Stalin and his Economic Policy

Stalin was a Russia president who took over the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1928 and led the Soviet Union for the next thirteen years. His bibliography states that he was born into a poor family with his father self employed as a cobbler. At sometime in his childhood his siblings were all swept away by diseases and his parents had him left alone. His father left to work in the factory, but unfortunately he took to drinking and his mother had to content with taking care of the family alone. (Rothrchild, 1999).

Stalin who was born a Georgian was enrolled into an Orthodox elementary school because of the spiritual back ground of the mother. It was while in this centre that Stalin joined an underground movement consisting of students mainly from Georgia. This group had its activities discovered and as a result Stalin and comrades were expelled from school. (Paul, 1956). Stalin became a revolutionary while in his teens.

He joined an underground group of radicals called the Marxists. It is this group that had a big impact on Stalin .Just as a peer pressure exerts its forces on a youth; this young radical Georgian became so involved with this illegal group by reading so much on the literature of this group. Infact he became a good reader of the writings of this group that while in the missionary school he was to be expelled on several occasions.

Because of his political ambitions Stalin became a powerful political organizer in his times, and this propelled by his natural hate for monarch and his lasting desire to have it overthrown.It was partly because of this strange believed in the eyes of the government decided to have him deported beyond the arctic sea. (Rothschild, 1999). Initially, Stalin was a very good friend of Lenin, but with the introduction of the New Economic Policy by the government of Lenin brought a rift between the two. With the rise of Stalin through ranks of in government, he was determined to replace Lenin in power.

The close ally of Lenin Trocksy was the most likely to replace the president. However, Stalin tricked him into exile from where he was assassinated. Stalin therefore comfortably took over the leadership of Russia.The first ever policy change carried out by Stalin was the immediate abolition of the New Economic Policy and replacing it with the “The First Five Year Plan of Lenin”. In the following discussion we base our argument the successes of the policies that were pursued by Stalin.

(Gale, 1945). The Policies of Stalin: The First Five Year Plan came in to replace the New Economic Plan. Some economic policies from the New Economic Plan were integrated in the Five year plan. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Stalin was aware that Germany under the leadership of Hitler posed a real threat to him.Powerful nations of the time were afraid of this alliance between Stalin and Hitler and as a sign of trying to disapprove it, the British prime minister; Neville Chamberlain showed no enthusiasm towards it. According to him this alliance was a sign of distrust on the part of Russia considering the relationship between the two, and the enmity that existed between Germany and Britain.

The prime minister believed that the idea of Russia was in a little way concerned with the principle of liberty which the Britons cherished. (Paul, 1956).At this particular time, a Briton critique of his country’s approach towards foreign affairs, Winston Churchill was in complete agreement with the move made by Russia. In essence the diplomat was arguing on the fact that there was no need of segregating against the eastern block . According to him there was a need of Russia maintaining an active involvement in the Eastern front. Needless to say is that Russia was only trying to find defense mechanism against a looming war between states.

In addition, Russia’s foreign policy was different from any others of central Europe.Russia was able to escape the pains of the Second World War in this approach of her foreign policies. With the heavy losses that were accrued by more radical countries e exemplified by Germany, it can be agreed that a president and a leader at this time who rescued his nation by his policies, like this of Russia could be said to have achieved. Consequently, this approach can be attributed to Joseph Stalin.

Otherwise, we ask ourselves why Stalin had to send a large squad of armed soldiers to the Spain to help the government during the days of the Spanish Civil war.Russia was the only nation that escaped a multitude of enemies and even when she introduced her policy of socialism many nations embraced it and cold war ensued as a result. (Paul, 1956). Immediately Stalin took over power, he felt that Russia was not industrialized.

In his speeches on several occasions he emphasized the fact that there was no way they could overcome the capitalist nations without industrialization. Therefore as a result he embarked agricultural transformation which changed the agriculture sector from small scale farms into groups of farms managed together.Critically speaking the Russians were exposed to poor living standards because they could not work on their small farms to get their food . Famine broke out and millions of people died of starvation while more millions starved . In fact it is reported that cannibalism became rampant in rural areas of Russia. The policy therefore led to poor living standards which resulted from the damaged ground food production because also manpower had been destroyed or chased from their pieces of land.

Eminent people who were known to have a lot of processions were executed as they were known to publicly criticizing the policies of Stalin.Most of the people that were executed included friends who had participated in the revolution.. Soon Stalin had established a system of governance where an oppressive rule and dictatorship policies were carried out severely.

