WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan, adopted by the party in 1928, called for rapid industrialization of the economy, with an emphasis on heavy industry. It set goals that were unrealistic-a 250 percent increase in overall industrial development and a 330 percent expansion in heavy industry alone.

Detailed explanation-2: -The second five-year plan gave heavy industry top priority, putting the Soviet Union not far behind Germany as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world. Further improvements were made in communications, especially railways, which became faster and more reliable.

Detailed explanation-3: -In all, there were thirteen Soviet five-year plans. The first ran from the autumn of 1928 to 1933; at that time the accounting year began in October with the end of the harvest. The third plan (1938-1942) was interrupted in mid-1941 by World War II. Five-year planning began again with the fourth (1946-1960).

Detailed explanation-4: -Purpose was to greatly increase industrial production. more machinery, more steel production, new factories, more oil production and more electrical power plants.

Detailed explanation-5: -The purposes of the Five-Year Plan, as set forth by responsible officials at Moscow, are the creation of a more adequate industrial development in an industrially backward country and the introduction of more efficient methods of agriculture, including large-scale, highly mechanized farming on coöperative lines.