Although it is unarguable to deny that there was certain economic progress in Stalinist Russia throughout the 1930s, it is understandable to postulate that the policies implicated under Stalin’s regime were merely introduced primarily to consolidate his political hold on the USSR. During this period, Stalin placed particular emphasis on Industrialisation and the abolition of older methods of peasant-controlled farming to be replaced with state-controlled collectives. It is debatable as to whether these policies can be viewed as successful, for example; the conditions of the Soviet industrial workers were marginally lower than in 1928. Yet whatever hardships the workers faced, the fact that Russia was ultimately capable, in an economic sense, of defeating Nazi Germany in a successful military struggle shows that some of the economic implications enforced during the 1930s were at the very least marginally productive and gainful. In this essay, I shall highlight the extent to which the aforementioned policies can be viewed as successful.

Stalin’s economic policies had one essential aim—the modernisation of the Soviet economy via two essential methods: collectivisation and industrialisation. Beginning in 1928, much of Russia’s economy (in terms of agriculture and industry) was brought directly under state control. Under Stalin, this was to be total. The way these radical were changes implicated has meant that the process was referred to as the ‘second revolution,’ a way of equating the importance of industrial/modernisation as that of the 1917 revolution. When Stalin introduced these drastic changes, he claimed that they marked a significant and vital stage in Soviet Communism as had Lenin’s actions during the October Revolution of 1917. It is understandable to claim that these comparisons show that the process of modernisation in Russia was intended primarily to