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 occupied portions of Russian territory. The fear of invasion from the West left the Soviets feeling a need for rapid industrialization to increase Soviet war-making potential, and to compete with the Western powers. At the same time as the War Scare of 1927, dissatisfaction grew among the peasantry of the Soviet Union. This dissatisfaction arose from the famine of the early 1920s, as well as from increasing mistreatment of the peasants. Also during this time the secret police (the OGPU) had begun rounding up political dissenters in the Soviet Union. All these tensions had the potential to destroy the young Soviet Union and forced Joseph Stalin to introduce rapid industrialization of heavy industry so that the Soviet Union could address external and internal threats if needed.