Changes in Quality of Economic Planning in the Late USSR: Technological and Institutional Dynamics

Introduction. Studying the Soviet economic performance is important in searching for arguments in the ongoing debate on the possibilities of routine and strategic planning application for economic development of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the article is to identify the dynamics of the planning quality of the Soviet economy in the framework of the institutional approach to economic history. Materials and Methods. The author constructed a data set filled with available information on key growth indicators (national income, production volume and labor productivity, capital investment) targeted in five-year and annual plans, which passed their way from initial drafts proposed by academic economists and employees of the State Planning Commission to approved legal documents, and to the further implementation, presented in branch (industry, agriculture, retail) and spatial (union republics) breakdown. The archival data on the growing activity of the State Planning Commission for revising the approved planned indicators is of our primary contribution. Results. The author highlights the factors underlying the deviations for key planned aggregated indicators that arose at various stages of their preparation, adoption and revision, between their approved figures and actual performance. The results of the data analysis basically confirmed our hypothesis that the technological improvement of the planning process was largely offset by the deterioration of institutional interactions between its subjects. Discussion and Conclusion. While there were signs of an increase in the role of scientists in the process of drafting five-year plans from the second half of the 1950s to the mid-1970s, then from the second half of the 1970s we find less and less evidence that they played a meaningful role in the short and medium term planning processes. On the other hand, our analysis revealed a significantly higher level of fulfillment in annual breakdown compared to five-year one. This confirms the view that just annual plans performed more operational functions, as compared to the motivational ones, in managing the Soviet economy.

“The Merchandise Has Appeared on the Market”: The Typology of Plunderers, Schemes of Illegal Realization, and Legal Practice in Soviet Lithuania (1945–1947)

This research focuses on plunder from variuos co-operative or state institutions (mostly those which had belonged to the Ministry of Internal Trading or the Unity of Co-operatives of Lithuanian SSR) in the first post-war years (1945–1947) in the Lithuanian SSR. The primary source for this article is comprised by 54 criminal cases from the archive of the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR. Cases used in this study were chosen based on one important criteria: that there were not only acts of plunder but also the realization of stolen goods. This would most likely be achieved by selling the goods through various marketplaces (looking from the Soviet point of view, the plundered items belonged to the black market anyway – even if the market activities were not forbidden). Also, the practices of punishment applied in the cases of plunderers and speculators are analyzed. The research shows that even in the very first years of the post-war period, illegal economic processes were widespread in Soviet Lithuania. Plunderers were hitting the Soviet economy hard – despite the harsh practice of punishment, the Soviet government would lose tens of millions of rubles in the Lithuanian SSR each year.

POST-OCTOBER COLLAPSE AND THE BEGINNING OF INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY (using the example of indicators of the Tatar ASSR)

In modern scientific literature there are quite a lot of critical assessments of the processes and phenomena that took place in the Soviet times. However, there is still insufficient research on the regional component. Certain issues concerning the development of the region’s industry in the period under review were dealt with in the Soviet times by Kh.G. Gimadi, M.K. Mukharyamov, Kh.Kh. Khasanov, N.A. Andrianov, in the modern period – I.A. Gataullina, O.G. Kolomyts and others. The task of the presented study is to eliminate the gap in describing formation of the Soviet economy of the Tatar ASSR (until 1920 – part of the territory belonged to Kazan governorate). In this regard, the purpose of this article is to study the indicators of industrial development in the Tatar Republic in the post-October period, including the new economic policy. The methodology of the article is based on the problem-chronological approach and scientific knowledge. The analysis of scientific literature and archival information was the basis to form a general picture of the problem under consideration. The events of the post-October period became a real tragedy for the new Soviet economy. Crisis of under-production was observed in the industrial sector, when the economy could not meet even the minimum demands of the population, the indicators of industrial production, starting from the post-October period, decreased annually. Using the example of the region, general economic problems typical for all the territories of Soviet Russia are shown, but problems peculiar only to the republic are also highlighted. This situation could not but cause anxiety of the Soviet authorities. Prolongation of crisis phenomena in the industrial sector of the economy threatened by the development of not only economic, but also political problems associated with the growth of social discontent. Further measures taken by the Soviet government made it possible to reverse the negative trend in the development of the republican industry. From the perspective of the past time, it can be noted that in fact this period was a turning point in modernization processes of the country and the region. It seems to us that the economy, which was fluctuating between downward and upward development trends for a long time, chose the second option. The stage of the still slow, but gaining momentum process of activating the country’s industrial potential began.

