Economic development of the USSR. The main features of the economic system in the USSR The economic basis of the USSR was

After the death of I.V. Stalin, his successors inherited a heavy legacy. The village was devastated, and the threat of starvation hung over the country. The new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, G.M. Malenkov, spoke about the need to increase the output of consumer goods, to direct more capital investments to the development of light industry in the shortest possible time to provide the population with a sufficient amount of food.

In 1953, a tax reform was carried out - taxes on personal plots were halved. Now the tax was levied only on land, and not on livestock and trees. In September 1953, a plenum of the Central Committee was held, which adopted a number of measures aimed at the development of agriculture, and the tax on collective farmers was reduced by 2.6 times.

To solve the grain problem, a course was taken for the development of virgin lands in the east of the country (in Siberia, Kazakhstan). In February 1954, a program for the development of virgin lands was adopted, and more than 500,000 volunteers went to develop the virgin lands. Over 400 new state farms were created in the eastern regions. The share of grain harvest on newly developed lands amounted to 27% of the all-Union level, which made it possible to temporarily solve the grain problem.

By the mid-1950s, industrialization in the USSR was basically completed. It became possible, along with the development of industry, to solve the problems of improving the welfare of the population, the development of science, education, and culture.

However, the system of economic management that took shape back in the 1930s, designed for emergency circumstances, for mobilizing all the means and resources of the country to achieve any one main goal, regardless of costs, could not function in the new conditions. Attempts to plan the development of all, without exception, sectors of the national economy, centrally redistribute all manufactured products, raw materials, resources, and comprehensively solve the problems of developing industry, agriculture, science, culture, and welfare were obviously doomed to failure. It was impossible to foresee all issues and manage their solution from a single center.

The first attempts to reform the system of economic management date back to 1957. Instead of branch ministries, Councils of the National Economy (sovnarkhozes) were created, which directed the development of the economy directly in the regions. However, this reform did not bring the expected results, moreover, the lack of a centralized governing and coordinating body led to increased interregional contradictions, to the violation of a unified scientific and technological policy and, as a result, to a slowdown in scientific and technological progress. Administrative-bureaucratic management methods have not changed, and the number of bureaucracy has increased many times. Since in each economic council there were sectoral departments, the structure of which duplicated the structure of the previous ministries.

The government of N.S. Khrushchev, who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1958, made a number of major miscalculations in the development of agriculture. Voluntarist campaigns for the widespread introduction of corn, an increase in the delivery of meat to the state under the slogan "Let's catch up and overtake America in meat production", the elimination of household plots nullified all the positive effect that the reforms of 1953 gave, finally destroyed the village that had begun to rise. Since 1963, bulk purchases of grain abroad began.

The next attempt was the reforms of 1965. The new management system eliminated the economic councils and recreated sectoral ministries. At the same time, the rights of enterprises were significantly expanded, and the number of planned indicators lowered from above was reduced. In order to increase the material interest of enterprises, not all profits were changed and redistributed, but part of them. From the profits left at the disposal of enterprises, development funds were created, at the expense of which it was supposed to carry out technical re-equipment, as well as funds for housing and cultural construction and material incentives. In the future, it was planned to transfer enterprises to full cost accounting. It was planned that at the expense of profits, enterprises would carry out technical reconstruction, build housing for workers, Palaces of Culture and sports facilities, pay bonuses to workers and, moreover, transfer part of the profits to the state.

In agriculture, purchase prices were again raised, a course was taken to increase capital investments, to increase the technical equipment of the village.

These reforms had a certain positive effect, but there was no cardinal change. The command-administrative system rejected attempts to switch to economic methods of management. The revived ministries again began to regulate all the activities of enterprises. If in 1957 before the formation of economic councils there were 37 of them, then in 1970 there were more than 100. The reform did not affect the interests of the bulk of workers, did not directly affect their position.

During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a steady decline in the pace of the country's economic development (see Table 1).

In the early 1970s, the course towards intensification was proclaimed as the main direction in the development of the Soviet economy. They spoke of the need to "combine the merits of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of socialism." In fact, the economy continued to develop extensively. Already in the 1970s, the industry of the USSR faced the problem of a lack of human and material resources. However, the tasks of the five-year plans for the introduction of highly efficient technologies were chronically not fulfilled. In the middle, about 50 million people in the national economy were engaged in manual labor. The increase in production was achieved mainly by increasing the production of raw materials and fuel. Oil and gas have become the basis of exports. The country was turning into a raw material appendage of the developed countries.

Table 1

The main indicators of the development of the economy of the USSR in 1965 - 1980.

The structural crisis hit the Western economy in the 1970s, but it successfully made the transition to energy and resource-saving technologies and by the beginning of the 1980s had reached a qualitatively new level of scientific and technological progress. In 1970 - 82 years. in the US, 66% of the equipment was updated, in Japan and Canada - 82%, in the EEC countries - 70-75%. Our economy seemed immune to these achievements.

Despite a significant increase in capital investment, the output of the agro-industrial complex grew extremely slowly. Grain imports grew from 2.2 million tons in 1970 to 44.2 million tons in 1985, and almost all oil export proceeds were used to purchase grain. By the mid-1980s, it became clear that the economic management system created in the 1930s had turned into a kind of “braking mechanism”. Its main features were: 1. Super-industrialization: the activities of enterprises were regulated by dozens of indicators, hundreds of regulations. 2. The remuneration of labor was not directly related to its results, it was regulated by a system of rates and salaries lowered from the center. 3. Prices for products were not formed as a result of market conditions, but were approved by state pricing authorities. This system fettered independence and initiative, gave rise to disinterest in the results of labor.

The change in the internal political situation in the country was of no small importance in the successes achieved. Death in 1953 I.V. Stalin was the beginning of the end of the totalitarian system he created and the beginning of the transition to a new course in domestic politics. Elected to the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU N.S. Khrushchev began to pursue a course related to the social orientation of the economy, an increase in capital investments in the B-group industries and agriculture, with the granting of greater rights to the heads of enterprises and collective farms. Particular attention was paid to the development of agriculture. At the same time, the main emphasis was placed on the development of virgin and fallow lands. In Western Siberia and Kazakhstan, hundreds of new state farms, machine and tractor stations were created, roads were laid, settlements were built. Naturally, this was an extensive way for the development of the industry. But he made it possible to achieve a 34% increase in agricultural production in five years, to create new areas of agricultural production in the east of the country.

The transition in 1957 to territorial management principles played an important role in the integrated development of regions and the regional economy. The vast majority of union and republican ministries were abolished, and enterprises were transferred to the jurisdiction of national economic councils (sovnarkhozes) created in the republics, territories and regions. Their education was a definite step in the decentralization of the management of the national economy, in the expansion of rights and material opportunities on the ground, in the democratization of the economy. However, this created difficulties in pursuing a unified nationwide scientific and technical policy, scattered resources, and reduced the effect of the previously existing advantage from the concentration of funds.

During these years, a significant step was taken to improve the standard of living of the population. This found expression in the Law on Pensions, in tax cuts, in the abolition of tuition fees in secondary schools and universities, in the introduction of a minimum guaranteed wage in agricultural production, in wage increases in other industries, in reducing the length of the working week, etc.

Particular success has been achieved in solving the housing problem. In the 1950s, preferential loans began to be provided to developers of individual houses. This has improved the housing situation in small and medium towns and rural areas. In the 1960s, when designers and architects ensured the organization of standard housing construction on an industrial basis, housing construction increased sharply in cities, which made it possible to provide 80% of families in cities with separate apartments by the end of the 1970s.

