ABSTRACT

The Soviet Union emerged from the Second World War victorious but badly damaged. Over 23 million Soviet civilians and troops had been killed in the struggle, while the Germans had destroyed 1,710 towns, 70,000 villages, 31,850 industrial enterprises and 98,000 collective farms. Stalin decided from the outset that the Soviet economy should once again be insulated from the West. He therefore re-established the planning controls of the 1930s. The fourth Five-Year Plan ran from 1946 to 1950 and the fifth from 1950 to 1955; the latter was interrupted by his death in 1953 but completed by his successors, Malenkov and Khrushchev. The Plans again placed the emphasis on collective farming and the development of heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods. To ensure Soviet selfsufficiency, Stalin refused the offer of economic aid from the Marshall Plan.