The Results of the First Five-Year Plan

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932. The main concerns of the First Five-Year Plan focused on making the nation militarily, industrially, and financially self-sufficient. The introduction of collectivization spurred industrialization in the nation as millions of people, of the 80% of the total population that was engaged in agriculture, moved from the country into the city. Despite many of the targets being unbelievably high (a 250% increase in overall industrial development, with a 330% percent expansion in heavy industry), remarkable results were achieved.