For the Soviets in the past, World War II was a lingering nightmare. Since Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Germany has mobilized almost all its forces in the European jurisdiction to attack the Soviet Union. Unlike the Western European countries that surrendered within a month or two at the beginning of the war, as the main force against Germany, the Soviet Union had to face the full-scale invasion of the Nazis.
This terrible situation made the Soviet Union the most devastated country by the war — lost nearly 27 million in population and 2.6 trillion rubles in economic losses. Countless towns, factories, collective farm were razed to the ground.
But the Soviet Union did not become decadent and headed for decline or destruction. On the contrary, while NATO countries were still waiting to receive relief food from the Marshall Plan , the Soviet Union only took three years to restore its economy to its pre-war level. It will become a superpower before the next five-year plan, creating a splendid situation in which the United States and the Soviet Union will compete for hegemony and the world.
As Churchill said in the Iron Curtain speech in 1946, the Soviet Union has quickly recovered its strength and has become the only superpower. So, as as the country that sacrificed the most, why did the Soviet Union rise rapidly within a few years of the end of the war?
1. Stalin model
The "Stalin model" is the institutional guarantee for the rapid recovery of blood from the Soviet Union. During the tsarist rule, Russian agricultural technology was outdated and inefficient, and famine occurred every few years. After Stalin took office, he promoted agricultural collectivization , introduced modern equipment, and increased grain output.This way people can move to the city without going hungry.
During the First World War, Russian was too poorly equipped. Many soldiers did not even have guns. It was a unilateral massacre. The nascent Soviet Union is facing the siege of imperialism. National defense is the top priority, so Stalin decided to take the heavy industry route.
Concentrating national power to control the economy is an ideal choice for rapid industrialization. Later, the Soviet Union established this mode of concentrating power to do major tasks and applied it to post-war economic recovery.
Stalin's economic recovery plan mainly focused on the development of infrastructure and heavy industry. After the war, the Soviet Union transformed the concentrated talents and materials under the wartime system into industrial and agricultural production. New dams were built, canals were dug, railroad tracks were laid, and electricity was extended to many cities. The labor used in these projects is often German prisoners of war, and a large part of the funds also come from German indemnities.
1952, the year before Stalin's death. The total industrial production in the Soviet Union doubled from 1940. At the end of the first five-year plan after the war, heavy industry had recovered from the war. Steel output was 19% higher than in 1940, electricity output was 87%, coal 57%, cement 45%, and glass 90%. The actual production capacity exceeded the predetermined target.
2. Population and technology, resources
The first question before Soviet leaders is how to restore population. In order to win the war, the Soviet Union sacrificed half of its young and middle-aged people. From the rich to the common people, it was almost impossible to find a complete family.
Its tragic degree can be described as "every family hangs a lottery, and every household opens a funeral." Even for a long time after the end of the war, people died every year due to various sequelae.
For a country to be strong, population is the foundation. After the war, the Soviet government advanced the marriageable age of women to 16, and stipulated that fertility is equivalent to military service, and women who have given birth to multiple children can be awarded the medal. The government guarantees the medical care and education of newborn babies, and provides their parents with a generous bonus, so that Ding's family has no worries. It is worth mentioning that it is Russia's national policy to reward childbirth.
The Soviet Union has a lot of natural resources, such as various metals, oil, coal, natural gas, wood, hydropower, etc. The Soviet Union is self-sufficient in natural resources and can sell a large part of it at the price of hard currency. Resource export trade has been a major economic pillar of Russia so far.
In addition, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European "satellite countries" jointly established the economic mutual aid committee . Bring these countries into the Soviet system and serve the Soviet Union economically. For example, countries within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union have a large amount of uranium reserves, which will be bought by the Soviet Union and are vital to the development of nuclear weapons. ·
Russians have always been very good at mathematics and science, not to mention that they have acquired a large number of former Nazi scientists. At the end of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union both competed for Nazi black technology and developed various missiles and aircraft. The power of science and technology gave them the status of a superpower over the huge Soviet army. Active espionage activities helped the Soviet Union quickly close the technological gap with the United States.
