After the October Revolution, Russia became the world's first socialist country, and was thus hated and snuffed out by the Entente. As soon as the First World War ended, the Entente entangled 19 countries in an attempt to intervene in the Russian Civil War in an attempt to eliminate Soviet power.
Although the intervention was unsuccessful, the Entente's hostility to Soviet Russia continued unabated, imposing a total political and economic blockade on it, which lasted for a decade until the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 1929.
Simply put, the economic crisis is that the goods produced cannot be sold, the people cannot afford to consume, and the capitalists cannot make profits or pay wages. But in order to maintain the price of commodities, the capitalists preferred to destroy them rather than sell them at low prices, and the phenomenon of milk pouring into the river appeared.
The economic crisis of 1929 began with the collapse of the United States and soon spread to the capitalist countries of the world. For example, in capitalist countries such as Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and Japan, the unemployment rate in Europe and the United States has soared to 30-50 percent, countless small and medium-sized enterprises have gone bankrupt, stocks and securities have gone all the way, and an atmosphere of panic has pervaded everywhere.
This economic crisis lasted until 1932, which not only severely damaged the world economy, but also led Germany and Japan to take the fascist road and choose the opposite side of mankind, and the Second World War had entered a state of brewing, and the dark clouds of war hung over the entire world.
Not all countries were affected by the economic crisis, and the Soviet Union was an exception, because the Soviet economy was independent of Europe and the United States because of the blockade, and it was a socialist system, which not only did not have an economic downturn, but took the opportunity to achieve industrialization.
In order to increase sales, European and American capitalists can no longer care that the Soviet Union is a socialist country, and as long as real money and silver are taken, they can sell anything. The Soviet Union, which happened to launch its first five-year plan in 1928, was ready to invest heavily in the purchase of industrial equipment. The two hit it off and began a full cooperation.
Russia was originally the most industrially backward of the European powers, with a vast territory and hundreds of millions of people, but its industrial output was not as good as that of germany, Britain, France, and other countries, and peasants and illiteracy accounted for most of the population. The socialist revolution was able to succeed first in Russia on a specific social basis.
The only way to change the backward appearance of the Soviet Union was to vigorously promote industrialization, but the blockade of European and American countries made it impossible for the Soviet Union to obtain advanced industrial technology and equipment. Unexpectedly, this blockade was broken by the global economic crisis, and Marx's prediction was true, and capitalists could sell their ropes for profit.
Beginning in 1929, the Soviet Union built 124 new large-scale industrial projects, basically covering various fields of heavy industry. Two-thirds of the projects were handled by American companies, with Americans sending teams of experts to teach the Soviets to install and use them by hand, and the rest were completed with the help of countries such as Britain and Germany.
The largest Dnieper hydropower station in the Soviet Union is the masterpiece of the Americans, as well as the steel king Carnegie, Ford Motor, etc., all of which contributed to the industrial construction of the Soviet Union and can be called an old friend of the Soviet people. Of course, without huge orders from the Soviet Union, it is still unknown whether these American companies can survive until the economic crisis is alleviated.
The Soviet Union used more than $3 billion to buy a large amount of industrial equipment from the United States, Britain, Germany and other Western countries, accounting for more than half of the world's industrial equipment trade. 50% of the equipment exported by the United States and 90% of the equipment exported by the United Kingdom were sold to the Soviet Union.
So many items and equipment are imported, of course, someone needs to operate. While hiring tens of thousands of foreign experts to help with the construction, the Soviet Union sent engineers and skilled workers to the West for training, so that import projects could achieve independent production and reach self-renewal and progress.
It doesn't matter if the Soviet Union is short of money for a while, it can borrow from European and American banks and repay it with wheat and other agricultural products. Before the economic crisis, the Soviet Union was not popular in international financial markets, with almost no loans or extremely harsh conditions.
But now European and American countries are dying, there are fewer and fewer customers who can afford loans, and Western bankers are worried that their hair is about to fall out, and they wish the Soviet Union had more loans. According to statistics, Western countries provided at least $700 million in loans to the Soviet Union, which greatly accelerated the industrialization process of the Soviet Union.
When the European and American countries had just emerged from the shadow of the economic crisis, the Soviet Union had also completed the first five-year plan, the industrial output value and national income had doubled, and the machine manufacturing industry had increased by 9 times, becoming a real industrial country.
Another less remarkable, but more important achievement, was the universalization of compulsory education in the Soviet Union, with literacy rates increasing to more than 90 per cent and children attending school at about 95 per cent, catching up with the level of developed countries.
Interestingly, European and American companies did not hype up technical assistance and equipment exports to the Soviet Union, so that the public's impression of the Soviet Union remained in a backward agrarian society, and even Hitler did not believe that the Soviet Union had achieved great industrial achievements, which was somewhat similar to the Western view of China today.
However, the help of European and American companies to the industrialization of the Soviet Union was out of the need for profit. After the Nazis came to power, American capital and enterprises also supported Germany, which enabled Germany to quickly emerge from depression and have the ability to launch a world war.
The significance of the industrialization of the Soviet Union is very great, not only making the Soviet Union a modern power, but also strengthening the strength of the world's anti-fascist camp. When Germany launched the war of aggression against the Soviet Union in 1940, it was faced with a steel giant, and the Soviet Union's industrial strength and advanced technology exceeded Hitler's imagination.
Due to strategic mistakes in the early stage, the Soviet Union lost a large amount of territory and troops at the beginning of the war, and heavy equipment such as tanks and aircraft suffered heavy losses. But the Soviets, relying on a strong industrial base and producing more and better tanks and aircraft, withstood the ferocious German offensive until the liberation of Berlin.
The T-34 tanks and Yak fighters developed and produced by the Soviet Union are no less technical than similar German weapons, and the number is even more superior. In this war of industrial capacity, the Soviet Union overwhelmed Germany and became the main force in the anti-fascist war.
Without the Soviet Union's struggle, or early surrender, as France did, Germany would have pooled the resources of the entire Continent and become a European hegemon more powerful than the Napoleonic Empire. The outcome of World War II is likely to be rewritten, and it is really difficult to say whether Britain and the United States have the ability or willingness to counterattack the European continent. From this point of view, Soviet industrialization at least saved the fate of the European people.
The Soviet Union's success in using the global economic crisis to industrialize also provided an example and reference for China's first five-year plan in the 1950s. With its outstanding performance on the Korean battlefield, China won the respect of the Soviet Union and the whole world, so that the Soviet Union sincerely helped China to establish a complete industrial system, which is the 156 aid mentioned above
Why should we thank the Soviet Union? The assistance of 56 cities and counties in 16 provinces of China is the reason
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Economic crises in Europe and the United States erupt every once in a while, determined by the nature of capitalism. All developing countries that are deeply politically and economically bound to European and American countries will suffer a more serious economic recession than That of European and American countries, which is caused by the economic crisis of exports from European and American countries and cannot be avoided.
Only by maintaining an independent political foreign policy and economic system can we survive the economic crisis, and both the Soviet Union and China have done this. More and more developing countries are beginning to realize this, and the world economic structure controlled by European and American countries is also changing, and leeks are getting worse and worse!