Economy of the USSR - 2nd GDP in the world (after the US economy) the economy on the territory of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which produced 1/5 of the world industrial products. The economy of the USSR was the first in history to be centrally planned, which was carried out by three state institutions:
State Planning Committee of the USSR State Committee USSR Council of Ministers for Planning
State Bank of the USSR - State Bank
Gossnab of the USSR - the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for material and technical supply Before the October Revolution of 1917, Russia lagged far behind the industrially developed capitalist states. In terms of industrial production, it ranked 5th in the world and 4th in Europe.
The first major state planning project was the GOELRO plan, followed by five-year plans - "five-year plans". The main focus of economic planning was placed on the rapid development of heavy industry in a short time to the detriment of the development of other consumer sectors, as a result of which, a few years after the start of planning, the USSR turned into one of the largest industrial and agricultural powers in the world. Great importance in the further development of the economy of the state was the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. With the greatest efforts of the people, the Soviet Union managed to restore its position in the world economy in less than 10 years after the end of the destructive war and subsequently take leadership positions in many respects. Already by the 1960s, the USSR economy ranked first in the world in: coal mining, iron ore mining, coke and cement production, diesel locomotive production, sawn timber, woolen fabrics, granulated sugar and animal oil, etc. Second place in the world - the production of all industrial products, electricity, oil and gas production, the production of steel, pig iron, chemical products, mineral fertilizers, engineering products, cotton fabrics, etc. Later, the USSR overtook its world competitors in the production of steel, iron, oil production, production of mineral fertilizers, reinforced concrete structures, footwear, etc. Distinctive feature economy in the late history of the Soviet Union is the shortage of consumer goods, which is explained by the imperfection of the processes in terms of pricing and soft monetary policy, which worsened during the perestroika period. In the mid-1980s, the leadership of the Soviet Union made an attempt to restructure the Soviet way of managing with the introduction of elements of a free market - a mixed economy. However, by the 1990s, the Soviet Government had lost control over the state's economy as a result of a number of reasons, which turned out to accelerate the collapse of the Soviet Union for the country.
basis economic system The USSR constitutes socialist ownership of the means of production. It arose and became firmly established as a result of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and the building of socialism in the USSR. The working class, in alliance with the working peasantry, under the leadership of the Communist Party, abolished the political power of the bourgeoisie and landlords; through the nationalization and socialization of the main means of production in the most important industries National economy won economic positions in the country. Relying on socialist property in these decisive spheres of the economy, the working class, under the leadership of the Communist Party, transformed small-scale peasant farming into large-scale socialist farming through cooperation. Small private peasant property was replaced by large-scale socialist collective-farm and cooperative property. As a result, by the mid-1930s socialist property in two forms - state and collective-farm-cooperative - became undividedly dominant in the country's economy
This led to a radical change in the goal of production, which began to be determined by the basic economic law of socialism, to ensure the well-being and all-round development of all members of society through the most complete satisfaction of their constantly growing material and cultural needs, achieved through the continuous growth and improvement of societies. production based on scientific and technological progress. This law expresses the fundamental advantages of the Soviet socialist economy over the capitalist economy, the aim of which is the pursuit of the greatest profit. Socialist ownership of the means of production gives scope for the development of the productive forces, since the socialist relations of production based on it fully correspond to their character. The socialist economy, unlike the capitalist one, develops according to plan, without crises and recessions. This ensures stable and high growth rates for the entire national economy. The socialist economy has the possibility of concentrating production and deepening the division of societies, not limited by the framework of private property. labor through specialization and cooperation, which contributes to the rapid growth of the productivity of societies. labor is the main condition for the victory of the new society. building over the old.
Socialist property, action economic law The planned, proportional development of the national economy opened up for the first time in the history of society the opportunity to develop the entire national economy according to a single state plan. A centrally planned economy provides benefits such as the concentration of resources in critical areas of societies. production, proportional development of the national economy. Plannedness makes it possible to better, more fully and efficiently use society's resources - material, monetary and labor, and, first of all, to solve problems of national importance. The Soviet state maintains constant proportionality on the scale of the entire national economy, strictly taking into account the needs of society and the resources at its disposal, applying knowledge of the laws of societies. development, guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory. On the basis of scientific foresight, through planning, the Soviet state is improving the structure of social production.
The management of the national economy is carried out on the basis of democratic centralism, which presupposes the participation in this process of the working masses through state elected bodies, public organizations, production conferences that are available at each enterprise, etc., a nationwide discussion of national economic plans, which make it possible to open and use production reserves. A form of mass participation of the working people in the planning and management of the national economy is also reciprocal plans that promote the development of the creative potential and energy of the people.
driving force economic development country has become a mass socialist competition, the opposite of capitalist competition, which divides people and is inextricably linked with anarchy and the spontaneous nature of capitalist production. Socialist emulation raises the consciousness and patriotism of the working people in the interests of further rapid development economy, growth of production efficiency, labor productivity.
The Soviet economy is inherent in the socialist principle of distribution according to work (according to its quantity and quality - qualifications). Personal and collective material interest in the results of labor stimulates the growth of its productivity and production at every workplace, enterprise, throughout society.
