 Complete the following phrase:  Prior to launching the first Soviet five-year plan, the Soviet Union had been facing threats from external sources as well as experiencing an economic and industrial downturn since the introduction of Bolshevik rule. The first war threat emerged from the East in 1924. A war scare arose in 1927 when multiple Western states, like Great Britain, began cutting off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. This created fear among the Soviets that the West was preparing to attack the Soviet Union again; during the Russian Civil War, foreign powers had 