Lend-Lease aid, the Soviet economy and the Soviet Union at war

2008 ◽  
pp. 175-204
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union

Some Recent Changes in Soviet Economic Policy

1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Rate Of Growth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future

SOVIET economic policy in the few years since Stalin's death has been characterized by flamboyance and ferment. In an attempt to free economic growth from the bottleneck of stagnation in agriculture, Khrushchev has sponsored some extravagant gambles in corn-growing and in expansion of the sown acreage. Policy toward the consumer has gone through two complete reversals: the regime at first experimented with offering the population an improvement in the standard of living, but is now once again asserting that abundance in the future requires austerity today. Perhaps the most startling innovation of all emerged in the past year when the regime began to develop a program of foreign economic assistance as a weapon in its economic competition with the capitalist part of the world. Because of their spectacular nature, these shifts of policy have attracted considerable attention in the West and have been commented on at length. Aware diat the Soviet Union is expanding her economic power at a more rapid rate than are the capitalist countries, Western students of the Soviet economy have sought in these policy changes-some clue as to whether its rate of growth is likely to decline or to be maintained in the future. The early indications of a rise in standards of living that would cause a reduced growth of heavy industry and so a decline in investment and in the rate of growth have now been dispelled. The inability of Soviet agriculture to provide an expanding food supply for a growing work force certainly appears to be a real threat to industrial growth, and with die failure of Khrushchev's gambles, this threat remains. Thus the evidence as to the over-all effect of these changes on the rate of expansion of die Soviet economy is still inconclusive.

First Steps toward SALT, 1966–1969

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
White House ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union

The chapter analyzes the Johnson administration’s failure to begin substantive strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. Johnson and McNamara were overly optimistic regarding the USSR’s willingness to concede nuclear superiority to the United States, believing that the strain of an arms race on the Soviet economy would be too great. The chapter argues that this economic determinism based on a US-centric model of modernization that privileged living standards over other goals was similar to that which underpinned the administration’s bombing strategy in the Vietnam War. Rather than being a completely separate initiative, Johnson’s strategy of détente with the USSR based on arms control stemmed from the same outlook as that which underpinned Vietnam. When Soviet willingness to enter talks failed to materialize, the Johnson White House was unable to agree to talks that would be based on strategic parity, fearing the domestic political consequences of doing so.

The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Difference

For half a century the Soviet economy was inefficient but stable. In the late 1980s, to the surprise of nearly everyone, it suddenly collapsed. Why did this happen? And what role did Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms play in the country's dissolution? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that Gorbachev and his allies tried to learn from the great success story of transitions from socialism to capitalism, Deng Xiaoping's China. Why, then, were efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism so much less successful than in China? Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China--and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse--was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was divided by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, was unable to outmaneuver the interest groups that were threatened by his economic reforms. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of the causes of the Soviet Union's rapid demise.

The American Connection: Ideology and the Transfer of American Technology to the Soviet Union, 1917–1941

1981 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall E. Bailes
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Technology Transfers ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

When one nation looks to another as an example for social and economic change, as the Soviet Union did to certain aspects of American experience for a time after 1917, the results are likely to reveal much about the borrower nation—its dominant values as well as its economy and social structure. The role which foreign, and particularly American, technology and industrial expertise played in the Soviet economy during the interwar period is still inadequately understood and is a subject of some controversy, with implications not only for an understanding of Soviet history and society but for the study of international technology transfers. (The term technology will be used here not only in the sense of “machinery” and processes, but in the broader sense of Simon Kuznets's phrase, “stock of knowledge,” that is, the knowledge of techniques of production, including economic organization.) Such transfers, particularly those between economically advanced and less-developed countries, have played an important but as yet inadequately studied role in modern history.

scholarly journals Gorbachev versus Deng: A Review of Chris Miller’s The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei Guriev
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Industrial Enterprise ◽  
The Political ◽  
Weak State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Enterprise Reforms

Chris Miller’s book is a historian’s account of Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to save the Soviet economy. Miller focuses on the question of why Gorbachev did not follow Deng Xiaoping and did not manage to reform the economy. Miller argues that it was not for the lack of understanding (Gorbachev did invest in learning China’s approach to reform and did understand it well), nor for the lack of trying. In fact, Gorbachev did try to implement Deng’s agricultural and industrial enterprise reforms. However, Gorbachev’s reforms were blocked by powerful vested interests. An inability to tackle the agricultural and industrial lobbies eventually resulted in the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. While I generally agree with the political economy argument, I discuss a number of alternative explanations. I also discuss sources of Gorbachev’s weak state capacity and offer an evaluation of Gorbachev’s and post-Gorbachev reform efforts and mistakes based on the political economy research carried out in the last twenty-five years. ( JEL D72, O57, P21, P23, P24, P26)

scholarly journals Emancipation in the Soviet Way: c Women in a Socialist Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Nataliya Oliynyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Socialist Economy ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Pay Gap ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Second World

There are many gender imbalances in the social and economic sphere of Ukraine, the reasons for which originate in the peculiarities of the state policy of the Soviet Union with regard to women. Although the official ideology asserted that the "women's question" in the USSR had been resolved and equality between women and men had been achieved, this issue required deeper analysis and research. Despite a certain number of works devoted to the study of women's issues in the USSR, it must be stated that the problem of the economic activity of Ukrainian women in the Soviet national economy has not yet been given due attention and is very relevant and useful for further research on gender issues. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to trace the changes in the economic activity of Ukrainian women associated with the formation, establishment and modifications of the Soviet regime, to analyze the real situation of women in the USSR and their participation in social production.It was found that the involvement of the female labor force in the USSR production used legislating gender equality, domestic "emancipation" of women, the eradication of illiteracy and the involvement of women in different levels of education, the development of the system of social guarantees and benefits for women through active advocacy, deployed socialist competition. It was established that the gender division of labor was almost leveled thanks to the policy of widespread involvement of women in production activities at the stage of the formation of the Soviet economy and after the Second World War. However, later the concentration of women in certain sectors of the economy, mainly those where the use of their labor was explained as a continuation household responsibilities of women, which in turn affected the gender pay gap. It can be argued that the main task of the Soviet emancipation policy towards women was to use them additional labor resourse in the Soviet economy.

Productivity in Soviet Agriculture

Slavic Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Crop Failure ◽  
Agricultural Growth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Resource Endowment ◽  
The One ◽  
Large Farms

The slowdown of growth in the Soviet economy has renewed interest in the agricultural productivity of the Soviet Union. The failure of agriculture to grow at the pace of industry has hampered overall expansion, and domestic crop failure has induced grain purchases abroad. The bottlenecks to Soviet agricultural growth and development are diverse. On the one hand, they may be inevitable, for the resource endowment of the Soviet Union, where the range of temperature is great and the level of precipitation is unpredictable, does not favor agriculture. On the other hand, they may be systemic, for Soviet agriculture has been criticized for weak labor incentives, stifling bureaucratic controls, and overly large farms.

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