As a result of the War, 30% of the national wealth was lost in the USSR. 27 million human lives. Bourgeois experts in the official forecast came to the conclusion that the economy of the USSR will be able to reach the pre-war level only by 1965, and only if a foreign loan is taken out. We reached this level in 1948, without outside help, thanks to state regulation of the economy and the dedication of the Soviet people.
The law on the fourth five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1946 - 1950) was approved by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the beginning of 1946. It provided for the restoration of the regions of the country destroyed by the war, a significant excess of the pre-war level of development of industry and agriculture, and the growth of the well-being of the Soviet people.
The working collectives of the country launched an All-Union socialist competition for the fulfillment and overfulfilment of the fourth five-year plan. Hundreds of thousands of workers took individual lords.
The movement for high-speed methods of work began on the initiative of the Moscow turner Pavel Bykov and the Leningrad turner Genrikh Bortkevich.
The Komsomol announced patronage for the restoration of 15 oldest cities, the largest construction projects of the first five-year plans, the mines of Donbass. People from all over the USSR came to the aid of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The number of construction equipment has also increased. All this became a significant factor in determining the growth of labor productivity in the country, and primarily in industry, where the index of labor productivity growth showed an average increase of 10% per year.
The average annual growth rate of the economy of the fourth five-year plan reached 14.6%. The fourth five-year plan was completed in 4 years and 3 months.
The key role was played by the transformation of a significant part of the defense industrial complex into production of a peaceful nature. In 1946, factories that previously produced various types of weapons and ammunition, urgently had to diversify their products, adding dozens of new areas of production.
By reducing military expenditures (1.9 times), capital investments and the commissioning of fixed assets were significantly increased. More than 6 thousand industrial enterprises have been restored or built in five years, almost as many as in the first two five-year plans. The gross industrial output in 1950 exceeded the pre-war level by 73% (according to the plan by 48%).
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The main attention was paid to the widespread use of scientific and technological progress. The number of scientific institutions increased in 1950 over 1940 by 40%. The fastest growing was mechanical engineering, chemistry, and electricity production: the production of excavators increased by 12.9 times, weaving machines by 7.25 times, rolling equipment by 6.5 times, AC electric motors by 3.7 times, and grain harvesters. 3.7 times, tractors - 3.5 times, press-forging machines - 2.4 times, turbines - 2.25 times, chemical fibers and threads - 2.2 times, electricity by 88%. The construction of two hydroelectric power plants on the Volga began.
Since 1946, work has been launched related to atomic energy and nuclear weapons. Just a year after the end of the war, the first nuclear reactor on the continent for scientific purposes was launched, and in 1949 the first test of the Soviet atomic bomb took place.
Also, at the same time, work was launched related to rocket technology; with the automation of production processes (in 1946 the first automatic line was launched, in 1948 the control of the 25 largest hydroelectric power plants was automated, in 1950 the world's first automatic plant for automobile pistons was commissioned); using a computer (the first computer was created in 1950).
The people's well-being has increased significantly. This was facilitated by the rapid growth of national income (2 times compared with 1945 and 1.6 times compared with the pre-war 1940. Real income per capita increased in 1950 against the pre-war level by 34%. Real wages of workers and office workers by 26%; from public consumption funds the population received payments and benefits almost 3 times more than in 1940.
For 1946-1950 201 million m2 of housing was commissioned, which is almost the same as for all the pre-war five-year plans combined. The state and collective farms have introduced 18,540 schools, and 102 thousand places have been introduced for kindergartens only at the expense of the state. The number of university students in 1950 increased by 50% compared to 1940, doctors by 50%, and continued to grow during the Soviet era, and infant mortality decreased by more than 2 times (in 1940 - 180 deaths per 1000 children; in 1950 - 81 deaths per 1000 children) and was the lowest in the world until the end of the 80s.
In agriculture, at first, it was not possible to achieve the same significant success. The weather conditions and the not so high pre-war level of agricultural production made their contribution. The sown area in the country in 1945 decreased by one quarter in comparison with 1940. The state procured in 1945 grain, meat and cotton 2 times less. Milk - almost 3 times less than in 1940. In this regard, in the fourth five-year plan, the consolidation of collective farms was carried out, a stable supply of agricultural machinery began. Therefore, by the end of the fifth five-year plan, the level of mechanization of basic agricultural work on collective farms tended to 100%, namely: plowing up to 98-99%, sowing various crops up to 95-98%, harvesting up to 83%.
Technological equipment and active work made it possible by the end of 1947 to abolish the rationing system for distributing products. At the same time, a systematic decline in food prices and general consumption began. Over the five-year period, prices for basic foodstuffs in the USSR have decreased by 2-2.5 times, while in the largest capitalist countries: the USA, England, France, they have increased, in England and France by 2 or more times. A monetary reform was carried out. All this improved life, increased the confidence of the population in the future.
Thus, in the USSR, in one five-year period, in conditions of a tough military-political confrontation with the richest capitalist powers in the world, 3 socio-economic problems were solved without any external assistance:
1. In 1948, in 2.5 years, the pre-war economic level of the country was restored. For comparison, after the civil war, the pre-war level of 1913 in Tsarist Russia was restored in 6 years.
2. Provided a steady growth in the welfare of the population, the all-round development of people.
3. An economic leap into the future, "into space" has been made.