Five Year Plans of the USSR 1928-1971

Large notice board with slogans about the 5-Year Plan in Moscow, Soviet Union (c. 1931)

From the Soviet Magazine Sputnik in 1971, a look at the history of the USSR's Five-Year Plans up until then and beyond.

In the spring of 1920 a group of scientists, engineers and economists — the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) — began, on Lenin's instructions, to draw up the document that subsequently became known as "the GOELRO plan".

The plan formed quite a voluminous book. It represented the first-ever attempt to plan for many years ahead the coordinated development of all branches of the economy of our vast country.

The construction of thirty state power stations with a total capacity of one and a half million kilowatts was laid down as a task of the immediate future. Power engineering had to serve as the pivot around which all branches of the economy would develop. Lenin unequivocally named the GOELRO plan "the second Communist Party programme".

The basic theses of GOELRO set the trend for Soviet state planning for decades ahead. And on the basis of the GOELRO commission there later came into being GOSPLAN of the USSR, the country's central planning agency.

First Five-Year Plan

The main task here was to ensure the rapid industrialisation of the country. During the five years (1928-32) a total of 1,500 big enterprises were built, primarily in the traditionally industrial areas of the Donets basin, the Urals and Siberia.

In addition to the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, which became a kind of symbol of the First Five-Year Plan, other large enterprises of importance to the economy were built, such as the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the Gorky Motor Works, the Dneproges (the hydro-electric station on the Dnieper, in its time the biggest in Europe), the Turksib (Turkestan-Siberian railway), and Rostselmash (agricultural machinery works in Rostov-on-Don).

At a time when the whole capitalist world was in the throes of an unprecedented crisis, the USSR was shooting ahead. Unemployment was finally eliminated.

The measures set out in the First Five-Year Plan were completed ahead of time, in four years and three months. The USSR had been transformed from a primarily agrarian country into an industrial one.

Second Five-Year Plan

Under this plan (1933-37) the development of heavy industry, the basis of the state's independence and defence capacity, continued to develop at the same high tempos. The main emphasis was laid upon reequipment of all branches of the economy, on replacing the old machinery with the new one.

As with the previous plan, the economic tasks were completed before schedule, in four years and three months. Three times as many major industrial enterprises were built this time — 4,500. Among these were such big undertakings as the Novotagilsky Iron and Steel Works and the Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Combine.

In 1937 — the twentieth anniversary of the Revolution —the USSR caught up with and overtook France, Britain and Germany in overall industrial output.

During this five-year period the Soviet countryside went over completely to cooperation, the collective farming of the land. The state provided the cooperatives with land, for use in perpetuity and without charge, and machinery was made available to them on favourable terms.

By the end of the five years the Communist Party was able to say with satisfaction that the socialist system held absolute sway in the country's economy. The national minority areas on the periphery of the USSR were developing particularly fast.

Third Five-Year Plan

The political aspect of the tasks of the Third Five-Year Plan was formulated by the Eighteenth Party Congress. That was in March 1939.

The international atmosphere was as tense as it could be. In the new plan, peaceful and constructive in its essence, there had to be shifts of emphasis. In the interests of defence, a number of factories were built beyond the Volga and the Urals.

The Third Five-Year Plan was to have been a big step towards completing the building of socialist society. The fulfilment of this plan, however, was disrupted by Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Joseph E. Davies, former US Ambassador to the USSR, wrote at the time: "... The occupation of the Don Basin and Western Russia by the Germans will deprive the Soviet Government of enormous manufacturing recourses. But it should not he over-looked that east of the Volga there is a vast section of country and a highly industrialised region...

"Even in 1938, the production of machine tools, tractors, tanks, airplanes etc., produced in this area approximated 30 per cent of the total produced in the Soviet Union."

In March 1942, war industry in the eastern areas of the Soviet Union was producing as much as the whole of the USSR's prewar industry. And in 1943 Soviet war industry surpassed its German counterpart in important items, in particular the production of tanks and planes.

At the very height of military operations the Soviet government began to lay the economic foundations for the rapid rehabilitation of the economy in the areas temporarily occupied by the Germans. The losses there were on such a scale that one can hardly imagine anything more vast.

On the territory of the USSR the nazis destroyed 1,710 towns and 70,000 villages, they pillaged the property of 98,000 collective farms and 1,876 state farms. They

put out of action 32,000 industrial enterprises (two-thirds of the total number in the USSR) and 65,000 kilometres of railway line.

