Five-Year Plans made fleet expansion an industrial problem

Soviet leaders treated the First Five-Year Plan as a success when they prepared the next stage, although changes in method suggest recognition of its problems. The Second Five-Year Plan combined coercion with incentives such as childcare that enabled mothers to enter the workforce. Heavy industry, steel production, and faster, more reliable railways were intended to support the following phase of military expansion. Centralized planning depended on accurate information and achievable targets, but fear of punishment discouraged honest reporting and made correction harder. The Trans-Siberian Railway illustrates the transport constraint: single-track sections forced opposing trains to wait and reduced capacity. Rebuilding improved the route without removing every bottleneck. A possibly apocryphal story has Stalin discovering an unfinished doubling project only when he traveled over a section himself.