Russia in essence industrialized in a hard way. (Gale, 1945). Farmers who survived the onslaught of starvation were forced into urban areas to provide labor to the factories. At the end of the process of industrialization Stalin had provided the best living standards in Europe because at this many of the countries were going through economic depression.

Stalin was a dictator, a totalitarian and a hardliner. If gentlemen like Lenin could not bring industrialization then may be totalitarians like Stalin could do it. This policy was actually harsh to the people. It was also not in accordance to the ideology of Russia of communism and socialism because while Stalin and his grabbed land from the poor masses, they enriched themselves while the factory workers remained poor. Thirdly, if communism involved equality, then Stalin should have been held responsible for destroying the life of people. This policy made Russia to have the highest urban population in the 1930s.

With the people in the cities industrial output increased. (Gale,1945). Industrial output increased as a result of the settlement of the masses in the cities to offer labor to the factories. As is expected a factory will definitely have a bigger net return so long as maximum labor is provided by an active work force. After the genocide, many farmers went to towns because it is only here where their constant income could be maintained. Furthermore, it is said that after the agricultural evolution, Russia had the highest per capita income in Europe although most of her people lived in poor conditions of the urban shanties.

Actually, this is what Stalin believed that as a result of many people from countryside, the force output was proportional to its size. This output war very crucial because it contains what exactly the whole factory system produced. Eventually the Russian society became an industrialized nation with output from industries increasing tremendously. Therefore Russia has used its population to get to the level of industrialization.

Stalin found a very poor Russia and within a short time was able to reach the position of industrialization within a short time.Although the Stalin’s administration was more of totalitarian, the policies helped to realize a revolution in Russia and today these policies that were set in the third decade of the 20th century have seen the Russia rise to the position of superpower and is a member of the G-6(the great 8). (Rotschild,1999) The emergence of Russia as a superpower was also a success attributed to the policies of Stanin. During the world wars Russia learnt that it was too weak that it had to depend on alliances for her to stand on her own during this wars.

She formed an alliance with Germany and Poland.Later on their alliance included Italy. Russia, then having a communist ideology compared to the U. S.

A after the World War 2 Russia and U. S. A engaged into a protracted cold war. The cold war divided the world into two major blocks-the eastern and the western block, the U.

S. A. and her allies formed the later block. Prior to the world war many nations had armed themselves for the war, and after the war the nation had to disarm and form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Despite the call to disarm Russia made haste to establish a nuclear plant in addition to heavily arming her army .The arming process can way be recalled when she participated in the Spanish civil war in which she helped the government sources to gain victory over the opponents.

Recalling from our initial argument-Russia only emerged as superpower after the Second World War. We can therefore see that the foreign policy pursued by Stalin was a major contribution to the rise of Russia as a super power. The establishment of Russia as super power can be traced to 1938 when Stalin made up his mind to form an alliance with Germany. According to Stalin, the war between the two states could break any time and he needed time to construct a strong army.The best possible way to achieve this was to approach Hitler of Germany for an alliance (Derek, 1918). Stalin thought that it will not be possible for Hitler to fight both east and western block.

This means that with alliance in place Germany will most likely attack the Western Europe. Stalin then moved on and started building an army and by the beginning of the Second World War Russia had already realized her dream. Consequently, the foreign policy of Stalin succeeded in coming up with a strong army in the whole Europe.Education programme was also one of the successes of the Stalinist policies (education policy).

Stalin initially had a blurred policy on the education of women, but with industrialization and the pursuit of the policy of equality, Stalin started an education programme in which people were trained under technical education. Under this system much emphasis was placed on skills based on engineering. In the days of the five year plan there was a great interest in higher education. These system attracted learners with parents of working class and also those who had parents as peasants.

Stalin was engaging more in education as a result of industrialization and massive expansion in agriculture. The emphasis on engineering was to have more manpower in industries running the machines. Education was also to offer training in the massive expansion of military and also arming of the army with sophisticated weapons. This policy was a great success because in the year of the five year plan industrialization expanded rapidly and soon Russia was claiming a strong industrial base, in addition to the formation of a strong army in Europe. (Derek ,1918).

Conclusion: Stalin was a revolutionalist who transformed Russia into a strong industrial base and a manufacturing industry based on the education policy of Stalin. He is also credited with the establishment of a strong army after an alliance with Germany. In this alliance Stalin was able to avoid the heavy losses that were brought along in the war except for the cities that were bombed down. Despite this, the process of industrialization was more humiliating with many people starving to death and others forced to move to urban centers to take up jobs in the industries. (Paul Zinner,1956).