The planned development of the economy ensures the rational allocation of production. forces throughout the country. During the years of Soviet power there have been fundamental changes in the distribution of production. forces associated with the growth of industrial production in the Union republics and the general advancement of production in the eastern regions of the country, rich in natural resources ferrous and non-ferrous metals, coal, oil and gas, timber, hydropower.
From time to time, one has to come across beautiful graphs and tables showing the ratio of the GDP growth rates of the USSR to, say, Western countries. Depending on the author's political orientation, graphics and figures serve as "weighty" evidence of one or another point of view, in fact, the promotion of the author's ideological corpuscle. The left-wing patriotic part of the public likes to point out the high rates of economic growth of the Stalin period (and more widely, the 20-60s), while their opponents, not without pleasure, poke at the low rates of the 80s. Both camps are mistaken, and this misunderstanding is due to gaps in modern economic knowledge.
Declaration. I want to say right away that I am not going to develop arguments in favor of one or another point of view. Personally, I don't care whether the pace of economic development was really high or low. It cannot be otherwise, because I would be prejudiced. When I started writing this text, I had practically no idea about it; didn't know what would come out. And the result, of course, cannot be simple and unambiguous, simply because reality is complex enough to allow unambiguous interpretations.
Before proceeding to the analysis of the country's growth rate, it is necessary to understand how the economic growth. To do this, you need to understand how the value in question is formed - GDP.
GDP (national output) is the volume of final products produced in the country for a certain period. For the production of output, it is required to spend the factors of production (labor, capital, raw materials) using the totality of available production technologies.
It follows that GDP can change only if at least one of these factors changes: the population of the country has grown, more capital has appeared, production and service technologies have improved, etc. Miracles, in principle, do not happen: in order for something to grow on the left side of the ratio, something must first change on the right side.
There may be different ways to describe the interaction of these factors and derive from them the dynamics of GDP. But the most successful this moment is a description according to which the GDP growth rate consists of the following components:
grY = n + g + t,
where grY- GDP growth rate ( Y), n- population growth rate, g- growth rate of "knowledge" and t- some transitive dynamics.
From here it immediately follows
Why? Yes, because any economy at any given time is growing at least at the rate of population growth. And if we are trying to find a philosopher's stone / evidence of an economic miracle in the USSR, then we must make a correction for what is already growing, without any effort.
This should always be done when it comes to increasing the standard of living in the country (indicators per capita) and when comparing the pace of improvement in the standard of living in different countries.
The second unknown in our relation is a certain transitive dynamics. What is it?
Roughly speaking, in the long run, the growth rate of the economy converges to a stable value of only n + g. But this is in the long term. And if the economy began its growth at a point far from this state, then it will approach it with a decreasing absolute difference in growth rates from the stable one ( n+g). This discrepancy is captured by the transitive dynamics of t.
What caused this transitive dynamics? It is caused by a change in capital (in terms of labor and the level of technology). If there is too little capital in the economy, then it will grow until its volume reaches a sustainable level. In this case, there will be a significant (short-term) transitive dynamics of growth rates of GDP per capita (and capital per capita). Sooner or later, the transitive dynamics will still become negligible - I repeat, these are only short-term influences.
this implies
Lesson 2: Consider the impact of capital growth
If we want to make a meaningful comparison of two (or more) countries, then we need to make a correction for starting conditions - did they start with relatively equal amounts of capital per labor, do they have the same other parameters, where they are relative to their long-term coordinates.
Remaining unknown g- this is the growth of certain "knowledge". In fact, this includes all other factors that increase the productivity of labor and capital.
There are many such factors and they can be distinguished. For example, one can take into account the growth in the level of education of the population (introduce into consideration human capital). It is clear that if the population has a low level of literacy, as in Russian Empire, then the introduction of universal secondary education and the expansion of universities will have a tangible effect on labor productivity. True, the effect is one-time, because it is impossible to raise the prevalence of even higher education in the population above 100%.
The most important component g yet is the level of knowledge in society - the level of technology. It is believed that technologies are basically free and that all countries contribute to their emergence. For example, all countries have access to research in molecular biology or thermodynamics. Thus, the growth of the global level of knowledge is an external process and - within the framework of considering a separate small country - little controlled.
this implies
If the countries of the world grow at a certain general rate of knowledge growth, then there is no merit if we grow at that rate. On the contrary, our comparative success can only be measured in relation to the growth of all others. Those. if our productivity is growing faster than the world average, then we are doing well. And if not, then there is no reason to be proud (of other people's efforts, in fact).
So, let's sum up the intermediate result. We started with "gross" values of GDP growth. It turned out that from these values it is necessary to subtract the population growth rate, the global trend, and even take into account transitive dynamics. It is also good to take into account the growth in the level of education of the population and the emancipation of women (=which acts in the same way as a one-time increase in the economically active population).
What remains in the end after these subtractions is the desired "economic miracle". Something that no one expected from us, but we did. But was it?
Let us now turn to the real data of the USSR.
To begin with, let's look at how the growth rates of GNP and labor growth rates behave. Here is the chart:
(ld_GNPWEST - GNP growth rate; ld_LWEST - labor growth rate)
It can be seen with the naked eye that at least until the 50s. a significant part of the GNP growth rate is caused by population growth. The growth rate of GNP per capita is the difference between the two lines on the graph. To get an idea of the rate of economic development of the USSR, one should first adjust the figures downward for the entire period by the rate of population growth.