The level of public education has risen. The established network of schools, technical schools, and universities made it possible to form a good human resources potential in the country, which had a positive impact on the development of science and culture. It is important to note that in the development of the economy of the USSR in 1950-1970. factors of intensive growth played a significant role, when the growth of national income and gross social product was ensured mainly by an increase in labor productivity and the introduction of scientific and technological progress. For 1950-1960. due to the growth of labor productivity, 73% of the produced national income was received. In 1961-1965 this figure reached 83.7%, and in 1966-1970. - 87%. Industrial development was ensured by the systematic growth of capital investments, in the structure of which the share directed to the expansion, reconstruction and technical re-equipment of existing enterprises increased.

Third scientific and technological revolution

During these years, technical innovations were widely introduced in the country's industry and transport. As you know, during the Second World War, the third scientific and technological revolution (NTR) began, which is divided into two stages: 1945 - mid-1960s and mid-1960s - late 1980s. The leaders of the first stage of modern scientific and technological revolution were the USA and the USSR.

The Soviet Union in these years carried out fundamental changes in technical development. The radio-electronic, nuclear, chemical and instrument-making industries developed rapidly. It was during these years that the country created its own nuclear and missile potential, launched the world's first satellite, and then a spaceship, made the first manned flight into space, built the first nuclear power plants and sea nuclear ships. Thus, high rates of economic development were also ensured due to the intensive type of expanded reproduction.

In the period 1950-1970. A radical restructuring of the fuel balance was carried out in the country: oil and gas production increased, their share in the total volume of energy resources increased three times - from 19.7 to 60.2%. To transport these foamy fuels, pipelines have been built over long distances and the largest diameters in the world with high throughput. Thanks to the network of pipelines that connected all regions, with the exception of the Far East, the country has created a Unified maneuverable oil and gas supply system.

Maritime transport has received significant development, in terms of tonnage of which the Soviet Union has reached the fifth place in the world. The Soviet fleet was the youngest ship in terms of age. Such an achievement of scientific and technological revolution as the invention of jet and turboprop aircraft has found wide application in our country.

During these years, the technical reconstruction of railways and roads was carried out - the transfer to electric and diesel traction. Since 1958, the production of steam locomotives has ceased in the USSR. Automobile transport has been developed, and the scale of road construction has increased. All this led to fundamental changes in the structure of the transport system - progressive means of transportation became the leading ones. The ownership of vehicles by the state ensured their interaction, the transport system was a single state system.

The electric power industry developed at a high rate - the largest hydroelectric stations and thermal power plants were built; nuclear construction began. By 1970, the creation of the Unified Energy System of the European part of the USSR, including the Urals, the largest energy system in the world, was completed.

This period saw the development of television, first in black and white, and since the 1960s in color. The network of relay stations is expanding, thanks to which the scale of television broadcasting is increasing, and an increasing number of regions and republics are involved in it. In 1970, the Ostankino television tower was put into operation.

The development of new regions and mineral deposits was going on on a large scale. The country has become urbanized. National wealth grew in the form of thousands of new enterprises, hundreds of new cities and towns.

The development of new lands, the construction of cities and enterprises created new jobs, which, in turn, ensured a healthy socio-psychological climate in the state, confidence in getting a job, housing, minimum household and socio-cultural benefits and services, confidence in the future.

Economic Reform of 1965 The progressive development of the economy of the USSR was facilitated by the economic reform carried out in 1965. It expressed itself, on the one hand, in the centralization of the management of the national economy through the liquidation of economic councils and the re-establishment of branch ministries. On the other hand, the self-supporting principle of managing the economy at enterprises was revived, material incentive funds were created, payments were introduced to the budget for the fixed production assets used by enterprises, enterprises were granted broader rights in the field of planning, etc. All these measures were designed to help increase the interest of labor collectives in final results of production, in raising the level of intensification of labor and the country's economy as a whole.

Already the first results of the reforms were positive. In 1966-1970. The country achieved rather high growth rates of the main economic indicators. Science and industries that determine scientific and technological progress (machine building, electronics, energy, petrochemical industry, etc.) developed rapidly. In terms of the volume of production of a number of types of industrial products, the USSR overtook the United States and ranked first in the world.

With the creation of the community of socialist countries, the international significance of the USSR, which stood at the head of the world socialist system, increased sharply. A lot of Third World countries adhered to the socialist orientation. In the entire more than a thousand-year history of the Russian state, it has not had such a high economic potential, the standard of living of the population, international prestige and influence on the fate of the world.

Crisis phenomena in the economy and the development of the shadow economy (1971-1985)

These years were the ninth, tenth, eleventh five-year plans. The priority areas for the development of industry were the nuclear power industry (a new branch of mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, was created), and the automotive industry. During these years, the Unified Energy System of the USSR was created. The energy system of Siberia was connected to the energy system of the European part of the Union (the energy system served the territory with a population of more than 200 million people). The world's first nuclear power plant was built. The construction of large industrial and transport facilities (the Kama Automobile Plant in Naberezhnye Chelny, the Volga Automobile Plant in Togliatti, and the Baikal-Amur Mainline) was carried out.

A sign of the times was the formation of large territorial production complexes, primarily in the eastern regions (West Siberian, Pavlodar-Ekibastuz, South Tajik, Sayan, etc.), which ensured the entire increase in oil, gas, and coal production.

In the period 1971-1985. large-scale long-term programs were developed for the development of energy, the Non-Black Earth region, consumer goods, road construction, and the food program.

Causes of negative phenomena in the economy

Since the mid-1970s, symptoms of crisis phenomena in the economy began to appear. There was a slowdown in the development of scientific and technological progress; obsolescence of equipment in leading industries; the backlog of infrastructure sectors from the main production has increased; there has been a resource crisis, expressed in the transfer of natural resource extraction to hard-to-reach areas, in the rise in the cost of extracted raw materials for industry.

All this had a negative impact on the main economic indicators of the national economy of the country. With each five-year period, their average annual growth rates decreased, which is illustrated by the following table (in %).

The ratio of the growth of national income and the growth of fixed assets (and this is an important indicator of the economic efficiency of the national economy) worsened. From 1960 to 1985 capital stock grew sevenfold, but national income only quadrupled. This testified that the country's economy developed mainly in an extensive way, i.e. the volume of additional production and the growth of national income were achieved due to the advanced involvement in production of natural and labor resources, the growth of fixed assets.

One of the reasons for this was the ambitious foreign policy of the country's leadership, which required a super-powerful military potential, which was created by the military-industrial complex (MIC). For the development and maintenance of the military-industrial complex, huge material and financial resources were needed, which could only be obtained at the expense of other sectors of the national economy and the low wages of workers.

All this, in turn, was ensured by a rigid administrative planning and distribution system for managing the country and its economy, and strict limits on material and financial resources. To ensure that these resources were obtained quickly, extensive farming methods were favored, and this held back the development of scientific and technological progress.

By the mid-1970s, the mistakes of the Soviet leadership in socio-economic policy became palpable. What was permissible before now gave endless failures. As a result of the imbalance of the leading blocks of industries, the structure of the economy turned out to be ugly. During all the years of socialism, the production of means of production (Group A) has predominantly developed.