The most terrible and irremediable loss of the Soviet people was the sacrifice of 20 million lives. The country's development was effectively held back for more than a decade.

Fourth Five-Year Plan

The principal task of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, for 1946-50, was formulated thus: to rehabilitate the war-devastated economy, to reach the prewar industrial and agricultural level, and then to surpass it substantially.

The ability of the socialist state to concentrate all its efforts in the direction of the main blow was proved in practice. In 1948 the USSR succeeded in attaining the prewar level of industrial production, while by the end of the plan period it had surpassed it by 73 per cent.

Certain sacrifices had, of course, to be made to achieve such growth rates. Output of producer goods rose by 105 per cent above the 1940 level, while consumer goods production increased by only 23 per cent.

Fifth Five-Year Plan

By the beginning of the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1951-55) the measures needed to wipe out the consequences of the war had in large measure been carried out. The state's long-term plan for this period was drawn up fully in accordance with the laws of normal, peaceful development.

In 1951-55 the process of auto-mating the power and engineering industries was intensified.

New power stations and gas pipelines were built and the Volga-Don Canal was completed. In 1954 the world's first atomic power station, at Obninsk, near Moscow, began working.

Prices of consumer goods and foodstuffs were several times reduced during the Fifth Five-Year Plan period, and this particularly applied to bread, meat and butter. The plan was fulfilled in four years and four months.

Sixth Five-Year Plan and the Seven-Year Plan for 1959-65

From this time on, all the plans contained concrete measures for creating the material and technical basis for communism.

When in 1957 the first-ever artificial sputnik of the Earth —made in the Soviet Union — was launched, and when, four years later, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth in a spaceship, everyone outside the Soviet Union began to realise that behind these dazzling records were tremendous achievements in science and engineering.

This period saw the implementation of the programme for cultivating virgin and unused lands — primarily in Siberia and Kazakhstan. An extensive programme for technical progress in all spheres of the economy was carried out. In particular, main-line railways went over to electric and diesel traction.

The Twenty-First Congress of the CPSU, in endorsing the plan for 1959-65, noted that socialism in the USSR had sustained complete and final victory: the Soviet Union had embarked upon a period of comprehensive construction of communist society.

The plan for 1959-65 was fulfilled ahead of time. The material standards of the people rose, taxes were abolished or reduced for a considerable part of the population, and pensions were introduced for collective farmers. Nearly 17 million flats and houses were built in towns and villages.

Eighth Five-Year Plan

A radical speeding up in rates of progress in science and engineering made it possible to look with rather different eyes upon the problem of administering so complex an organism as the Soviet economy.

A new system of planning and economic incentive was worked out during the eighth five-year period, which became known as the "economic reform". The programme envisaged a gradual increase in the economic independence of enterprises and branches of industry (with overall management and coordination being retained by central state agencies) and a strengthening of people's material interest in improving various elements of the socialist economy.

A lively controversy raged in the Soviet press around the essence of the reform. Measures worked out were put to the test on an experimental basis in plants, factories, large motor vehicle depots, and also in some ministries and departments.

All these discussions and experimentals were concerned, in the final count, with the improvement of socialist planning, the ability to produce forecasts on a scientific basis.

No one would dream of saying that it was a simple, easy matter for the people to carry out the vast undertakings of the eight five-year plans. But the Soviet people always remembered that ultimately the production of metal and machines, and the cultivation of millions of acres of virgin lands were all in the interests and for the good of man.

Let us stop and look around for a moment. What was the level achieved by the Soviet Union by the beginning of the Ninth Five-Year Plan?

Ninth Five-Year Plan

In April this year the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU adopted the Directives for the country's economic plan for 1971-75. The main task of the five years is to bring about a sharp rise in the material and cultural standards of the people. Real incomes of the people are to increase by 30 per cent during the plan period.

At the same time the prices of staple commodities and foodstuffs, rent, fares (on municipal transport and over long distances), and other indices of "everyday life", will remain stable. So income growth is accompanied by unchanging prices.

Greater quantities of consumer goods are becoming available, and of better quality. In this connection, planning agencies envisage an increase of 50 per cent in trade turnover during the five years. The sphere covered by services is to be extended, and new canteens, cafes and restaurants are to be opened.

Between 1971 and 1975 it is proposed to build homes for 16 million families. Production of the means of production is to grow by 41-45 per cent, and production of consumer goods by 44-48 per cent.

As A. Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, said in his report to the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU: "Socialism, for the first time in history, is transforming the wealth of society into wealth for all members of society."