Here is the adjusted chart (growth rate of GNP per capita):
In principle, the growth rates are quite high, although volatile at the beginning of the series, the average value is somewhere around 3-5% per year. But let's not rush to conclusions, we still have a number of factors not taken into account.
Let's plot the growth of GNP per capita and capital per capita:
(hyperl - growth rate of GNP per capita; gkperl - growth rate of capital per capita)
It turns out that most of the time capital grew faster than GNP, especially in the second half of the period under review. Curious.
(ld_wrld - GDP per capita growth rate in the world)
The global growth of knowledge "eats" almost all the achievements since the mid-1970s. and about half before this period. There is an ambiguity from the 60s, when the per capita growth rate in the USSR is significantly higher.
Now let's try to put everything together. Here, however, there is a nuance. To isolate the "economic miracle" from the indicated factors, you need to know the production function. In what follows, I use a simple assumption (Cobb-Douglas with elasticity 1/2), but its validity is questioned. However, with the available (unsatisfactory) volume of statistics for the USSR, it is difficult to determine the production function in a convincing way. Glory to the State Statistics Committee of the USSR! And glory to the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation! So this topic is still waiting for its researcher-archivist. We will stop at a rough assumption.
Here is a graph of growth rates, taking into account the growth of population, the level of knowledge in the world and capital:
And this is without taking into account changes in human capital!
Except for the obvious anomaly immediately after the war (it must be dealt with separately, most likely it is a divergence in time in the introduction of fixed assets), it turns out that for almost the entire period the balance in the growth rates of the USSR GNP per capita was negative, i.e. there was no economic miracle at all.
This, of course, does not mean failure. economic policy USSR. In the end, the result is slightly worse than the average - the same result. But also about economic miracle, apparently, it is not quite correct to say. However, I got carried away, it's time to wrap up.
I refer all those interested in the professional presentation of these exciting ideas to the literature. Primarily
Robert Solow (1956). A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 65, pp. 65-94.
Alwyn Young (1995). The Tyranny of Numbers: Confronting the Statistical Realities of the East Asian Growth Experience. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110, 3, pp. 641-680.
N. Gregory Mankiw, David Romer, and David N. Weil. A contribution to the empirics of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(2):407-437, May 1992.
William Easterly and Stanley Fischer (1994). The Soviet Economic Decline: Historical and Republican Data. World Bank Policy Research Working paper 1281.
Moses Abramovitz and Paul A. David (1973). Reinterpreting Economic Growth: Parables and Realities. American Economic Review, 63, 2, pp. 428-439.
Jonathan Temple. The new growth evidence. Journal of Economic Literature,
37(1):112-156, March 1999.
Romer, Michael. (1996). Could Asian policies propel African growth? HIID Working Paper 543
Initial data and alternative view taken from here on the same subject:
There is a link on the right related dataset.
P.S. There are a number of subtleties and problems that, in principle, can be discussed, but a detailed presentation of which would make the text even heavier.
P.S.S. This is not a reason to shout that supposedly everything was bad in the economy. Here, again, there are a number of complexities that are best discussed separately. Here's a summary of sorts:
Generally speaking, the growth rate of GDP per capita in the USSR was even higher, on average over 60 years, than in the United States (about 2.7% versus 2% per year). The problem is that economic growth in the US has been relatively flat (except for the Great Depression).
In the USSR, there was a high growth in the initial period, due to an increase in literacy (which has a natural physical limit) and saturation with capital (which also has a limit - diminishing returns). With these influences taken into account, the pace of development of the Soviet economy was worse than the world average, except for a few short periods of time.
Sooner or later, this was bound to have an effect, and it did in the final period, when the growth rate of GDP per capita caught up with the growth rate of productivity (which was not high against the world background), and the influence of other temporary sources was exhausted.
Why did America outperform the USSR in terms of GDP, and lagged behind the USSR in terms of total production by the mid-80s?
The model used in GDP adjustments is good for Western economies, but bad for planned economies, GDP is mainly an indicator of consumption rather than real production.
In the West, and especially in the US, a very active and professionally well-selected and trained school of comparative Sovietologists developed during the Cold War, which supplied the public with false information about the Soviet economy, comparable to the corresponding information about the US economy.
These "economists" have monopolized and subjugated the most important thing - the very understanding of economic efficiency. And now, after many years, such economists are breeding who do not even have doubts about this. Compare planned and market economy with an indicator of GDP, either pests to exaggerate the power of the United States over the USSR, or just idiots. In addition to the current unfortunate Russian economists and CIA analysts serving the order of the Washington Regional Committee, the current Russian textbooks are also full of statements about the low growth rates of the USSR.
Let's take a closer look .. GDP was basically less than the US because:
In the USSR, the service sector played a much smaller role in the economy than in the US in the market;
Prices in the USSR for services and goods were lower than in the USA;
There was no private investment in the USSR.
For example in 1986 year of GDP The United States was according to the CIA 3.9 trillion. dollars. 2.18 trillion-65% of them were consumption - services and goods for market price. The service sector employed 80 million (66%) of the 121 million US workforce
The GDP of the Soviet Union according to the CIA was 2.06 trillion. 50% consisted of consumption. Of the labor force of the USSR 128 million people, about 55 million people (42%) worked in the public services sector.
