Towards the end of 1928 we were able to proceed to
the realization of the First Five-Year Plan, which, as yon
know, was fulfilled ahead of time. After this, we accom-
plished the Second Five-Year Plan and proceeded to carry
out the Third Five-Year Plan, which we were unable to
consummate owing to the German attack.
Thus we were able to work on the three Stalin Five-
Year Plans only short of thirteen years. Yet in this brief
period our country was metamorphized.
Industrially backward Russia was transformed into an
advanced industrial state, and already by the end of the
Second Five-Year Plan our country held first place in
Europe for volume of industrial output. With every year,
right down to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War,
our industry continued to make rapid strides, to create new
branches of production and progressively to increase the
volume of industrial output. In 1940 large-scale industry
in our country produced a little under twelve times as
much as in 1913.
Our agriculture underwent an even greater transfor-
mation. The small and little-productive peasant farms,
mostly working the land only with the help of primitive
ploughs, sickles and scythes, by combining into collective
farms, converted our agriculture into large-scale progressive
farming which, with the help of the state machine and
tractor stations, received, along with the state farms, abun-
dant technical equipment in the shape of tractors, harvester
combines, motor trucks and diverse new kinds of agricul-
tural machinery. In spite of the still considerable lag in
livestock breeding, gross output of agriculture in 1940 was
nearly twice as great as in 1913.
Reviewing the prewar period of development of Soviet
economy, Comrade Stalin said last year:
"This unprecedented growth of production cannot be
473