 After the war, with the need for a stronger Soviet economy and rapid industrialization of the country during the 1940s and 1950s, Soviet whaling took off and became a truly global industry.The first Soviet whalers reached the Antarctic during the 1946–47 season with the factory ship "Slava" (taken from the Germans as a prize of war) and then underwent a rapid expansion during the late 1950s in which 5 new fleets were added within a 4-year span