.
The five-year plans presented an opportunity to Stalin to glorify him at the foundations of the communist party. Stalin was a master publicist and his success in portraying himself as the successor to Lenin's legacy had helped him to defeat Trotsky in the power struggle following Lenin's death. Through the smokescreen of industrialisation Stalin was able to change the communist party to his advantage, removing Trotsky and the leftists from history whilst glorifying himself as the saviour of the Soviet Union. Before and throughout the five-year plans Stalin's propaganda machine created an image of Stalin following the Leninist' path, ridiculing the rightists who were bringing back capitalism' whilst further damaging the leftist world-wide revolution' for being irresponsible and unpatriotic. Stalin used industrialisation to appeal to the nationalistic tendencies of the Soviet people, which had been largely ignored and discouraged beforehand, and through this he glorified himself as a dictator of the people and a true proletariat fighting back the bourgeois academics polluting the communist party.
To conclude, the most important reason for industrialisation in the USSR was to ensure the survival of communism in its then form. The N.E.P had created a large amount of friction within the party at all levels and this was beginning to cause problems for the USSR. Through the five year plans Stalin managed to iron out the feud between the leftists and rightists whilst reducing both sections power within the party. At the same time, the plans reinvigorated the actual soviet workers who were becoming depressed at the seemingly small achievements of the N.E.P and its semi-capitalist form. It is true that the plans bought huge amounts of glory to Stalin as well as securing his ultimate power within the party, but this glory was justified by the revitalising effects of industrialisation on the soviet people and the communist party.