In GDP, only the total value of purchased goods and services is shown, not their quantity. And the difference in consumption of 65% of the USA and 50% of the USSR is the difference in their total cost to the greatest extent, than in quantity. The public services of the USSR, not only were there fewer of them, were cheaper than those of American private traders who received fees by setting their prices, when in the USSR workers received a fixed salary from the state. Some services in the USSR were free for consumers, such as medical, educational, etc. It should be borne in mind that the salaries of workers in the USSR cannot show the total number of services rendered by them. Example: if a dentist in a public clinic serves 10,000 clients in a year, he receives a fixed salary, when the private one deducts the fee from each and receives a huge amount of money that will be counted into the US GDP. In the USSR, everything was produced not for profit, as in the USA, but to meet the needs of the population to the maximum, at the lowest possible price, and the quality was in many respects approximately equal.
Now private investment is 501 billion of the US GDP in 1985, when they simply did not exist in the USSR.
It is also known that 15% of the US GDP consists of rent homeowners themselves. These figures have nothing to do with development, only with the level of housing rental prices. However, they are considered in GDP, and it is because of this that the US GDP exceeds the GDP of so many countries.
If an expensive good or service is sold at a lower price, then GDP growth is underestimated. Including rent in the calculations increases the indicators of economic growth. These indicators were counted in the US GDP and were not counted in the USSR GDP. Growth present-day Russia largely due to rising property rents.
Back in the late 1980s. Soviet economists Selyunin and Khanin published a number of articles in which they convincingly showed that behind the growth of such cost indicators as GDP, a decline in production is often hidden, if it is presented in natural (physical) indicators.
For example, if prostitution and the drug trade were legalized, then the US official GDP would increase by about $500 billion without any increase in productive or consumer values.
Leading specialist of the West Soviet economy Alex Nove, who is well acquainted with the peculiarities of the economy of the USSR, believes that the recalculation and comparison of GDP or GNP in economies of different types, using price indicators, is illegal.
Most literate economists understand that the USSR developed normally. Until 1986, no crisis phenomena inherent in this system were found.
Attempts to belittle the economic achievements of the USSR are intended to prove that the collapse of the USSR was inevitable and that there is no point in restoring what collapsed by itself. Meanwhile, the scientific community of the West is not as homogeneous in its assessments as the current Russian manipulators of science, who resort to pseudoscientific methods of processing statistical indicators, defending themselves from criticism by the high authority of science.
More precisely, in one chart.
One can often come across a comparison of the standard of living of countries (as an option, the power of their economy, etc.) based on a comparison of their GDP. This method borders on insanity Not only do different economies use different methods to calculate GDP, it also has different meanings for them. The GDP of the USSR is not at all the same as the GDP of the USA. If only because in the USSR a lot of benefits were distributed in a non-monetary way. This is especially true for the service sector, because it is impossible to calculate the price of a service objectively.
If a lawyer in the United States requires a thousand dollars for an hour of work, then it is considered that his work is worth that much. A thousand dollars for a lawyer. The doctor who uses his services receives by setting the appropriate fee for the appointment. Both are included in GDP. In the USSR, both a lawyer and a doctor work for a salary, and not for fees, although the results of their activities for the population are no worse. And the GDP is less.
Even the transition to parity prices does not help, since it is also, let's say, slightly speculative and approximate.
Moral from there: GDP is well suited for comparing an economy to itself. In comparison different systems GDP can show something, but up to differences by orders of magnitude, not by times and not by percentages.
However, in the article that I want to bring to your attention, other estimates are made using GDP. Namely: a graph of relations between the GDP of Russia / the USSR and the USA was built. This chart illustrates relative development of the economy. And here the use of GDP is quite correct.
The chart itself, I must say, is impressive. I haven't seen a clearer chart in a long time.
Russia - XX century. Tragedy in one schedule, five parts, with a prologue and an epilogue.
Posted on 2008.07.22 at 09:21Prologue.
I bow at the feet of Mr. A. Illarionov, former adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, V.V. Putin, now a senior employee of the Cato Institute, USA and, therefore, an implacable fighter for the truth ... Freddy Krueger appeared to A. Illarionov and forced him to present a report with a specific title: "Premonition of a catastrophe" in the Independent Press Center. So far, however, the author's grave forebodings have not come true and the presented report could certainly not be remembered a year later. Moreover, graphs like the “index of political freedoms”, regularly sucked from the special finger of special employees of special research centers, are inexpensive.
But, there was something extremely important and, one might say, eternal in this report, which is useful to reflect on today. Namely, this is the graph of the Internal Gross Product(GDP) of Russia as a percentage of that of the United States for the period from 1885 to 2006, that is, for 121 years, which captured three main stages in the life of Russia in the twentieth century: the last thirty years of the existence of the Russian empire, the Soviet period and, of course, perestroika with democratization.
Extremely well chosen by A. Illarionov and the country of comparison.
The United States, as you know, is a showcase of liberal democratic civilization, the richest and most powerful country in the world today. Indeed, what better proof of the prosperity of the Empire before the "October Revolution", the failure of the Soviet period and the success of the reformers, than a comparison with the undeniable successes of the United States - a country located in an excellent climate, which, unlike Russia, had never experienced external invasions, long before the beginning of the reporting period, which ended the civil war and, thus, developed its advanced capitalist economy in truly greenhouse conditions, better than which one can imagine?
