Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:20:23.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Foreign Aid and Soviet Postwar Recovery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Susan J. Linz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the economic consequences to the Soviet Union of not participating in proposed aid programs in the immediate postwar period. The cost of World War II to the Soviet Union is compared with the value of economic aid received in the postwar period and with aid potentially available. The traditional story—which suggests that had the USSR received some combination of the proposed aid prgorams, in lieu of reparations, the postwar impact would have been significantly reduced—is rejected.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 947 - 954
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Linz, Susan J., ed., The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (Totowa, N.J., 1985).Google Scholar

2 Linz, Susan J., “Measuring the Carryover Cost of World War II to the Soviet People: 1945–1953,” Explorations in Economic History, 20 (09 1983), pp. 375–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Nutter, G. Warren, The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union (Princeton, 1962), pp. 351–54.Google Scholar

4 Holzman, Franklyn, “The Ruble Exchange Rate and Soviet Foreign Trade Pricing Policies, 1929–1961,” American Economic Review, 58 (09 1968), pp. 803–25.Google Scholar

5 p.814.Google Scholar

6 Tamarchenko, M. L., Sovetskie finansy v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [Soviet finance during the Great Patriotic War] (Moscow, 1967), p. 57.Google Scholar

7 Martel, Leon, Lend-Lease, Loans, and the Coming of the Cold War (Boulder, Colo., 1979).Google Scholar

8 Kravchenko, G., Ekonomika SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [The economy of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War] (Moscow, 1965), p. 351.Google Scholar

9 Bergson, Abram and Heymann, Hans, Soviet National Income and Product, 1940–1948 (New York, 1954), p. 24.Google Scholar

10 For a complete list of sources see Susan J. Linz, “World War II and Soviet Economic Growth, 1945–1953” in Linz, ed., Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union.Google Scholar

11 Both Holzman's rate and the official exchange rate generate implausibly high reparation and aid contributions of between 8 and 20 percent of cumulative postwar national income. That Germany, having lost the war, could still contribute between 5 and 14 percent of cumulative Soviet postwar national income seems rather far-fetched.Google Scholar

12 Zaleski, E., Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 1933–1952 (Chapel Hill, 1980), p. 607; Trud v SSSR [Labor in the USSR] (Moscow 1968), p. 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Millar, James R. and Linz, Susan J., “The Cost of World War II to the Soviet People,” this Journal, 38 (12 1978), pp. 959–62, and “Reply,” this Journal, 40 (Dec 1980), p. 849;Google ScholarSaraydar, Edward “The Cost of World War II to the Soviet People: Two Five-Year Plans?” this Journal, 40 (12 1980), pp. 842–48. Calculations of war cost in terms of 1945 work force would be higher because of the reduced size of the postwar work force. For complete discussion see Susan J. Linz, “Measuring the Carryover Cost of World War II”.Google Scholar

14 Moorsteen, R. and Powell, R., The Soviet Capital Stock, 1928–1962 (Homewood, Ill., 1966), pp. 352–65.Google Scholar

15 Patterson, G. and Polk, J., “The Emerging Pattern of Bilateralism,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 62 (03 1947), pp. 118–42;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPaterson, T., ed., Soviet American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War (Baltimore, 1978).Google Scholar

16 Ferrell, Robert, “The Magnanimity of the Marshall Plan and the Obstructionism of Russia,” in Paterson, T., ed., Origins of the Cold War (Lexington, Mass., 1970), p. 86.Google Scholar

17 For a complete specification of the model see Linz, Susan J., “Economic Origins of the Cold War? An Examination of the Carryover Costs of World War II to the Soviet People” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1980).Google Scholar

18 Similar conclusions are reported by Wassily Leontief, “The Future Development of the National Income of the Soviet Union,” Research and Analysis Report, United States Office of Strategic Services (Washington, D.C., 1944).Google Scholar