Soviet First Five-Year Plan and forced collectivisation
- Date
- 1928–1933
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Eastern Europe / Eurasia (USSR)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Launched on 1 October 1928, Stalin's First Five-Year Plan committed the USSR to rapid, centrally planned industrialisation focused on steel, coal, and electricity, together with the collectivisation of agriculture into state and collective farms (sovkhozy and kolkhozy).
From 1929 collectivisation was driven through coercively, accompanied by 'dekulakisation' — the campaign to 'liquidate the kulaks as a class' — under which millions of better-off peasant families were dispossessed, deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan, or sent to labour camps. Grain was requisitioned to fund industrialisation and exports. Industrial output rose sharply and the plan was declared fulfilled ahead of schedule, but agricultural production collapsed, livestock was slaughtered en masse, and the social fabric of the countryside was shattered. The upheaval contributed directly to catastrophic famine across grain-growing regions in 1932–33. The plan established the command-economy model that defined the Soviet system and was later emulated in other communist states.
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Empires active in 1928–1933
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Wall Street Crash and onset of the Great Depression24–29 October 1929
- Weimar hyperinflation1922–1923 (peak November 1923)
- Cárdenas Nationalises Mexico's Oil1938
- Bretton Woods Conference creates the IMF and World Bank1–22 July 1944
- The Panic of 1873 and the Long Depression1873–1896
- The Australian gold rushes begin1851
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
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