Only 10% of fixed production assets were concentrated in the light, food industry (Group B). Therefore, the share of consumer goods in the total volume of industrial output systematically decreased, which in 1986 amounted to only 24.7% against 60.5% in 1928. This meant that the economy was not oriented towards the priority satisfaction of human needs, a huge part of industrial output was excluded from the sphere of commodity-money circulation, because the means of production were not sold, but distributed.

Such an economic policy led to a deterioration in the social sphere, since funds for housing construction, health care, education, and science were allocated on a residual basis with a steady decrease in their share in state budget expenditures.

Under the conditions of a huge growth in the scale of production, the number of industrial enterprises and the population, the planning and distribution system of managing the economy stalled; control mechanism. The state was unable to stop the decline in the rate of production, to achieve the fulfillment of the established production plans, despite the reduction in their five-year targets; transfer the economy to an intensive path of development, although this has been repeatedly stated; to get rid of unprofitable enterprises (their share reached 40% of the total number), to ensure savings in the material, energy, and labor resources consumed for the manufacture of a unit of output; the economy remained immune to scientific and technological progress, as a result of which the Soviet Union lagged behind the leading Western countries technologically.

To this was added general nationalization, when they even tried to prohibit personal subsidiary plots; the narrowing of democratic principles in the country; producer monopoly; one-party political system. All this led to the alienation of a person from public property and the loss of interest in labor and its results. If before the Soviet people could recognize the priority of national economic interests, now they did not believe in the party slogans about a state of the whole people and about the possibility of building communism in the country.

The reason for the negative phenomena in the economy was also voluntarism and, in many cases, the insufficient level of professionalism of top and middle managers, the so-called nomenklatura of party and Soviet bodies. The monopoly position of the Communist Party predetermined the corresponding personnel policy in the country. It was aimed at the inviolability of the party system of training and promotion of leading cadres. Specialists and leaders could realize themselves only by joining the Communist Party and working in party organizations, Soviet, Komsomol and trade union bodies. Democratic centralism, the indisputability of the authorities of party and other leaders of any level, their intolerance of criticism led to the fact that the party-Soviet and any other nomenklatura often included obedient persons, but who did not possess either intelligence, initiative or other qualities necessary for leaders. Thus, with each generation, the intellectual and professional potential of the leaders of party and Soviet bodies, enterprises and organizations in the country declined.

The low level of wages did not contribute to the saving of labor resources and the use of the achievements of scientific and technological progress. Extensive methods of economic development, unreasonable construction of new enterprises led to a gap between the growth in the number of jobs and the increase in labor resources. If in the pre-war and first post-war five-year plans the growth of labor resources in cities was provided by residents of rural areas, then by the 1980s these sources had practically exhausted themselves. So, in 1976-1980. the growth of labor resources amounted to 11.0 million people, in 1981-1985. - more than 3 million, in 1986-1990. - more than 2 million people. This led to a labor shortage. The socio-economic consequences of such development were expressed in the reduction of labor and technological discipline, the economic responsibility of workers for the results of labor, losses and losses.

The result of many years of domestic and foreign policy was a decrease in the national wealth of the country. This can be seen from the following data (in comparable prices, billion rubles):

This decrease in national wealth is due to the fact that natural resources decreased faster than property increased. It should be added that the country had hidden inflation, which, according to economists, was about 3% per year. Given this inflation, the country's national income stopped growing as early as the 1980s. However, the population has slowly increased. Thus, the size of the national income and national wealth per capita decreased, i.e. there was an absolute impoverishment of the population.

Militarization of the economy One of the main reasons for the difficult economic situation in which the country found itself was the hypertrophied development of the military-industrial complex - the militarization of the economy.

For many decades, the overwhelming and highest quality part of the material and labor resources of the state was sent to the military-industrial complex. The end products of defense enterprises provided the country's military potential, but the economic return on the material, financial and labor resources used in the military-industrial complex to solve the country's economic and social problems was insignificant, on the contrary, huge budget allocations were required for the activities of these enterprises, and their products were mainly stored. Even the new technologies that were developed in the military-industrial complex, due to secrecy, did not enter other sectors of the national economy and therefore did not have the proper impact on the development of scientific and technological progress in the country.

Undoubtedly, the military potential of the USSR, created at the cost of enormous efforts and due to constant underfunding of other sectors of the economy, provided the defense power of the state, and also maintained the geopolitical balance on the planet, opposed the US military-industrial complex. However, this same potential encouraged the ambitious foreign policy of the country's leadership, which resulted in constant international tension and an arms race.

So it was in 1950 in North Korea, in 1962 - in Cuba, when, after the deployment of Soviet missiles there, the US government presented the USSR with an ultimatum to eliminate them on the island. The world was on the verge of a new world war, and even a thermonuclear one. Relations with the countries of the socialist community became more complicated (events in Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). In 1968, there was a military conflict between the USSR and China over Damansky Island in the Amur. It was the first ever military clash between two states from the socialist camp.

The military presence of the USSR and Soviet weapons were in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and other states.

In 1978, the USSR became involved in a protracted war in Afghanistan. This war had serious consequences for the country, expressed in undermining the international prestige of the USSR, further economic exhaustion, and a negative psychological climate within the country.

The excessive development of the military-industrial complex and the related lag of the civilian sectors of the national economy led to their technical backwardness and uncompetitiveness in the world market. Inside the country, this caused a shortage of goods, constant shortages of products necessary to meet the daily needs of the population. These products were distributed among enterprises and institutions through the so-called "exit trade". The absence of consumer goods in free sale led to corruption in the sphere of circulation and price increases.

The unsatisfied demand for goods gave impetus to the creation of underground enterprises and the development of the shadow economy, the corruption of officials, the social stratification of the population, the change in the social structure of society, and the growth of citizens' discontent.

In the context of a constant shortage of material, financial and labor resources in the country's economy, there was no competition between producers of products and services. As a result, there were no incentives to improve the quality of products and services, to reduce production costs and prices, to save resources, to replace obsolete equipment. By the mid-1980s, more than half of the production equipment fleet had wear and tear of more than 50%. All this, in turn, did not contribute to the introduction of the achievements of scientific and technological revolution, even if domestic science offered them. The industrial products of the USSR were losing their competitiveness in the world market.

The agro-industrial complex of the country also functioned insufficiently effectively. Agricultural production was dominated by extensive methods. Emphasis was placed on expanding the use of land resources. Despite the increase in the number of livestock, organic fertilizers were poorly used, while chemical fertilizers were scarce and of poor quality. As a result, yields of major agricultural crops were markedly lower than in other European countries.

One of the reasons for the backwardness of the agro-industrial complex was the poor development of infrastructure and capacities for processing agricultural products. There were not enough storage facilities for the harvested crops, good roads in the countryside, repair services and spare parts for agricultural machinery. All this led to the fact that the sown areas were not always harvested, the harvested crop was poorly stored, and there were huge losses of agricultural products during transportation.

As a result, food crises constantly set in in the country, which forced them to buy abroad from 20 million to 40 million tons of grain crops annually, and the food and light industries did not have enough raw materials.

Scientists - economists, sociologists, environmentalists, etc. - drew the attention of the country's leadership to the danger and consequences of the hypertrophied development of the military-industrial complex, the backwardness of civilian industries and agriculture, but their opinion was not taken into account. By the mid-1980s, this was also understood in the central authorities. The reason for this was the deterioration of the financial condition of the state,

Public Finance and Financial Crisis

In the 1960s and 1970s, one of the major sources of state financial resources was income from foreign economic activity. Basically, these were incomes from the sale of raw materials, mainly oil. During this period, the country received more than $150 billion. These funds were used to purchase equipment for enterprises, build civil and military facilities, and purchase food and consumer goods.

