. In 1945, mining and metallurgy were at 40% of the 1940 levels, electric power was down to 52%, pig-iron 26% and steel 45%; food production was 60% of the 1940 level. After Poland, the USSR had been the hardest hit by the war. Reconstruction was impeded by a chronic labour shortage due to the enormous number of Soviet casualties in the war. Moreover, 1946 was the driest year since 1891, and the harvest was poor.
The USA and USSR were unable to agree on the terms of a US loan to aid reconstruction, and this was a contributing factor in the rapid escalation of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
. However, the USSR did gain reparations from Germany, and made Eastern European countries make payments in return for the Soviets having liberated them from the Nazis. In 1949, the
ComeconThe Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organization of communist states and a kind of Eastern Bloc equivalent to—but less geographically inclusive than—the European Economic Community...
(Council for Mutual Economic Aid) was set up, linking the
Eastern blocThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
countries economically. One-third of the Fourth Plan's capital expenditure was spent on Ukraine, which was important agriculturally and industrially, and which had been one of the areas most devastated by war.
By 1947, food rationing had ended, but agricultural production was barely above the 1940 level by 1952. However, industrial production in 1952 was nearly double the 1941 level.
The Sixth Plan, 1956–1960
Another Plan to improve industry was carried out in 1956 by
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, following Stalin's death in 1953. Some of Khrushchev's policies included
nationalizationNationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being state...
, the
Virgin Lands CampaignThe Virgin Lands Campaign was an initiative by Nikita Khrushchev to open up vast tracts of unseeded steppe in the northern Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and the Altay region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, started in 1954....
, creation of a
minimum wageA minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly wage that employers may legally pay to employees or workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labor. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion...
and the production of consumer goods which raised the living standards of the Russians in return.
The Seventh Plan, 1959–1965
The progress of the Soviet Union slowed considerably during this period.
The Eighth Plan, 1968–1971
The Eighth Plan was an important plan which led to the amount of grain exported being doubled
The Ninth Plan, 1971–1975
Some 14 million
tonneA tonne or metric ton , also referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of mass equal to , or approximately the mass of one cubic metre of water. It is not an SI unit but is accepted for use with the SI...
s of grain was imported by the USSR. Détente and improving relations between the Soviet Union and the United States allowed for more trade.
The Tenth Plan, 1976–1981
Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Ilyich Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, serving in that position longer than anyone except Joseph Stalin...
declared the slogan "Pyatiletka of Quality and Efficiency" for this period.
The Eleventh Plan, 1981–1985
During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the country imported some 42 million tons of
grainGRAIN is an international non-governmental organization based in Barcelona, Spain, which works toward sustainable agriculture. It was formed upon the realization that the genetic diversity of the world's food crops are being drastically eliminated...
annually, almost twice as much as during the Tenth Five-Year Plan and three times as much as during the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75). The bulk of this grain was sold by the West; in 1985, for example, 94 percent of Soviet grain imports were from the nonsocialist world, with the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
selling 14.1 million tons. However, total Soviet export to the West was always almost as high as import, for example, in 1984 total export to the West was 21.3 billion
rublesThe Soviet ruble or rouble was the currency of the Soviet Union. One ruble is divided into 100 kopeks, ....
, while total import was 19.6 billion rubles.
The Twelfth Plan 1986–1990
- See also: Perestroika
is the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
The last, 12th plan started with the slogan of
uskoreniyeUskoreniye was a slogan and a policy announced by Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on April 20, 1985 at a Soviet Party Plenum, aimed at the acceleration of social and economical development of the Soviet Union...
, the acceleration of economical development (quickly forgotten in favor of a more vague motto
perestroikais the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
) ended among a profound economical crisis in virtually all areas of Soviet economy and drop in production.
The 1987
Law on State Enterprise and the follow-up decrees about
khozraschyotKhozraschyot or Khozraschet was an attempt to simulate the capitalist concepts of profit and profit center into the planned economy of the Soviet Union....
and self-financing in various areas of the Soviet economy were aimed at the
decentralization__FORCETOC__Decentralization or Decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizen. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...
of the
planned economyA planned economy or directed economy is an economic system in which the state or workers' councils manage the economy. It is an economic system in which the central government makes all decisions on the production and consumption of goods and services...
.
The Thirteenth Plan 1991
This plan only lasted about one year due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The plan would have lasted into 1995 if the Soviet Union had not dissolved.
Honors
The
minor planetAn asteroid group or minor planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
2122 Pyatiletka2122 Pyatiletka is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on December 14, 1971 by T. M. Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. It is named in honor of Five-Year Plans of the USSR. - External links :*-References:...
discovered in 1971 by
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
astronomer
Tamara Mikhailovna SmirnovaTamara Mikhailovna Smirnova was a Russian-born astronomer.From 1966 to 1988 she was a staff member of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Leningrad. She co-discovered the periodic comet 74P/Smirnova-Chernykh, along with Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh. She has also discovered various asteroids...
is named in honor of Five-Year Plans of the USSR.
See also
- Five-year plan
Five-Year Plan may refer to:*Five-Year Plan *Five-Year Plans of China*Five-year plans of Ethiopia*Five-year plans of India*Five-year plans of Nepal*Five-year plans of Pakistan*Five-year plans of South Korea*Five-year plans of Vietnam...
for similar plans in other countries
- Soviet calendar
- Eastern Bloc economies
After the Soviet Union's occupation of much of the Eastern Bloc during World War II, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin implemented socioeconomic transformations of each of the Eastern Bloc economies that comported with the Soviet Communist economic model...