Actual aspects of the effectiveness of the new economic policy (NEP) for the industrial development of the Soviet Union in the interwar years

Author(s):  
E.V. Kuznetsov ◽  
O.Y. Kazenkov ◽  
O.F. Malashkina ◽  
G.G. Popov ◽  
D.N. Ermakov
2012 ◽  
pp. 96-114
Author(s):  
L. Tsedilin

The article analyzes the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet experience of the protectionist policies. Special attention is paid to the external economic policy during the times of NEP (New Economic Policy), socialist industrialization and the years of 1970-1980s. The results of the state monopoly on foreign trade and currency transactions in the Soviet Union are summarized; the economic integration in the frames of Comecon is assessed.


Slavic Review ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Hessler

One of the firmest popular conceptions of the Soviet Union in the United States is of a system diat categorically banned private enterprise. Embraced by specialists and the general public alike, this conception reflects the official Soviet stance diat the private sector was eradicated during losif Stalin's “great break” of 1929-30. Indeed, over the course of diose two years, individual peasants were compelled to collectivize, private stores forcibly shut, private manufactures socialized, and even doctors and dentists pressured to cooperate or to close shop. The concept of an interdiction against all private economic activity found support in the words of the dictator–Stalin's assertions that the Soviet Union was a society “without capitalists, small or big,” that socialist, not capitalist, property was the “foundation of revolutionary legality,” and many other statements of a similar ilk. Stalin proved his commitment to this model by his readiness to resort to coercion against its violators: at his instigation, repressive laws threatened entrepreneurs with five to ten years in prison camp for profitable private business. Such developments appeared as unequivocal as they proved lasting; when commentators discussed perestroika in the late 1980s, the only historical precedent they could identify was Lenin's New Economic Policy six decades before.


Author(s):  
Jay Bergman

Chapter 8 describes the origins of the debate over Thermidor—the phase in the French Revolution following the Jacobin Terror—in the New Economic Policy Lenin initiated in 1921. It also shows the role the concept played in the struggle for power to succeed Lenin. The debate over what its realization in the Soviet Union would entail reflected the very real fear among the Bolsheviks that their revolution might end before the construction of socialism had even begun. To them, Thermidor was virtually a synonym for counter-revolution. For mostly political purposes—but also because their fear of it was real—Stalin and Bukharin, in the mid-1920s, argued that to evoke the danger of a Soviet Thermidor was tantamount to advocating it. Trotsky, who always considered analogies with French revolutions instructive, in the 1920s defined Thermidor as a form of counter-revolution. But since, in his opinion, it had not yet occurred in the Soviet Union, there was reason to believe it could be avoided altogether.


1964 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 65-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Schurmann

Until a short time ago, it appeared that much of what was going on in China could be characterised by the cynical aphorism plus ça change plus c'est la même chose. Many things became manifest in the country that were reminiscent of themes centuries old. China had gone through two radical phases, one during the First Five-Year Plan period when the Chinese Communists tried to repeat the Soviet experience of industrialisation, and the second during the Great Leap Forward when they used their own mobilisational means to try to achieve economic break-through. The ninth Plenum in January 1961 called a dramatic halt to the extreme policies of the Great Leap Forward, and launched a period that bears strong similarities to the N.E.P. (New Economic Policy) period of the early 1920s in the Soviet Union. Many traditional patterns that were effaced during the years of radicalism began to reappear. There was talk of the need “to study very well traditional economic relationships.” It seemed that for a while the leadership had decided that only a truly voluntary response from below, and not coercion of any sort, could rescue China from the morass in which it found itself. But as of the time of the writing of this article, there are ominous signs that China may be approaching another “1928.” The Party drums are rolling once again, and the themes are not those of the N.E.P., but more like those which preceded the great Soviet collectivisation drive of 1928. During the last few years, the leadership made no attempt to hide the facts of China's poverty and isolation. But now a new note of defiance, of toughness has crept out. Where it will lead is hard to say.


Slavic Review ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-412
Author(s):  
Alan Ball

Few official changes of course in the Soviet Union have been as dramatic as the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. Supplanting what had come to be called War Communism (1918-1920)—a boiling mixture of revolutionary euphoria, bitter civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, and growing peasant unrest—NEP represented a new departure in many areas of Soviet life. First and foremost, eyewitnesses were struck by the legalization of a considerable amount of private economic activity, in contrast to the harsh measures adopted by the Bolsheviks against the private sector during War Communism.While this change seemed an improvement to most foreigners on the scene (and undoubtedly to most Russians), revolutionaries of diverse hues regarded the legalization of private trade in 1921 as a clear signal that the Bolsheviks had jettisoned the ideals of the Revolution.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Viktor Savchenko

This paper examines a virtually unknown period of the development of the anarchist movement in Ukraine, ignored by both Soviet and post-Soviet historians, for whom the history of anarchism in the Soviet Union ended in 1921. The author,basing his information on archival materials,including the archives of the Soviet secret police agencies (ChK, GPU, OGPU), extends the life of the anarchist movement through the mid-1920s. This was a period of revitalization of the movement, especially among students, young workers, and the unemployed in the cities of Eastern and Southern Ukraine (Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava). Despite repression by the government, the anarchist movement in the USSR in the 1920s was able to sustain itself by going underground.


1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Campbell

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.


Author(s):  
Ivan Zykin

In the period of New Economic Policy in the USSR industrialization issues became very topical. In timber industry complex, the solutions were related to the development of forested areas in Northeastern regions of the country as well as to the construction and reconstruction of enterprises. The article provides the first-time analysis of maps and forest industry location, based on the results of the First Five-Year Plan published in the atlas “The Industry in the USSR and the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan“ and statistical collection materials ”Social Construction of the USSR”. The analysis was made in order to define the situation in the industry, the main directions of production as well as the regional specificities. Using the example of wood machining sphere the author presents the analysis of enterprise groups according to different criteria. The research resulted in conclusions about highest intensity of enterprise reconstruction and construction in timber sawing, in furniture industry and intra-sectoral combination. In timber industry, the majority of enterprises were small and middle companies, which greatly contributed to its development. Regional specificities of timber industry location included concentration of main facilities in northwestern, western and central parts of the country, in the Volga region and in Ural. However only several regions had developed wood machining and deep processing spheres, such as Leningrad oblast, the Gorky Krai, Belarusian and the Ukrainian Soviet Republics.


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