Well, again, Mr. A. Illarionov, a recognized liberal, a prominent economist, will not allow himself to embellish the “achievements of the USSR”. No no. There is no doubt that all possible methods of eliminating "falsifications of the Soviet period" in this graph, built, as you can understand, according to Angus Madison, the world's leading specialist in economic comparative studies, have been applied. So, let's believe A. Illarionov.
Schedule
Here it is, Graph. The Great Schedule, which reflects revolutions and wars, defeats and victories, Gagarin's flight, Brezhnev's stagnation, "Gorbachev's new thinking" and the great achievements of the reformers. Each reader, of course, has the right to interpret it independently. But I would like to draw special attention to some of its features, which clearly refute some of the historical myths that exist among the Russian “progressive intelligentsia”.
Part one. Trends.
The entire historical period, covering the end of the 19th century, the twentieth century and the beginning of the 21st century, can be divided into three qualitatively different periods: thirty-two years of Imperial Russia from 1885 to 1917, sixty-three years Soviet period- from the moment of the formation of the USSR in 1922 to 1985 - until the arrival of the "reformer" Gorbachev and the twenty-one-year period of "reforms" from 1985 to 2006.
The brief period from 1917 to 1922 was a period of anarchy, civil war, the collapse of the country, a period of unrest, which cannot be attributed to any specific state category.
Omitting the details of the Schedule, we will discuss them below, we will focus on the first obvious circumstance: in complete contradiction to the myth that has spread in recent years about “Russia prospering under the Tsar”, we see that over the past thirty-two years of the Empire, GDP ratio Russia's per capita to GDP per capita US declined almost monotonously, falling from 40% to 23% by the time the revolution began.
Since the meaning of facts is known only in comparison with other homogeneous facts, I will mention that at that time, the average GDP per capita of African countries in relation to the group developed countries West accounted for about 18%.
It is also worth recalling that for almost the entire period under review, until 1914, Russia did not participate in any significant wars, except for the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and its general lag behind the United States with wars cannot be directly related, respectively, for even in the best pre-war year, 1913, this ratio hardly exceeded 30% and was one-third lower than at the beginning of the period under consideration.
The second myth, which immediately collapses when analyzing the Madison-Illarionov graph, is that, supposedly, the economy of the Soviet era was inefficient. It also does not find its scientific confirmation.
It follows from the graph that long term- for 63 years - from the moment of the formation of the USSR in 1922 and before the arrival of Gorbachev, despite the losses in the wars, the country returned and even slightly exceeded this indicator best level imperial era 1885.
It should be emphasized that the indicator under consideration is relative - the GDP of 1985 is compared with the US GDP of 1995, which was several times higher than the US GDP in 1922. In other words, the constancy of the relationship of the soul country's GDP per capita GDP of the United States suggests that the country is developing as fast as the United States. Rising ratio means that it is developing faster than the US. Therefore, since in 63 years the USSR improved this indicator by almost four times, it is clear that it developed faster than the United States. You can even calculate how much faster. To do this, take the root of the power of 63 from the ratio of the indicator in 1985 to its value in 1922, and then subtract one. The growth of the indicator was 3.91 times. The 63rd root is 1.0218.
This means that the USSR, on average, over 63 years has developed 2.18% faster than the United States. But the average US growth rate over the years has been about 2% per year on average. This means that the USSR developed at least twice as fast as the leading capitalist power.
No less interesting is the last period of the life of the country. It follows from the graph that when Gorbachev came to power, the ratio of per capita GDP of the USSR to the US GDP was the best for the entire 130-year historical period - more than 40%. However, shortly after he came to power, the most rapid decline in history began. If in the 18 pre-war years the position of the USSR relative to the American level has improved threefold, then in the 12 post-Gorbachev years, Russia's per capita GDP has almost tripled. The country again fell to the "African" level of 18% of the per capita income of the United States. The fall is almost the same as a result of Hitler's attack on the USSR.
Of course, the United States at the end of the 20th century was richer than it was in 1941. Therefore, the dip in relative per capita GDP during the years of perestroika was not as severe as the similar dip in the war years, because in absolute terms the country remained richer than during the war years. But the scale of the catastrophe that befell Russia in the late 80s and 90s is obvious.
As an intellectual exercise, I invite the reader to take a close look at the graph and decide on its basis which of the historical periods was the most successful for Russia? Just take a look and decide for yourself.
Part two. Empire and its problems.
Today, people often try to present things in such a way that revolutions in Russia arose “for no reason at all” and the country fell victim to a handful of adventurers. Illarionov's schedule also refutes this myth.
Against the backdrop of a general decline that continued throughout the last three decades of the life of the empire, one can notice some features. What, for example, is connected with the first noticeable failure, related to the beginning of the 90s of the 19th century? - I suspect that not every modern historian can remember what actually happened in these years in Russia? - And there was a Great Famine of the early 90s - one in a series of famines that engulfed Russia.
Reference: In 1891-1892, 16 provinces were engulfed in hunger European Russia and the province of Tobolsk) with a population of 35 million. In the Volga region, the eastern regions of the black earth zone suffered from a catastrophic famine - 20 provinces with a 40 million peasant population. In a less extensive area, but with no less intensity, the famine was repeated in 1892-1893. According to L. Tolstoy, “1/3 of Russia was captured by famine, and that same third that always fed most of the remaining two-thirds” (vol. 29, p. 118). It is believed that in 1891 alone, from one to two million people died of starvation in Russia.