However, by the early 1980s, difficulties began to arise in obtaining such funds. There were a number of reasons behind this. It became more difficult to maintain the previous level of oil production. The old oil fields dried up. The geological conditions of mining have deteriorated. Light oil decreased significantly. For the extraction of heavy oil, special equipment was needed, but the machine-building industry was not prepared for its production.

The conjuncture of the international oil market has also changed. More and more energy-saving technologies were introduced in the economy. This led to a reduction in energy demand. The competition among oil-producing countries has intensified on the oil market. Oil prices were falling.

At the same time, the maintenance of the military-industrial complex, unprofitable enterprises and the non-productive sphere required ever greater budget allocations. Their source was external loans and the country's gold reserves, which decreased from 2050 tons in 1953 to 681 tons in 1987 and to 340 tons in 1996.

The problem of our country's foreign debt was not easy, the volume of which was approximately $80 billion. Other states owed the country approximately the same amount. However, while the debt of the USSR was mainly to foreign firms, banks for purchased industrial and agricultural products, the USSR provided loans to other states to sell the products of its military-industrial complex. These were the states of the socialist camp (Vietnam, Cuba, etc.), but mainly the countries of the Third World (Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Angola, Afghanistan, etc.), whose currency solvency was extremely low.

Thus, if the state budget expenditures on repayment of external debt grew, then receipts from external sources decreased.

All this led to the deterioration of public finances, the growth of the budget deficit, which was increasingly covered by the issue of money and the growth of the country's domestic debt. Against this background, there was a growing need to increase budget allocations for subsidizing sectors of the national economy. Subsidies, amounting to one-fifth of all budget expenditures, practically encouraged dependency and mismanagement of enterprises and collective farms. Losses and unproductive expenditures in the national economy increased every year. Thus, from 1981 to 1988 they grew from 12.5 billion to 29.0 billion rubles, including excess losses from defects in industry and construction increased from 364 million to 1076 million rubles, losses from writing off costs for unrealized and finally terminated capital construction - from 2831 million to 4631 million rubles, losses from the loss of livestock - from 1696 million to 1912 million rubles.

For comparison, we point out that in 1988 the volume of state budget revenues amounted to 379.9 billion rubles, i.e. this year, losses in the national economy amounted to more than 7% of budget expenditures.

These and other similar factors negatively affected the state of public finances, hastened the financial crisis that erupted in the early 1990s, which constantly changing finance ministers could not prevent (from 1985 to 1998, this post was held by eleven people, and some of them only a few months). Many appointed finance ministers and their deputies were non-professionals, did not know financial problems and ways to solve them. Especially often began to change the heads of the country's financial department in the 1990s. The ministerial leapfrog, the departure of a large number of professional employees from financial bodies to commercial structures, the division of the Ministry of Finance into a number of independent departments, and the lack of proper coordination between them further weakened the public financial management system and the financial condition of the state.

Thus, the economic and then the political crisis that broke out in the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s was due to many years of ineffective economic policy pursued by the country's leadership, its ambitiousness in international relations. This led to the economic exhaustion of the state, to the discrediting of the socialist mode of production and the entire world socialist system.

Before the October Revolution, Russia lagged far behind the Western European capitalist countries in terms of economic development. After the coup d'etat took place in 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power. They put the main emphasis on the rapid development of heavy industry to the detriment of other industries. As a result, in a matter of years the Soviet Union became one of the largest agro-industrial countries on the planet. The main stages and features within which the economy of the USSR developed are briefly discussed later in this article.

Pre-revolutionary economy of Russia

At the very beginning of the twentieth century, our country was characterized as a multi-structural society with the prevailing mechanisms of market management. It has come to replace natural patriarchy. During the First World War, in most of the countries participating in it, a significant stateization of economic life took place, and in 1917 war capitalism turned into war communism. It is he who is considered to be the first type of the Soviet economy.

Economy during the Civil War

The command economy of the USSR was based on the ideas of nationalization of all industrial enterprises of the country and surplus appropriation, which actually amounted to the forcible selection of bread from the peasants. In 1919, the Bolsheviks introduced universal labor service, and a year later, a decree came into force on the transfer to state ownership of all enterprises in which the number of employees was more than ten people. The military economy of the USSR of that time (experts often call it barracks) actually destroyed all possible types of markets. It was replaced by a centralized distribution of labor and industrial resources.

Formation of a planned economy

At the end of the twenties of the last century, industrialization was proclaimed the primary goal necessary for the rapid development of the country. The state has made a grandiose economic breakthrough, and in some respects has even become a world leader. At this time, many gigantic enterprises were erected. Moreover, new industries have emerged. It is generally accepted that the planned economy of the USSR originates in 1929, when the state began to implement the first so-called five-year plan - a plan for the country's social and economic development. As of the end of the thirties of the twentieth century, in terms of industrial production, the Soviet Union was second only to the United States. At the same time, the standard of living of the population remained extremely low.

The Great Patriotic War

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, thanks to a very successful industrial policy, the country came up with a high military-industrial potential and huge reserves of human and natural resources. Despite this, initially the economy of the USSR during the war years was not ready for new conditions. It was finally possible to rebuild it only in 1942. At that time, the production of civilian industrial products was significantly reduced, since the state worked to meet the needs of the army. In this regard, the market was greatly filled with handicraft products made in artisanal conditions. The proportion of women among the working class during the war years was more than 50%. At this time, the government introduced an eleven-hour working day and canceled holidays. Despite the continued decline in living standards, the population spared neither money nor effort, because they worked under the slogan "Everything for victory!" In five years, the planned economy of the USSR became even more dependent on the decisions of the communist leaders. Moreover, new ways of exercising command and control over it have also become stronger.

Post-war economy

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the state entered a new phase of development, which consisted, first of all, in the gradual rejection of the totalitarian system. The post-war economy of the USSR was characterized by the fact that, starting from 1957, it switched to territorial administration. All enterprises ended up under the jurisdiction of the national economic councils, and most of the republican and union ministries were abolished. It should be noted that this played a negative role in the implementation of the national scientific and technical policy, since the dispersion of resources led to a decrease in the effect of their concentration.

Significant financial investments were received by agriculture and industries belonging to the so-called group "B". Among other things, the post-war economy of the USSR was characterized by the widespread introduction of all kinds of technical innovations. At that time, advanced industries (including nuclear, chemical, radio-electronic, instrument making) were given due attention. It should also be noted that it was during this period that the largest hydroelectric power plants and thermal power plants were built on the territory of the country, and the first nuclear power plants began to be built.

Thus, we can conclude that the economy of the USSR after the war was focused on almost all aspects of activity. The active construction of cities and the development of new territories provided the population with new jobs, thereby creating a healthy socio-psychological climate in the state. Regardless of the fact that people lived in minimal socio-cultural and living conditions, they were confident in the future, because they had a stable job.

Economic reform of 1965

In 1965, the country's government carried out an economic reform, which further contributed to the continued development of the state. Its essence was to restore the sectoral ministries and liquidate the economic councils. The ultimate goal of this innovation was to increase the interest of working citizens in high production results. Already five years later it was noticeable that the economy of the USSR only benefited from this. Impressive growth rates of the main indicators became a striking proof of this. Particular success was achieved in the energy, mechanical engineering, electronics and petrochemical industries.

