Stalin's Five Year Plans
In the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin aimed to turn the Soviet Union into a modernised industrialised country and he wanted it done rapidly. He developed 3 Five Year Plans between 1928 and 1938.
The first Five Year Plan involved the expansion of heavy industry which saw many productions shooting up past 100% like electric power (160%) and iron (100%). Coal, oil, steel and electricity production massively increased but workers who failed to achieve their ambitious targets for production were executed sent to the gulags.
The second Five Year Plan saw many sectors doubling production with more emphasis being placed on consumer goods like shoes and clothes. Collectivisation was seizing land from the peasants and re-organising it into collective farms. This caused famine as a result and Stalin who lost his faith in humanity following his first wife's death) saw this as a necessary evil to achieve the necessary ambition to achieve his Five Year Plans.
The third five year plan was about emphasising military expansion and preparing for war, the war that would later become World War 2 and the German Invasion of the Soviet Union. Despite being interrupted by the purges and Show Trials, the Third Five Year Plan saw industrial output increase dramatically during the lifetime of the five year plans. To prevent the Germans from getting their hands on the tank factories, Stalin moved these to the Urals Mountains that acts as a natural boundary between Europe and Asia within Russia's borders. In the end, the Five Year Plans produced spectacular results and by 1939, the USSR had become Europe's second biggest industrial power after Germany. The plans were so successful that when future Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevs was born on 2nd March 1931 he was almost called Viktor but his grandmother insisted on a secret baptism where he was eventually christened Mikhail by his grandad.
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