Hungry years were repeated in Russia with enviable regularity. The largest catastrophes occurred in 1900-1903 and 1911.
Reference: Hunger claimed a million lives a year. Thus, the famine of 1911 covered 35-40 provinces and, according to official data, 1 million 160 thousand people died in 1911 from hunger and diseases associated with hunger. Cases of cannibalism have been reported in a number of starving regions.
A number of politically motivated leftists attribute the famine of 1911 to the failure of the Stolypin reforms, which began several years earlier. This, of course, is not true. In such a short period of time, the Stolypin reforms could not and did not qualitatively change the structure of the population of Russia - until the beginning of the 30s, Russia remained a deeply agrarian country, in which more than 80% of the population was peasant. There was only one reason for the famine until the famine of the early 30s: small land - the average allotment was 7.9 acres per yard, poverty - up to 30% of the peasants were “horseless” and therefore did not have the opportunity to manage in any way efficiently, but also the level of agriculture of those who had horses was extremely low. Only large landlord farms had the opportunity to apply modern agricultural technology and, therefore, received three to four times higher yields than the bulk of small landowners.
The agrarian question and the under-industrialization of Russia were its curse. The main task of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was the release of excess mouths from the countryside and their absorption by the industry that was to be created. The graph shows that Stolypin's reforms aimed at resolving this issue, although they did not save from hunger, however, had a positive effect. From their beginning until the outbreak of the First World War, Russia developed noticeably faster than the United States - about the same as in the first post-Stalin years. The war stopped this growth and threw the country back.
From the Graph it can be seen that both revolutions of the early twentieth century occurred after a fall in GDP per capita caused by wars and, therefore, as a result of a real deterioration in the life of the population. It is unlikely, therefore, that they can be considered the result of the activities of opposition parties. If she was effective, it was only because she fell on a well-prepared economic problems soil. The fall in per capita GDP to about the level of 1905 caused the revolution of 1917 and plunged the country into a final catastrophe, lowering it into Troubles in terms of the well-being of the population below the level of African countries.
The details of this catastrophe are not visible on the Chart, so we will not dwell on the Troubles and leave it to the reader to decide for himself: did our grandfathers and great-grandfathers have reason to be dissatisfied with the imperial power?
Part Three: Stalin's tread.
The turmoil led to the disintegration of the country. Article 16 of the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to recognize all “new states formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire. The beginning of the exit from the turmoil and the improvement of the economic condition of the country dates back to the moment of its revival under the name of the USSR - by 1922.
According to a member of the Royal Historical Society, Paul Kennedy, the level of industrial production in Russia in 1922 was 12% of the level of the last pre-war, 1913. The fall in GDP per capita, of course, was smaller - only three times, because Russia was an agrarian country and the share of industry in GDP was relatively small. The country emerged from the turmoil, torn apart by internal economic and contradictions.
The graph, however, shows that having taken over in 1922 a country with a GDP per capita of 12% of the US - that is, in a worse condition than the average African countries, for some 18 pre-war years, Russia, is now in shape The USSR, compensated for all the losses of the previous 40 years, including the losses associated with the revolutions, the First World War and the Civil War, and practically reached the best level of 1885.
By 1928, the country had regained the industrial potential of 1913 and moved on. However, this movement was special. The main task was to prepare the country for the inevitable future World War. To the reader who is not very familiar with history, linking together the First and Second World Wars may seem strange. In fact, these wars are two episodes of one, global war: Germany against Britain's leadership in the world and for the redistribution of colonies. The First World War exhausted the opponents, but did not solve the problem. It is no coincidence that when signing a ceasefire with Germany on behalf of the Allies at the end of November 1918, Marshal Foch uttered a phrase known to the whole world: "We are not signing peace, but a truce for 20 years." The marshal was wrong by 9 months. The war began on September 1, 1939.
The USSR had other good reason make war inevitable. In fact, the USSR was in a blockade. Plans for a war against the USSR were constantly exaggerated in the West and in Japan. This is now Tanaka's memorandum, published by the Chinese government in 1927 and implying, in particular, the seizure of the eastern regions of Russia by some people is called into question. But back in 1946, this document, the original of which was never found - like the original of the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, did not cause doubts and was one of the main documents of the American prosecution of the Japanese militarists in the Tokyo Tribunal. For the USSR in 1928, this document was a fact. The USSR had extremely tense relations with England, diplomatic relations with which were constantly in danger of breaking. Even the non-aggression pact with France, the USSR Ambassador Valerian Dovgalevsky managed to sign only in 1932, when the German problem began to manifest itself with might and main.
But the state of the Red Army in the late twenties was horrendous. Less than 10 years after the end of the civil war, it was in many ways a collection of detachments of field commanders who, during the troubled times of the civil war, were accustomed to anarchist freemen. It is no coincidence that until 1935 the Red Army was only a quarter of a regular one. Three-quarters of the units were formed according to the militia-territorial principle and obeyed their leaders rather than a single leadership. Its technical equipment was no less catastrophic.