Crisis of the seventies

In the mid-seventies of the last century, the economy of the USSR began to show the first symptoms of a crisis. First of all, they were expressed in a slowdown in the development of the scientific and technical sector, obsolescence of equipment in most leading industries, as well as in an increase in the cost of raw materials. All this could not but have a negative impact on the main indicators of economic development. The main reason for the current situation, experts call the government's ambitious foreign policy, which required a powerful military-industrial complex. To maintain it, gigantic material and human resources were needed, which the country received mainly at the expense of other industries and the relatively low wages of citizens.

The level of hidden inflation at that time was about 3%. This happened against the backdrop of a slow, but still growth in the number of inhabitants of the state. In other words, national wealth and per capita income were declining. In the early 1980s, the Soviet economy stopped growing altogether. As a result, various food crises increasingly occurred in the country. The government was forced to import annually up to 40 million tons of grain crops, which was a clear indication of the aggravation of the situation in the agricultural sector.

perestroika

The fall in the pace of socio-economic development in the mid-eighties became even more noticeable for the population of the country. In 1985, the government was headed by M. S. Gorbachev. He saw a way out of the current situation in the radical democratization of the mechanism of state administration. In 1987, a comprehensive reform program was developed, as a result of which not only the political structure, but also the economy of the USSR changed. Perestroika (this period of time went down in history under this name) meant providing enterprises with greater independence, developing the private sector and farming, as well as abandoning the state monopoly in foreign trade and gradually integrating into the world market. Naturally, due to ideological considerations, such a policy had a huge number of opponents. Be that as it may, in the course of its implementation, cardinal positive changes took place in the country. First of all, it was thanks to perestroika that the private sector was formed in the Soviet Union, and the number of entrepreneurs, as of 1991, reached 8 million people. At the same time, the expected global changes for the country did not happen. It became obvious that the economy focused on state property has no prospects.

Conclusion

Summing up, it should be noted that the economy of the USSR was formed under the influence of the ideas of Marxism. Throughout the history of the existence of the state, it was forced to solve the problems of catching up development, while proclaiming the slogans of socialist construction. Many experts believe that the development model proposed by the Soviet Union is the largest economic experiment in world history, which never ended successfully.

Do you know that in the 1930s and 1940s, Soviet society offered the world a socio-economic innovation on the basis of which almost 85% of the Western economy has been operating for 50 years? Do you know that it was this Soviet innovation that provided the West with victory over the USSR in the Cold War and scientific and economic leadership in the modern world? And by the way, do you know that the leadership of the USSR abandoned this innovation in the 60s?

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to fit everything into one post, so first I propose to consider those basic (and little-known) economic postulates on which this very innovation of the “Stalinist economy” (1928-1958) was built.

By tradition, I give some conclusions at the very beginning:

It is impossible to consider the Soviet economy as a whole. Chronologically and logically, it is divided into several stages: a) war communism; b) NEP; c) Stalinist economy; d) Kosygin-Lieberman reforms; e) acceleration and restructuring.

The basis of the Stalinist economy (in addition to the socialization of property and a systemic measure in the form of labor) was the law of vertical integration, the socialization of value added and the improvement of the welfare of citizens.

The main goal of the socialist mode of production is to improve the well-being of citizens. Capitalistic - profit maximization per unit of time.

Under socialism, added value is socialized. Under capitalism, it is appropriated by individuals or groups of people.

Soviet economic miracle

It is worth starting with the Soviet period in the history of the economy of our country is divided into several stages. And these were such different stages that it is necessary to speak not about the Soviet economy in general, but about the models of the economy of individual periods. This fact is very important to understand. After all, many of us believe that everything that happened after the NEP is a continuation of Stalin's industrialization and collectivization. And this is fundamentally wrong, because. the Stalinist economy is only a part of the Soviet economy. Just as part of the Soviet economy was the acceleration and perestroika under Gorbachev. And to put an equal sign between the economy of Stalin and the economy of Gorbachev is at least reckless.

Initially (and not from a good life), the Bolsheviks had to go for the direct distribution of products without the use of money, which marked the transition to the policy of war communism. This period lasted from January 1918 to March 1921. Since war communism did not meet the tasks of economic construction in peaceful conditions, and the Civil War was coming to its logical conclusion, on March 14, 1921, a new phase began, called the NEP. I will not analyze it, like the previous stage, but only indicate that the NEP was actually completed by 1928.

We will dwell in more detail on the next phase - the Stalinist economy, which covers the period from 1928 to 1958. I want to consider this period in detail for several reasons.

First, in the public view, it is the most controversial. Someone endlessly loves the world-famous effective manager, not particularly going into the specifics of what and how he did anyway. Well, someone complains about “millions shot personally by Stalin”, points to the free labor of “50 million Gulag prisoners” and claims that it is this mustachioed bastard (Gazzaev) who is to blame for all the problems of modern Russia, because. abandoned the NEP.

Secondly ... but by the way, look at the tables.

As a result of industrialization in 1927-1940. about 9,000 new factories were built in the country, the total volume of industrial production increased 8 times, and according to this indicator, the USSR came second in the world after the USA. In 1941, the Great Patriotic War began, which we ended in Berlin and * ... reached the pre-war level of production by 1948, simultaneously lending and rebuilding the economy of future partners in the ATS (all of Eastern Europe). Let me remind you that in the next 10 years, in addition to the atomic bomb, we built the world's first nuclear power plant, five hydroelectric power plants, detonated a hydrogen bomb, launched the first satellite, built more than 600 enterprises in the CMEA countries, dug several canals, and so on.

I repeat, after WWII we reached the pre-war level of industrial production in less than 3 years. And this is after almost 3 years of brutal occupation. And without outside help. I don’t know who and how, but personally I always had a question, how did we do it? If the economy laid down in the 30s and 40s was not viable and inefficient, How did we achieve such figures?

Forerunner of vertical integration

What kind of law is this, you ask? I'll give you an example. We have furniture production. In order to assemble a cabinet, you need processed raw materials (MDF, glass), fittings, assembly, delivery. In the modern Russian economy, all these things are usually done by different firms that are not related to each other in any way. Firm X supplies glass with its own markup of 10-15% (+ taxes), Firm X2 supplies MDF with a markup of 10-15% (+ taxes), Firm X3 supplies fittings with a markup (+ taxes), etc. As a result, the cost of the cabinet, which is assembled and sold by Firm P, is slowly but surely growing. After all, Firm P has to buy all these materials, which have already laid a couple of "ends".

However, this is not all. Our cabinet needs to be sold, and for this it is exhibited on the podium in the store, which belongs to another Firm G. Taking into account the Russian specifics, the store winds up another 80-100% on the cabinet. As a result, we have a wardrobe with a price of 50,000 rubles, with a real cost of 20,000 - 25,000 rubles. For a capitalist economy, this is a normal situation, because. in it, each link of production seeks to extract the maximum profit per unit of time.

And how could this production be organized in a vertically integrated complex? We would still have all Firms X, X2, X3, etc. But they would be united within the framework of a single holding, in which all intermediate links would transfer their products to Firm P at cost. And Firm P would already be selling its products with the added value it needs. No one would profit from the intermediate product and raw materials. All profits would come from the final product. Can you imagine how much the efficiency of the enterprise and the economy as a whole would increase?

