Construction of Socialist Industrialization in the Soviet Union

In December 1925, on behalf of the Party Central Committee, Stalin proposed to take the realization of socialist industrialization as the Party’s general line and central task at the Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U. (Bolshevik). Stalin pointed out that “the essence and foundation of our general path is to turn the Soviet Union from an agricultural country into an industrial country capable of producing necessary industrial equipment on its own.” Therefore, Stalin put forward the industrialization policy which gave priority to the development of heavy industry. The Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B) held in April 26 formulated a specific program for the realization of socialist industrialization. In order to accelerate the industrialization process, the 15th Congress of the C.P.S.U. (B) held in December 1927 adopted the first Five-Year Plan for the development of national economy.

After the realization of the two five-year plans, the Soviet Union established a relatively solid initial foundation for industrialization and changed the face of backward agricultural country of the old Russia. The industrialization of the Soviet Union was realized in a planned and step-by-step way, fully relying on the broad masses of the people, making use of its own resources and relying on domestic accumulation on the basis of public ownership of means of production, under the centralized and unified leadership of the state. In 1940, the total industrial output value of the Soviet Union increased by 7.5 times compared with that before the war, among which the output value of large industries increased by nearly 11 times. The proportion of the output value of the means of production sector in the total industrial output value increased from 33.3% in 1913 to 60% in 1940. This marked the development of the Soviet Union from a backward agricultural country to an industrial power in the world at that time, which laid a solid foundation for the subsequent victory over German Fascism.

The Soviet Union accumulated massive valuable experience in the construction of socialist industrialization, but there were also some deviations and mistakes. For example, an overemphasis on the development of heavy industry resulted in a serious imbalance in the proportion of the national economy; the slow development of agriculture and light industry for a long time seriously affected the improvement of people’s living standards; in the process of capital accumulation, the burden on farmers was too heavy, which has seriously affected their enthusiasm for production.