History of the Soviet Union

Russia began the century caught in the midst of a war with Japan. By 1905, the war was lost and the government of Nicholas II was exposed as both corrupt and incompetent ("Reforming," 1990, p. 15). The Baltic states were in rebellion, and the czar took the radical step of introducing a new constitution and establishing a parliament. Still, Russia enjoyed strong economic growth in the years leading up to 1913: steel output kept pace with the other industrial powers of the day and the length of rail lines within the nation increased from 3,800 kilometers to 80,000 ("Reforming," 1990, p. 16).

But the first World War intruded on Imperial Russia in 1913, and crippled the economy for the next several years. When Russia finally made peace with the Germans in 1918, following the abdication of the czar in 1917, Finland, Poland and the Baltic states all gained their independence. The ruling party (Bolsheviks, led by Lenin) used the army to regain the agriculturally important Ukraine as well as Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. The primary task facing the newly formed Soviet Union then was one of rebuilding the economy wit

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Five year plans established production quotas for various industries, including agriculture, and the growth rate needed to attain the level of economic output which the government strived to meet. Reality, and the measure of Stalin's grip on the nation, quickly overtook the lofty phrases of the first Five-Year Plan, which called for the voluntary collectivization of farms. Collectivization took place without the voluntary co-operation of farmers, and many households, affecting as many as five million people, were destroyed (Shmelev, Popov, 1989, p. 49). Grain was confiscated on a large scale and not redistributed in a manner which fed Soviet citizens. Instead, the confiscated grain was sold abroad in exchange for machine tools. The famine of 19321933 devastated a large portion of the population (Shmelev, Popov, 1989, p. 49). Five-Year plans were interrupted by World War II, which once again devastated the Soviet economy as it moved to support its large army and feed its displaced citizens. The plans were reinstated after World War II in 1946, and continued through 1980. While statistics on the plans are difficult to locate since there is wide disparity between the official statistics and the actual performance of the p
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Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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