3. The Yalta system was established, the old pattern was broken, and the Soviet Union rose
The main body of the Soviet Union-Russia has a vast territory, natural resources and population. It has been a pivotal player since the reforms of Peter the Great in the 18th century. Strong country. The global balance of power before 1939 was completely different from the bipolar pattern of the Cold War. It was an era of " big game " where great powers coexisted.
At the end of the 1930s, the size of the US military was even smaller than Romania . In the eyes of the first-line powers such as Britain, France and Germany, it was not ranked at all. "The sun never sets" British colonies are spread over all continents, occupying a quarter of the earth's total land area in its heyday, and possessing the most powerful navy.
France has the strongest army in Europe and the third modern surface fleet in the world. The strength of the German army has not been underestimated since 1870. Although it was defeated horribly in World War I, the war did not reach the mainland, and the industrial foundation still exists. The newly launched Hitler has violated the " Treaty of Versailles " and is always ready for revenge.
And the Second World War is the end battle of these old capitalist powers. The world in 1939 was multipolar, but by 1945, there were only two superpowers left in the world: the United States and the Soviet Union. The others are either crushed, occupied, or exhausted, dying.
Hitler wanted to turn Russia into a huge colony, but his madness eliminated several rivals for the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union could not even conquer the small Finland in 1940. When the Barbarossa project was implemented, it was not only Hitler and his generals who believed that Russia would collapse one after another like a domino. Even the British and American experts did not expect that Moscow would survive the blitz. .
In 1945, the British sun set, France woke up from the dream of the strongest army, and the Germans watched Russian tanks roar in the ruins of Berlin. Everyone is waiting for the arrival of American economic aid.Only Russia has risen in adversity and has become a superpower that has competed with the United States for 40 years.
The Second World War is actually a battle for territory. Hitler left a huge power vacuum in Eastern Europe, which was filled by the Soviets. Those countries liberated by the Soviet Union later entered the Warsaw Pact .
In the middle and late stages of the war, the Soviet Union pushed back the line to drive away the Nazis while establishing a " satellite state " government on the land liberated by them to strengthen ideological output. After the war, these regimes loyal to the Soviet Union acted as a buffer zone to resist future attacks that the Western camp might launch.
Only the United States, the only economy that has not been directly attacked by war, and a Western power with strong manufacturing capabilities and excellent technical strength, can challenge the Soviet Union. But at the Yalta meeting in 1945, Roosevelt , Churchill and other Allied leaders had no choice but to compromise and recognize that Eastern Europe was the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union.
At that time, the Soviet army was in a superior strategic position. They won Kursk, Dnieper and Visstra, and they played a vital role in the final victory of the war. The role of. Therefore, Stalin had enough voice to dominate the meeting.
The "western boundary" of the Russian territory was Poland, and the Soviet Union once pushed this line to eastern Germany and mastered most of Europe after the war. Churchill summed up the situation in Europe and concluded that the line where Stettins arrived in Trieste is the confrontation line between the two major camps of the United States and the Soviet Union, also known as iron curtain .
If Hitler is still a failed painter,The Second World War never happened, so what will Russia look like today?
Fourth, the glory of the past
The recovery of the Soviet Union after the war is also known as the "Stalin miracle." City is rebuilding, housing prices are falling year after year, and workers have the opportunity to buy an apartment with a mortgage loan of 1% per year. The inflation rate is almost zero, and the ruble is equivalent to the dollar.
The Fourth Five-Year Plan from 1946 to 1951 is Stalin’s last legacy to the Soviet people, and it is also one of his most ambitious goals in his life-not only to bring the Soviet economy to the pre-war level, And to surpass the pre-war level.
This is not only an increase in statistical calculations, but also an increase in life: child mortality has more than tripled, and the number of medical personnel has increased by half.
Socialism can promote education and increase the literacy rate of . After the war, the number of Soviet scientific institutions increased by 40%, and the number of students increased by 50%. Stalin coordinated the planning of the power of the whole country, so that the Soviet Union quickly rose to become the world's second largest industrial superpower.
In the future, all the leaders of the Soviet Union have been eating the money left by Stalin. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia and Eastern Europe never recovered, nor did they show any signs of recovery.
Text/Wind of Peace
.Reference materials:
1. "Analysis of the Post-War Soviet Economic Status", Zhao Xi
2. "Prisoner of War Labor and the Recovery of the Soviet National Economy after the War", Wang Xueli