New Approaches to Estimating the USSR GDP During The Second World War

The article is devoted to the issues of mobilization of the USSR economy during the Second World War. The author proposes a new method for determining the GDP of the USSR in 1940–1945 based on archival materials and achievements of modern historical and economic analysis of the national economy of the USSR during the Second World War. The author also considers a theory of economic mobilization during the Second World war of Alan Milward, applying his ideas to the analysis of the Soviet military economy. The author believes that the estimates of the GDP of the USSR adopted by A. Meddison and M. Harrison for the period of the Second World war are overstated. In this regard, the author concludes, based on calculations, that the growth of the Soviet economy in 1943–1945 was not as significant as is commonly believed, and the Soviet economy did not reach the pre-war level of GDP in 1945. In this regard, the author proves that the reserves of the Soviet economy before the Second World War were very limited, which is also explained by the limited relocation of resources between the agricultural and urban economies of the USSR. The survival of the Soviet economy during the Second World War was mainly due to the relocation of capital investments to the Central and Eastern regions of the country due to the occupation of less economically efficient western regions. In this regard, the author also hypothesizes that industrial clusters arose in the Central and Eastern regions of the USSR as a result of an evacuation.

The Influence of German Tubular Steel on Soviet Furniture at the VKhUTEMAS, 1927–1930

This article looks at the influence of German tubular steel furniture at the State Higher Art and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS) in Moscow during the late 1920s. Tubular steel furniture was first introduced in 1925 at the Bauhaus and within a few years was perceived by progressive architects across Europe as the appropriate material for the modernist interior. While the Soviet Union sought to revive its industrial economy during the New Economic Policy (1921–28), VKhUTEMAS students and professors looked to Europe for technical and artistic guidance for the design of new furniture as the country became a socialist society. German design innovations reached Moscow through the dissemination of print material, international exhibitions, and travel, including student exchanges between the Bauhaus and VKhUTEMAS. Between 1927–30 VKhUTEMAS students Boris Zemliannitsyn and Alexandr Galaktionov designed new furniture that referenced German tubular steel furniture, while professors El Lissitzky and Moisei Ginzburg replicated German tubular steel designs in their models and renditions of standard proletariat dwellings. Although the Soviet economy could not support widespread steel manufacturing, the experimentation with tubular steel furniture at VKhUTEMAS highlighted the international influence of German modernism and exposed the derivative nature of Soviet socialist material culture.

State Budget of USSR in 1950s — 80s: Dynamics and Structure of Income

The dynamics and structure of the revenue side of the state budget of the USSR in the period from 1950 to 1989 are considered on the basis of official statistical collections published by the Ministry of Finance of the USSR. It is stated that the dynamics of the revenues of the state budget of the USSR during the entire studied period was positive. There was a constant increase in income, which had an average annual value of about 6,5 % in relation to the previous year, which made it possible to increase the budget by more than one third in almost every five-year period. It is indicated that in just the period under study, the revenue side of the state budget in-creased by 11,6 times. The author comes to the conclusion that the historical dynamics of the distribution of incomes between the budgets of different levels testifies to the growing tendency towards the decentralization of the Soviet economy. It was revealed that this trend looks less unambiguous if we trace the change in the share of revenues of the republican and local budgets in the structure of the USSR state budget. It is shown that the most important deterrent to the decentralization of the Soviet economy was budget regulation, which allowed the state, on the one hand, to withdraw to the budget most of the profits of the socialist economy, and on the other, to keep the budgetary resources of local authorities under control.

N.K. BAIBAKOV – AN OUTSTANDING OILMAN AND ECONOMIST (TO THE 110 TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH)

The article is devoted to the life and work of the legendary personality Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov. Nikolai Konstantinovich went through a long career from an oil engineer to Deputy Chairman of the government of the USSR. The figure of Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov is unique. He became a member of the government under Stalin, and retired under Gorbachev. At the same time, for 22 years he headed the headquarters for the management of the Soviet economy – the state planning Committee of the USSR, where he proved himself as an outstanding economist. His name is associated with major national economic achievements in the development of the country’s fuel and energy complex, industry, and agriculture. For almost a quarter of a century, he defined the strategy and guidelines for the socio-economic development of the USSR.

Belarus-China: Avoiding the “Debt Trap”

Since 2005 Belarus with its developing Post-Soviet economy has been attracting loans from China. By 2019 China became among top three international lenders for Belarus. On one hand Chinese loans financed infrastructure and industrial projects and supported economic growth in Belarus, and on the other hand they increased import from China and foreign debt of Belarus. In order to overcome the phobia of Chinese “debt trap” the Government of Belarus recently decreased the number and amount of Chinese loans tied to infrastructure projects, improved credit terms, increased FDI from China, and created joint industrial park ‘Great Stone’. As a result, the case of Belarus and China outlines how to avoid “debt trap” in ‘Belt and Road’ initiative by focusing on FDI from China.