You ask, what will all the firms in this chain live on then? They don't make a profit. Everything is simple. Having minimum rental rates, which are transferred in favor of the state, and cheap raw materials, the added value from the final product will be redistributed throughout the holding.

You say that profits may simply not be enough. This is wrong. Let me explain with a simple example. 1000 lettuce seeds cost 5 rubles. 75-80% of these seeds will germinate into a healthy plant, for which you can get from 60 to 150 rubles in retail. 1 seed is capable of generating revenue 12,000 times more than its cost. Feel the difference? Think for yourself, what is better for the country's economy - to sell 100 tons of aluminum at 60 rubles per kilogram, or to make 1 Il-78 out of it for 3.5 billion rubles? Where will you earn more?

So, it is much more profitable to produce high value-added products than to trade in raw materials. After all, its added value is dozens, and sometimes hundreds of times more. Plus, when it is created, a cartoon effect is launched. After all, about 90-100 related enterprises work to build one aircraft. And these are jobs. And this is the demand for qualified personnel, which inevitably entails investment in science and education.

For a better understanding of what vertical integration means for the economy, science and defense of the state, I will give an example. In a market economy, there are activities that are “unprofitable”. For example, the production of spacecraft. (And in general, space itself does not bring much money, unless you send communication and navigation satellites there). If we simplify everything as much as possible, then it can be divided into 3 parts: 1st, 2nd and 3rd engines, launch vehicles, orbital ships. Separately, as practice has shown, only engines survive.

NPO Energomash is actively pushing the RD-180 and NK-33 to all sorts of Lockheeds with Martins and Boeings and lives great due to this. RSC Energia, which developed the Soyuz, Progress and Buran spacecraft, is gradually bending, since the delivery vehicles did not rest against the bourgeoisie. The story with TsSKB-Progress is no better. Analogies can be drawn with our civil and military aviation. The same song was in 2008-2009 in Pikalevo at the cement factories. Knowing the result, I think you will be able to answer the question of how full-fledged the theory is about the sanitizing function of the market, due to which “inefficient” companies die off.

And if it were a vertically integrated complex, then there is a high probability that everything would be fine. The low profitability of some industries would be compensated by synergy with others, because at the end of the chain would be a quality product with high added value. As a result: the country would have a full-fledged space program and new production facilities; science has an incentive for development; people have a job. Or do you think that we don't fucking need a space program?

I'll make a small remark. In the 1930s and 1950s, the law of vertical integration had not yet been fully implemented. Intermediate chains still had the opportunity to receive a minimum profit (3-4%), and all the added value was immediately appropriated by society. Moreover, at that time there was no such thing as vertical integration. The discovery and scientific substantiation of it was made by a team of scientists headed by Professor of Moscow State University S.S. Gubanov in the 90s, while studying the Soviet economy of that time.

Well, back in the 60s, the leadership of the USSR decided to abandon this path of development. First, we broke up the production chains, allowing them to extract the maximum profit at each stage. Then, in the 90s, they headed for complete decentralization with total privatization. That is, we put at the forefront not the efficiency of the country's economy as a whole, but the efficiency of individual enterprises.
Do you know what structure Samsung, Cisco, Melkosof, Toyota, Volkswagen, Apple, General Electric, Shell, Boeing, etc. have? Do you know what you owe today's economic leadership to the USA, Germany, Japan, China? In 1970, large Western vertically integrated corporations owned 48.8% of total capital, 51.9% - profits; in 2005 their share rose to 83.2% and 86%, respectively. Their share in exports, savings, R&D and R&D, innovations is also comparable. This is not surprising, because they concentrate the best production, technological, research and management resources. Unlimited credit lines, lobbies in governments.

In developed countries, the economy of corporations completely dominates, and not the small enterprises that are successfully imposed on us. All of their largest companies operate on the basis of the law of vertical integration, on which the Stalinist economy was built and which we abandoned.

Added value

However, let us return to the Stalinist USSR. In addition to the law of vertical integration in the USSR (and this is very important) socialized ... added value. Yes, the added value - the holy of holies of capitalism, for the sake of which it exists, was socialized. If in the capitalist economy all profits were appropriated by an individual capitalist or their group, and society received horseradish all over its face, then in the USSR it was socialized and went to reduce the cost of production, capital investment, free public goods (free medicine, education, sports, culture, compensation air-rail-transportation). That is, it was aimed at improving the well-being of citizens. After all, the goal of a socialist economy is to improve the welfare of citizens, and not to maximize profits.

How did it work? Let's go back to our furniture factory. The profile ministry, together with sectoral committees and specific enterprises, formed a plan that determined a number of target indicators (about 30), incl. the volume of output and its price. Then the production process started.

The whole pricing process looked like this. Enterprise-1 (P-1) sold intermediate products (for example, MDF) to Enterprise-2 (P-2) at a price that consisted of the cost + 3-4% profit of P-1 (p1). P-1 used this profit to reward employees, pay for their vacations, and improve their financial situation. The state also levied a tax on this profit.

P-2, after the necessary manipulations with the goods (made a cabinet from MDF), gave it for sale through the state trade system at a price of p1 + cost + 3-4%. This price was called the enterprise wholesale price (p2). Further on this p2 the state imposed the so-called turnover tax. Turnover tax - this was the very added value that was appropriated for the benefit of the whole society. The wholesale price of the industry (p3) was obtained. Well, 0.5-1% was superimposed on top of this price, of which the activities of the state trade system were financed. As a result, p3 + 0.5-1% was called the retail price.

For example, we made a refrigerator. Its cost + our profit of 3% - 10 rubles. The state imposed on him a turnover tax of 25 rubles + 50 kopecks was spent on providing a trading system. The total retail price of the refrigerator is 35.5 rubles. And these 25 rubles of turnover tax did not go into someone's pocket, but to the whole society.

Thus, the economic cells received a minimum of profit, which was used for material incentives for the workers of the cell. The main part of the added value through the turnover tax was socialized and went to free education, housing, medicine, sports, recreation, compensation for railway and air transportation. And also for the modernization of fixed assets and means of production, the construction of new enterprises and the implementation of infrastructure projects. Let me remind you that machines, land, buildings, etc. did not belong to individual enterprises, but were owned by the people. As you can see, no private planes, a dozen private cars, castles and elite prostitutes. Everything is people.

Improving the well-being of citizens

For example, there are refrigerators. A decision was made: to include refrigerators in the list of goods provided to the population. This meant that there were plans to develop models of refrigerators and build factories to produce them. At the stage of development of production - quite naturally - there were not enough refrigerators. There was a deficit. But as development progressed, production reached the planned level and the deficit disappeared. But a new product appeared - televisions and the cycle was repeated.

However, the well-being of citizens increased not only due to an increase in gross indicators. An important role was played by the reduction of production costs. For example, a wardrobe has a cost price of 10,000 rubles and an enterprise wholesale price of 10,500 rubles. How to increase the profit of the enterprise at planned prices? There are 2 ways: a) reduce the cost; b) increase the number of products produced.

That is, if in the first year the profit from one cabinet was 500 rubles, then, for example, in the second year the team was able to reduce the cost to 9,000 rubles and produced several more cabinets in excess of the plan. As a result, the profit of the enterprise increased by at least 1500 rubles. However, so that the staff of the enterprise does not get too drunk, the state annually revised prices downwards. As a result, products gradually became cheaper, which means that the costs of citizens for their purchase decreased. In fact, there was competition for reducing the cost of production and for the introduction of methods to increase production efficiency.

