Russian Recovery after WW2

Russian Recovery after WW2

1. Consequences of War

   • Civilian deaths: 19 million
   • Soldiers killed: 9 million
   • Villages destroyed: 70,000
   • Kholkoz wasted: 100,000
   • Scorched earth policy: Territory recovered of not much value
   • Labour camps: 1.6m in 1942--> 4.7m in 1947

2. Territory

   • Gained: Estonia, Latvia,Lithuania
   • Satellite sates: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania+Bulgaria

3. Industrial Development

   • 4th 5-year plan: Heavy industry+transport
   • Urban workforce: 67m-77m
     • More women( men died in war)
   • 1947: Devaluation of the rouble by 90%
     • Everyone lost savings
   • Consumer goods in short supply
   • Collective farms: 1/3 of pre-war levels (less men)
     • Collectivisation resumed
   • Wages on farms= 20% of industrial wages
   • USSR only second to USA in industrial capacity

4. Harvest fail+drought

   • 1945 harvest= 60% of pre-war levels
   • 1946: nation-wide drought

5. Cult of personality

   • Accepted that Stalin was absolute after victory
   • 'Mature dictatorship' reached

Images and files in the map