Stalin claimed that the USSR was about 100 years behind the advanced countries. In many ways the gap had been closed by 1939. Production levels were far higher than they had been in 1928. The number of machines and the supply of electricity were particularly successful.

Almost all other heavy industries enjoyed substantial increases. Between 1928 and 1939 the USSR had greatly increased the number of large industrial developments. Impressive examples of this were the Dneiper Dam, the Moscow Metro, the steelworks at Magnitogorsk, Gorky and Kutznetsk.

The USSR had caught up with capitalist neighbours. By the end of the Second World War the USSR had emerged as a super-power ranking second only to the United States of America.

Life for ordinary Russians had improved since 1917; from city housing schemes, universal health care, pensions to sickness benefits. Education was also emphasised: illiteracy was reduced from about 50% in 1924 to 19% by 1939. From 1934 it was compulsory for children to receive 11 years education.

It should also be remembered that the USSR was free from the unemployment and hardship suffered by countries such as Britain and the USA during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

However, is this view only part of the picture? Was industrialization a complete success?

Stalin's policy of industrialization is often regarded as costing far too many Russian lives. However, had you visited the USSR in 1939 the attitude would have been very different. Most Russians admired Stalin. They saw him as a hero rather than a brutal dictator. A talented leader who had achieved the impossible; turning an undeveloped and divided nation into an industrial super-power. It is time to produce an answer to the BIG question:

Was Stalin a hero or a villain?

Consulting your textbook, your notes, notes from the film, and the film itself, and using the correct political vocabulary terms, answer the above questions concerning Stalin and Stalin's Russia on the AP Comparative Government Blackboard Discussion Board no later than midnight Sunday, January 29.