The main goal of the Stalinist economy was to improve the well-being of the population, which consisted of: a) a constant and planned reduction in the cost of production; b) expansion of free public goods; c) reducing the working time of citizens. And this goal was achieved by increasing the overall efficiency of the national economy, and not by its individual enterprises.

On this I, perhaps, will finish the first part, because. due to hellish neural attempts at creative “copy-paste”, my cranium, not burdened with anything superfluous, is tired of emanating word forms. the departure from the “Stalinist economy” (and even under the living Stalin) and what all this led to will be considered.

* The volume of capital work in the USSR during the three years of the Patriotic War (1942, 1943 and 1944) amounted to about 79 billion rubles, not counting the cost of the evacuated equipment. During the same three years of the war, new and restored production capacities were put into operation on the territory of the USSR for 77 billion rubles. Newly built and put into operation in the eastern regions 2,250 large industrial enterprises and restored in the liberated areas over 6,000 enterprises. 100 thousand metal-cutting machines, 24 blast furnaces, 128 open-hearth furnaces, 4 Bessemer converters, 70 electric furnaces, 56 rolling mills, 67 coke batteries, coal mines for 73 million tons of coal per year, power plants with a capacity of 3.4 million tons were put into operation. kW, new railway lines with a length of 5,860 km.- Voznesensky N.A. The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War. M., 1947.

Sources:

CAREFULLY! Weighs a lot!

1. Production of industrial products in the USSR (1913, 1928-1952) - http://istmat.info/files/uploads/36634/rgae_1562.33.1185_22-33.pdf;
2. Foreign trade of the USSR for 20 years 1918-1937. Statistical collection - http://istmat.info/node/22114;
3. Brief statistical collection - http://istmat.info/files/uploads/36699/narodnoe_hozyaystvo_sssr_za_1913-1955_gg.pdf;
4. National economy of the USSR - http://istmat.info/node/21341.

Antonov M.F. Capitalism will not exist in Russia! M., 2005.
Larin Yu. Private capital in the USSR. M., 1927.
Zverev A. G. National income and finances of the USSR. M, 1961.
Bachurin A. V. Profit and turnover tax in the USSR. M., 1955.
Gubanov S.S. State breakthrough. M., 2012.
Voznesensky N.A. The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War. M., 1947.
Molyakov D.S. Profit and profitability of an industrial enterprise. M., 1967. - http://www.library.fa.ru/files/Molyakov/Molyakov33.pdf;
Robert C. Allen. Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution. - http://books.google.ru/books?id=FX4o33jOIX0C&printsec=frontcover&vq=allen+farm+to+factory&lr=#v=onepage&q=allen%20farm%20to%20factory&f=false ;
Gubanov S.S. Leninsky on a course towards state capitalism - http://behaviorist-socialist-ru.blogspot.ru/2013/09/blog-post_2203.html;
Grandberg Z. Neo-industrial paradigm and the law of vertical integration.
Naimushin V. "Post-industrial" illusions or systemic neo-industrialization: the choice of modern Russia.
Katasonov V.Yu. Stalin's economy in the history of the USSR - http://ruskline.ru/video/2014/02/10/ekonomika_stalina_v_istorii_sssr;
Questions of the Stalinist national economy - http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/1313734.
Chebolization of the country (about Samsung) -

When discussing the Soviet economy, the majority have images of queues, a shortage of goods, senile people at the helm of the country, and the military-industrial complex “devouring” all budget money. And if we take into account how this whole epic ended for the USSR, many a priori consider the planned economy to be inefficient, and the socialist mode of production to be crazy. Someone immediately draws attention to the West and, not understanding how the local economy really works, insists that we need a market, private property and other benefits of the “civilized” world. However, there are some very interesting nuances here, which I want to tell you about.
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to fit everything into one post, so first I propose to consider those basic (and little-known) economic postulates on which this very innovation of the “Stalinist economy” (1928-1958) was built.
By tradition, I give some conclusions at the very beginning:
It is impossible to consider the Soviet economy as a whole. Chronologically and logically, it is divided into several stages: a) war communism; b) NEP; c) Stalinist economy; d) Kosygin-Lieberman reforms; e) acceleration and restructuring.
The basis of the Stalinist economy (in addition to the socialization of property and a systemic measure in the form of labor) was the law of vertical integration, the socialization of value added and the improvement of the welfare of citizens.
The main goal of the socialist mode of production is to improve the well-being of citizens. Capitalistic - profit maximization per unit of time.
Under socialism, added value is socialized. Under capitalism, it is appropriated by individuals or groups of people.

It is worth starting with the fact that the Soviet period in the history of the economy of our country is divided into several stages. And these were such different stages that it is necessary to speak not about the Soviet economy in general, but about the models of the economy of individual periods. This fact is very important to understand. After all, many of us believe that everything that happened after the NEP is a continuation of Stalin's industrialization and collectivization. And this is fundamentally wrong, because. the Stalinist economy is only a part of the Soviet economy. Just as part of the Soviet economy was the acceleration and perestroika under Gorbachev. And to put an equal sign between the economy of Stalin and the economy of Gorbachev is at least reckless.
Initially (and not from a good life), the Bolsheviks had to go for the direct distribution of products without the use of money, which marked the transition to the policy of war communism. This period lasted from January 1918 to March 1921. Since war communism did not meet the tasks of economic construction in peaceful conditions, and the Civil War was coming to its logical conclusion, on March 14, 1921, a new phase began, called the NEP. I will not analyze it, like the previous stage, but only indicate that the NEP was actually completed by 1928.
We will dwell in more detail on the next phase - the Stalinist economy, which covers the period from 1928 to 1958. I want to consider this period in detail for several reasons.
First, in the public view, it is the most controversial. Someone endlessly loves the world-famous effective manager, not particularly going into the specifics of what and how he did anyway. Well, someone complains about “millions shot personally by Stalin”, points to the free labor of “50 million Gulag prisoners” and claims that it is this mustachioed bastard (Gazzaev) who is to blame for all the problems of modern Russia, because. abandoned the NEP.
Secondly ... but by the way, look at the tables.

As we can see, by 1928, after WWI, the Civil War, the intervention of the Entente and the New Economic Policy, the Russian economy lagged behind the economies of Western countries more than in 1913. Yosya described the situation very clearly and clearly in February 1931: from the advanced countries for 50-100 years. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed.”
As a result of industrialization in 1927-1940. about 9,000 new factories were built in the country, the total volume of industrial production increased 8 times, and according to this indicator, the USSR came second in the world after the USA. In 1941, the Great Patriotic War began, which we ended in Berlin and ... reached the pre-war level of production by 1948, simultaneously lending and rebuilding the economy of future partners in the ATS (all of Eastern Europe). Let me remind you that in the next 10 years, in addition to the atomic bomb, we built the world's first nuclear power plant, five hydroelectric power plants, detonated a hydrogen bomb, launched the first satellite, built more than 600 enterprises in the CMEA countries, dug several canals, and so on.

I repeat, after WWII we reached the pre-war level of industrial production in less than 3 years. And this is after almost 3 years of brutal occupation. And without outside help. I don’t know who and how, but personally I always had a question, how did we succeed? If the economy laid down in the 1930s and 1940s was not viable and inefficient, how did we achieve such indicators?

