The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives

ISBN-13: 9780521826280 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 322 str.

Paul R. Gregory

Opis

Using formerly secret Soviet state and Communist Party archives to describe the Soviet administrative command system, this study concludes that the system failed not because of Stalin and later leaders, but because of the economic system. It pinpoints the reasons for failure such as poor planning, unreliable supplies, preferential treatment of indigenous enterprises as well as the basic principal-agent conflict between planners and producers, which created a sixty-year reform stalemate. Although the command system was the most significant human experiment of the twentieth century, its basic contradictions and inherent flaws would re-surface if it were to be repeated.

Recenzje

'This is an important book as it presents the first systematic account of the Soviet economic system using these unpublished sources, drawing together the new research by Gregory and others, in a form that is easily accessible to the wider academic community and students. It presents its material in a clear and concise manner that both deepens and broadens our knowledge. It does so by relating the new archive material to the debates that have dominated the Soviet literature for many decades, with Gregory providing a refreshing insight of his own to many of those debates.' The Slavonic and East European Review

Spis treści

1. The jockey or the horse?; 2. Collectivization, accumulation, and power; 3. The principles of governance; 4. Investment, wages, and fairness; 5. Visions and control figures; 6. Planners versus producers; 7. Creating Soviet industry; 8. Operational planning; 9. Ruble control: money, prices, and budgets; 10. The destruction of the Soviet administrative command economy.