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A Review of Soviet Economic Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

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In 1946, when the Soviet economy was still suffering acutely from war damage, Stalin addressed a meeting in Moscow and announced some long-term economic targets : the aim, he said, was to treble the 1940 output of basic industries, and in particular to reach an output of 50 million tons of pig-iron, 60 million tons of steel and 60 million tons of oil. ‘This will take three five-year plans, or maybe longer’, he said, suggesting that he hoped to reach these goals in the early 1960s. Ambitious as his targets seemed at the time, they will in fact probably be exceeded by 1960—in the case of oil by a very wide margin. The period from 1946 to 1956 was one of exceptionally rapid growth. In the first years, the restoration of war-damaged productive capacity and reparations deliveries helped, but progress continued to be very rapid during the fifth five-year plan (1951–1956), when these factors were no longer important.

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 6 , November 1959 , pp. 37 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

note (1) page 37 Bolshevik, no. 3, 1946.

note (2) page 37 F. Seton, Soviet Industrial Expansion (Manchester Statistical Society, 1957); N. Jasny, International Affairs, January 1959; and D. Shimkin, Automotive Industry, January 1958. Another expert, W. Nutter, in a paper to the American Economic Association in 1957, argued for a lower figure than this. The exaggeration tended to be greater in the years before 1950, when 1926/7 prices were used (see A. Nove, ‘1926/7 and all that’, in Soviet Studies, October 1957).

note (1) page 38 Thus the price paid for potatoes was less than the cost of delivering them to the state collecting point. (Khrushchev, in his report to the plenum of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, December 1958.)

note (1) page 39 Khrushchev, ibid.

note (1) page 40 The number of working collective farmers rose by 2 million in 1953-1956, according to Partiinaya Zhizn, no. 13, 1957.

note (1) page 41 I. A. Kulev, O dalneishem sovershenstvovanii planirovania i rukovodstva narodnym Khozaistvom, Moscow, 1957, pp. 7-10.

note (2) page 41 Pravda, 25th December 1956.

note (3) page 41 The many Party and Government statements published in 1957 omitted this information which was first revealed in the collection of Decrees and pronouncements on the economy of the Commicnist Party and Soviet Government, vol. 4, published in 1959.

note (1) page 42 Khrushchev, Report of plenum of the Central Committee, 15-19th December 1958, p. 62.

note (1) page 43 This Soviet figure is not comparable with Western figures because (a) investment is measured net of depreciation, (b) the national income excludes unproductive services and (c) Soviet prices of investment goods are abnormally low relative to consumer goods prices (a gap that has widened in recent years). Although accurate adjustments cannot be made, it is clear that the Soviet rate of investment is high compared with that in Western countries and is likely to remain so. For a Soviet discussion of international comparisons see Y. A. Kronrod, Obschchestvennyi Produkt i evo struktura pri sotsializme, Moscow 1958, p. 471.

note (2) page 43 In Britain, a standard local authority 1-bedroom flat is about 500 sq. ft.

note (3) page 43 Academician Nemchinov, Kommunist, no. 1, 1959.

note (4) page 43 SSSR v tsifrakh, p. 88.

note (1) page 44 As recently as 1958 there were more cows in private hands than on collective and state farms.

note (2) page 44 The increase in industrial output claimed for the first nine months was 12 per cent.

note (3) page 44 See, for example, Pravda, 11th and 18th June 1959.

note (1) page 45 Pravda, 27th June 1959.

note (2) page 45 Letter to The Times, 31st December 1958.

note (3) page 45 One symptom of the growing interest in these problems is the attention now paid to Western techniques of input- output analysis and linear programming. For instance, Studies in the Structure of the American Eeonomy by W. Leontief and others (Oxford University Press, New York, 1953) has recently appeared in a Russian translation, and numerous articles on the use of mathematics in the solution of economic problems have been published in the specialist press.

note (1) page 47 See A. Nove, ‘Soviet Trade and Soviet Aid’, Lloyds Bank Review, January 1959.