According to the mobilization plan for May 1928, the Red Army could oppose the enemy with 100 infantry divisions, 90 tanks (there were about 200 of them with armored vehicles) and 7034 guns, mostly foreign-made and produced before the First World War (Source: RGAE. F. 4372. Op.91. D.213. L.109). Lennard Samuelson writes about the state of the Red Army in 1927-1928. : The production of tanks in the Soviet Union had not even begun yet, although a number of related projects were under development. The People's Commissar of Defense called for all economic issues of a defensive nature to be submitted to the military in time. During 1928, several military planning commissions were created... In April 1928, a decision was made on the participation of military representatives at all stages of the development of the national economic plan, while previously they were invited only to the final stage of formulating plan targets.
For comparison, before the start of the war with the USSR, Germany seized the weapons of more than 200 divisions of the defeated or capitulated armies of European countries. In France alone, 4,930 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 3,000 aircraft were captured, and 92 divisions were equipped with French vehicles.
A natural question for readers: What would happen if the USSR delayed industrialization and met the Nazi attack in 1941 with 90 tanks and 7000 guns, but most importantly, without an industry capable of restoring inevitable losses during the war faster than the enemy?
The Soviet leadership decided to accelerate the industrialization of the country. In three five-year plans, the country had to create an industry capable of withstanding any combination of opponents. I do not want to impose on the reader the opinion of whether this decision was necessary? - Let the reader think for himself, not a small one.
But industrialization was impossible without the involvement of labor from the countryside, in which 84% of the population lived in 1928. In other words, Russia once again faced the need to solve the Stolypin problem. Yes, from an abstract point of view, the farmer's way would be more effective than collectivization. When they talk about the inefficiency of the collective farm system, they compare it with the efficiency of farms. But is it so in comparison with the small, beggars, Russian farms? - No. The mere enlargement of the socialized allotments made it possible to increase efficiency in comparison with farms of 3-4-5-10 acres, on the scale of which it is impossible to use equipment and progressive technologies in any way effectively. The average American farmer owns today 200-300 hectares of land. There were only a few such allotments in Russia, and in order for them to appear in droves, it was necessary that 10 small farms would go bankrupt for every “surviving” farming family. From Europe, to the USA, this process took many decades: the entire 19th century plus a large part of the 20th. Did the USSR have such a reserve of time, if before the war, according to all estimates, 15 years were left at the most? - What would happen to the country if the process of ruin would take not decades, but a few years, as it was necessary for a successful organization, especially in a country where only 10 years ago the revolution won under the slogan "Land for the peasants"? There was the experience of the Stolypin reform - much less ambitious and hasty than Russia needed in the late 20s, which led to Stolypin ties and played a significant role in the emergence of revolutions: in 1915 there were 177 peasant uprisings in Russia, and in In 1916, there were already almost 300.
The question, then, is this: did the country have the technical and political opportunity to follow the farmer's or "cooperative" Bukharinist path? Did she have enough time left for this? For some reason, supporters of the farming way of Russia's development do not bother themselves with these questions. But in vain. For the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The industrial growth of the USSR was accompanied by high level costs. First of all, we are talking about the famine of 1932-1933. It showed up on the Chart with a relatively small dip, comparable to that of 1911, which is indicative of its magnitude.
First of all, it is necessary to immediately and unambiguously dismiss any arguments about the “intentionality” of this famine. This "idea" was born somewhere in British circles, who had experience of deliberately organizing a famine in India. It's about about several organized famines in Bengal, designed to clear a place for planting opium. Bengal opium was exported by British businesses, including the royal family, to China, which almost destroyed that country in the 19th century and led to two opium wars fought by Britain against China under the slogan of fighting for the right to free trade. In this case, drugs.
The historical facts do not confirm the intentional famine of 1932-1933. First of all, there were no radical changes in the structure of the country's population by the beginning of the thirties. And, as the experience of tsarist times shows, famines were constantly repeated in Russia. Moreover, as a rule, they occupied a period of several years, since in the first year the seed fund was consumed and the scale of crops fell next year.
Other facts speak about the natural nature of the famine of the thirties. First of all, the notorious law "on three spikelets", aimed at combating the massive theft of grain, was adopted on August 7, 1932 - that is, when it became clear that the harvest was not enough. Secondly, grain withdrawals for state needs were sharply reduced from more than 30% to 23-24%. Thirdly, in order to preserve the grain fund, grain was ordered to be stored in common elevators. And, finally, in the spring of 1933, for ineffective work to eliminate hunger, a number of workers of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture were convicted, which at the same time meant state recognition of the fact of hunger.
Finally, these years were also hungry in Moldova, which at that time was not part of the USSR at all.
Of course, heavy Negative consequences were called and exclusively rapidly collectivization, which in turn was due to the limited time that the country had for industrialization and preparation for the coming war. Collectivization caused discontent among a considerable part of the population and the threat of destabilization of the country, which the authorities could not allow. Naturally, the prosperous part of the peasantry was the least inclined to accept collectivization. Perhaps it would be more effective to achieve a two-fold system: along with the socialization of land and property of the poor rural population, which did not lose anything from this, to keep the “kulak”, and in essence farming, farms. But then who would go from the village to the industry?
“Repressions” require a special, non-ideologized conversation. Since they are not directly reflected in the Chart, we take this topic out of the scope of this discussion.
