Five Year Plan

Stalin wanted production to be directed by the Communist state rather than by private owners. His two main policies were collectivisation, which transformed agriculture, and the Five Year Plans, which directed industrial expansion. They were intended to work together: the countryside would supply food for industrial workers, while grain exports would help pay for machinery imported from abroad.

The Five-Year Plans organised industrial development through a command economy. Instead of factories independently deciding what to produce, the state established priorities and production targets for a five-year period.