How Successful Were Stalin’s Policies for Industry and Agriculture 1928-1941?

Stalin came into power in 1928 and from then on it was his aim to modernise the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, in comparison with much of Europe was extremely backwards, although Europe was in a time of economic depression, as the Soviet Union had failed to have an industrial revolution they still had less economic power. Stalin realised that an industrial revolution would have to take place in order to modernise the Soviet Union. However he did not want to go about in the same way as the rest of Europe, as he believed that it was their Capitalist system that had led to the economic depression they were now experiencing. Karl Marx had suggested that political and social systems were a direct product of their economic structure. Stalin stood this theory on its head and let the political system that the Bolsheviks had created determine the character of the economy. Stalin’s main aims were: to introduce Socialism, to end opposition to the Communist Party, end peasant independence, an...