One way or another, at the cost of enormous efforts, by 1938, according to Paul Kennedy, the level of industrial production in the USSR was already 850% of the level of 1913. This means that from 1922 to 1938 - in 16 years, the level of industrial production in the USSR increased 67 times, which is very good. History knows no analogues of such rates of economic recovery and growth. The food problem was solved: the country began to produce about 30% more agricultural products than in 1928, while significantly fewer people employed in agriculture, which confirms that the collective-farm form of ownership, which was less efficient than farm ownership, was, however, noticeably more efficient than the archaic agrarian small-ownership system that the USSR inherited from Tsarist Russia.
The attack of fascist Germany again threw the country back. The war cost the country dearly. If during the years of the war the United States, thanks to the sale of weapons and Lend-Lease, almost doubled its GDP in five years, the USSR lost about a quarter of the national wealth. World War II cost the country dearly. The USSR lost not only 27 million people, which in itself economic factor, but practically a quarter of their national wealth. During the war years in the USSR, 1710 cities, more than 70 thousand villages, 32 thousand plants and factories were destroyed, 98 thousand collective farms were plundered. Therefore, the two-fold "on average" excess of the rates of development of the USSR compared to the United States, which we wrote about in the first part, is in fact significantly underestimated due to these unimaginable losses.
Sometimes they like to recall the heavy losses in equipment and people in the first six months of the war, forgetting that it is not so much the number of weapons that is important in itself, which, of course, is also important. Much more important is the industrial potential, which makes it possible to make up for the combat losses of these weapons in a timely manner. Such a potential of the USSR was created in two and a half five-year plans - in 13 years. Would victory be possible without this potential? Seems like a strange question. But if so, then the reproach is that in 18 years the USSR ensured the growth of the industry "only" 67 times, as Paul Kennedy claims, but, let's say. Not in 200. Or not in 2000. It would be nice. Is it just real?
What would be. if the country developed at the same pace as before and after the war, but there would be no war? Extrapolation shows that already somewhere by 1950-1955, the USSR would have overtaken the United States in terms of GDP per capita. However, there was a war. And it didn't happen.
However, despite the losses, by the end of the Stalin era, which was marked by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the country had practically restored the best ratio of per capita GDP to per capita GDP of the United States (recall that US GDP almost doubled during the war years and 40% of US GDP in 1957 year - this is much more than 40% of US GDP, say, in the year 1939)
The results of this era are as follows: the USSR created a nuclear missile shield, which ensured its purely military invulnerability for many years. Thanks to this, in the last years of Stalin's life, it became possible to think about the growth of people's living standards and "deploy" the country's potential, expressed just by GDP, to the needs of people. In the early 1950s, a program of mass industrial housing construction was adopted, a program for space exploration, including manned flights and landing on the moon, light industry began to expand. Life expectancy rose almost to the American level of that time and was higher than in Japan.
Part Four. "Builders of communism", or "golden stagnation".
The fourth stage, as can be seen from the graph, includes the years of administration of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. After a short development by inertia, until about the beginning of the 1960s, the ratio of the per capita GDP of Russia and the United States remained practically unchanged until 1985 - before Gorbachev came to power.
The chart gives a clear definition of what has been aptly called stagnation. After a short period of inertial development, when the last projects of the Stalin era were implemented, such as mass housing construction, manned space flight, development stopped. The country stopped overtaking the USA and after 1978-1979 there was a gap. It was reflected on the chart in the form of a small peak and the “oil boom” of the 70s. During these years, the country achieved the best per capita GDP ratio with the United States at 43%, surpassing even the record of 1887. However, in general, during the 20 years of "building communism" from 1964 to 1985, the country's per capita GDP remained on average equal to about 40% of the US GDP. What is - stagnation: The country has developed, but not the United States has already caught up.
It was the time of the "golden stagnation", since the country was in this period in the best relationship with the United States. But it was also the era of lost time. In the Stalin years, the country built a "tank and a dugout." This one was prompted by the requirements of the era. After the creation of the nuclear missile shield, the country achieved, at least for quite a long time, strategic security and guaranteed peacetime, which has almost never happened in its history. It was high time to start building a “house and a tractor”, because it was inconvenient to live in a dugout and plow on a tank. But this did not happen. Starting with Khrushchev, the country continued to operate the "tank and dugout" in conditions for which they are categorically unsuitable.
Part five. "New Thinking".
The problem is that there is no "new thinking" in nature. There is either the ability to think, or the absence of this ability. Gorbachev successfully demonstrated this, as the Chart also clearly shows.
This period is not over and living witnesses to it today. They should evaluate it.
Epilogue.
Today, the material situation of Russia is, of course, better than it was in 1922. But as far as safety is concerned, the same cannot be said. The strategic security of the 1950s-1980s has been completely lost. Therefore, it is impossible to say today with confidence that Russia today has the possibility of long-term peaceful construction - at least in a twenty-year perspective, . Ahead may be a difficult time of choice between the disappearance of Russia from the historical horizon in the spirit of the anti-utopia "Moscow 2042", or another difficult stage for people to mobilize all their forces for the sake of the country's survival, as it was in the 20s and 30s of the XX century.
History, of course, does not repeat itself. But it is not literally repeated. But its laws are unchanged.
