Why did Stalin industrialize the USSR?

Answer 1

Hi This is a tough one to answer, and you're going to have to read a book or two, but essentially Stalin decided that Russia was going to be recognized as a world industrial power if he had to kill every last Russian to do it. And he tried really hard to do that. There was an expression among Russian workers that Stalin was going to provide them with all the tractors they could eat. Essentially, what used to be spent in farming was spent building factories to produce trucks, tractors, railcars, steam engines, etc. People who used to work on farms were drawn to cities to try to make a living doing a hard job for little or no money. Not that they needed money anyway, because there was nothing to buy with it unless you wanted a tractor, steam engine, or 5 miles of railway track. The farms, which used to be like family businesses, were collectivized, which was essentially Stalin saying "what you used to sell I am going to take and you will get what I decide to pay you for it, if anything." So nobody could be very surprised when farmers simply stopped bothering to grow anything they couldn't either eat for themselves or sell on the black market. As a result, Stalin sent out bully boys to take whatever grain they could find and beat the farmer half to death.

Answer 2

In 1928, Stalin recognized that in order for the USSR to survive, it had to catch up to the western world industrially. He explained that the USSR had always been defeated in war by more advance countries; that it was 150 years behind the other countries and that they must catch up to them within 10 years of it would be crushed again.