Five-year plans of the Soviet Union

The five-year plans for the development of the national economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: пятилетние планы развития народного хозяйства СССР, pyatiletniye plany razvitiya narodnogo khozyaystva SSSR) consisted of a series of nationwide centralized economic plans in the Soviet Union, beginning in the late 1920s. The Soviet state planning committee Gosplan developed these plans based on the theory of the productive forces that formed part of the ideology of the Communist Party for development of the Soviet economy. Fulfilling the current plan became the watchword of Soviet bureaucracy.

Several Soviet five-year plans did not take up the full period of time assigned to them: some were pronounced successfully completed earlier than expected, some took much longer than expected, and others failed altogether and had to be abandoned. Altogether, Gosplan launched thirteen five-year plans. The initial five-year plans aimed to achieve rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union and thus placed a major focus on heavy industry. The first five-year plan, accepted in 1928 for the period from 1929 to 1933, finished one year early. The last five-year plan, for the period from 1991 to 1995, was not completed, since the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.

Other communist states, including the People's Republic of China, and to a lesser extent, the Republic of Indonesia, implemented a process of using five-year plans as focal points for economic and societal development.


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