By the time of the acceleration of pressures for industrialisation and collectivisation, the regime's metanarrative had taken broad shape. The image of an embattled regime surrounded by international and domestic enemies but led by Lenin's party which was guiding society along the path towards socialism had become established. The central myths of this metanarrative would be strengthened and elaborated in the coming period, but at the same time those myths would undergo significant change so that by 1953 the metanarrative would be substantially reformed.

During the first half of the 1930s, the myth of the building of socialism remained closely intertwined with those of domestic and external opposition. Since the launching of the first five year plan in December 1927, the principal theme of the Soviet metanarrative had been the building of socialism through industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation. The chief stimulus driving these processes forward was shown as the mass enthusiasm and commitment of the workers and peasants. Rather than relying on the slow operation of the market system as in NEP, this ‘revolution from above’ relied on the mobilisation of popular energy and commitment, on the belief that problems could be overcome by the concerted application of the human will, represented by the dedicated efforts of a mobilised populace. While certain large-scale projects – the Turksib Railway and Dneprostroi (both of which were actually begun in autumn 1926), the Volga-Don Canal, Magnitostroi and the Stalin White Sea–Baltic Sea Canal (Belomor) were early examples – were flagged as major symbolic markers of the building of a new socialist society, it was the focus on popular mobilisation, on the single-minded drive of committed workers, which was depicted as the prime driving force of this transformation of the old world.