Forerunner of vertical integration

The socialist economy, as we know, is based on the principle of the socialization of the means of production. Plus, industrial relations are based on cooperation and mutual assistance (or so they say). We will not talk about this, because. there's a lot of philosophy here. And let us dwell on the fact that the socialist economy, incl. is built on the basis of the law of vertical integration, according to which profit is derived only from the final product.
What kind of law is this, you ask? I'll give you an example. We have furniture production. In order to assemble a cabinet, you need processed raw materials (MDF, glass), fittings, assembly, delivery. In the modern Russian economy, all these things are usually done by different firms that are not related to each other in any way. Firm X supplies glass with its own markup of 10-15% (+ taxes), Firm X2 supplies MDF with a markup of 10-15% (+ taxes), Firm X3 supplies fittings with a markup (+ taxes), etc. As a result, the cost of the cabinet, which is assembled and sold by Firm P, is slowly but surely growing. After all, Firm P has to buy all these materials, which have already laid a couple of "ends".
However, this is not all. Our cabinet needs to be sold, and for this it is exhibited on the podium in the store, which belongs to another Firm G. Taking into account the Russian specifics, the store winds up another 80-100% on the cabinet. As a result, we have a wardrobe with a price of 50,000 rubles, with a real cost of 20,000 - 25,000 rubles. For a capitalist economy, this is a normal situation, because. in it, each link of production seeks to extract the maximum profit per unit of time.

What we have? Firstly, we have an impudent parasite sitting at the end of the chain, because of which the price of the cabinet doubles. He makes no effort. It doesn't produce anything. He stupidly has excess profits, due to which there is a significant rise in the cost of production. Secondly, our products are becoming uncompetitive compared to, for example, Belarusian products, where rental rates and wages are lower, and materials are cheaper. Thirdly, the price of a closet hits the pockets of ordinary citizens and reduces their well-being. It is clear that this problem concerns not only the closet, but everything and everything in our economy.
And how could this production be organized in a vertically integrated complex? We would still have all Firms X, X2, X3, etc. But they would be united within the framework of a single holding, in which all intermediate links would transfer their products to Firm P at cost. And Firm P would already be selling its products with the added value it needs. No one would profit from the intermediate product and raw materials. All profits would come from the final product. Can you imagine how much the efficiency of the enterprise and the economy as a whole would increase?
You ask, what will all the firms in this chain live on then? They don't make a profit. Everything is simple. Having minimum rental rates, which are transferred in favor of the state, and cheap raw materials, the added value from the final product will be redistributed throughout the holding.
You say that profits may simply not be enough. This is wrong. Let me explain with a simple example. 1000 lettuce seeds cost 5 rubles. 75-80% of these seeds will germinate into a healthy plant, for which you can get from 60 to 150 rubles in retail. 1 seed is capable of generating revenue 12,000 times more than its cost. Feel the difference? Think for yourself, what is better for the country's economy - to sell 100 tons of aluminum at 60 rubles per kilogram, or to make 1 Il-78 out of it for 3.5 billion rubles? Where will you earn more?
So, it is much more profitable to produce high value-added products than to trade in raw materials. After all, its added value is dozens, and sometimes hundreds of times more. Plus, when it is created, a cartoon effect is launched. After all, about 90-100 related enterprises work to build one aircraft. And these are jobs. And this is the demand for qualified personnel, which inevitably entails investment in science and education.
For a better understanding of what vertical integration means for the economy, science and defense of the state, I will give an example. In a market economy, there are activities that are “unprofitable”. For example, the production of spacecraft. (And in general, space itself does not bring much money, unless you send communication and navigation satellites there). If we simplify everything as much as possible, then it can be divided into 3 parts: 1st, 2nd and 3rd engines, launch vehicles, orbital ships. Separately, as practice has shown, only engines survive.
NPO Energomash is actively pushing the RD-180 and NK-33 to all sorts of Lockheeds with Martins and Boeings and lives great due to this. RSC Energia, which developed the Soyuz, Progress and Buran spacecraft, is gradually bending, since the delivery vehicles did not rest against the bourgeoisie. The story with TsSKB-Progress is no better. Analogies can be drawn with our civil and military aviation. The same song was in 2008-2009 in Pikalevo at the cement factories. Knowing the result, I think you will be able to answer the question of how full-fledged the theory is about the sanitizing function of the market, due to which “inefficient” companies die off.
And if it were a vertically integrated complex, then there is a high probability that everything would be fine. The low profitability of some industries would be compensated by synergy with others, because at the end of the chain would be a quality product with high added value. As a result: the country would have a full-fledged space program and new production facilities; science has an incentive for development; people have a job. Or do you think that we don't fucking need a space program?
I'll make a small remark. In the 1930s and 1950s, the law of vertical integration had not yet been fully implemented. Intermediate chains still had the opportunity to receive a minimum profit (3-4%), and all the added value was immediately appropriated by society. Moreover, at that time there was no such thing as vertical integration. The discovery and scientific substantiation of it was made by a team of scientists headed by Professor of Moscow State University S.S. Gubanov in the 90s, while studying the Soviet economy of that time.
Well, back in the 60s, the leadership of the USSR decided to abandon this path of development. First, we broke up the production chains, allowing them to extract the maximum profit at each stage. Then, in the 90s, they headed for complete decentralization with total privatization. That is, we put at the forefront not the efficiency of the country's economy as a whole, but the efficiency of individual enterprises.
Do you know what structure Samsung, Cisco, Melkosoft, Toyota, Volkswagen, Apple, General Electric, Shell, Boeing, etc. have? Do you know what you owe today's economic leadership to the USA, Germany, Japan, China? In 1970, large Western vertically integrated corporations owned 48.8% of total capital, 51.9% - profits; in 2005 their share rose to 83.2% and 86%, respectively. Their share in exports, savings, R&D and R&D, innovations is also comparable. This is not surprising, because they concentrate the best production, technological, research and management resources. Unlimited credit lines, lobbies in governments.
In developed countries, the economy of corporations completely dominates, and not the small enterprises that are successfully imposed on us. All of their largest companies operate on the basis of the law of vertical integration, on which the Stalinist economy was built and which we have abandoned.

Added value

However, let us return to the Stalinist USSR. In addition to the law of vertical integration in the USSR (and this is very important) ... added value was socialized. Yes, the added value - the holy of holies of capitalism, for the sake of which it exists, was socialized. If in the capitalist economy all profits were appropriated by an individual capitalist or their group, and society received horseradish all over its face, then in the USSR it was socialized and went to reduce the cost of production, capital investment, free public goods (free medicine, education, sports, culture, compensation air-rail-transportation). That is, it was aimed at improving the well-being of citizens. After all, the goal of a socialist economy is to improve the welfare of citizens, and not to maximize profits.
How did it work? Let's go back to our furniture factory. The profile ministry, together with sectoral committees and specific enterprises, formed a plan that determined a number of target indicators (about 30), incl. the volume of output and its price. Then the production process started.
The whole pricing process looked like this. Enterprise-1 (P-1) sold intermediate products (for example, MDF) to Enterprise-2 (P-2) at a price that consisted of the cost + 3-4% profit of P-1 (p1). P-1 used this profit to reward employees, pay for their vacations, and improve their financial situation. The state also levied a tax on this profit.
P-2, after the necessary manipulations with the goods (made a cabinet from MDF), gave it for sale through the state trade system at a price of p1 + cost + 3-4%. This price was called the enterprise wholesale price (p2). Further on this p2 the state imposed the so-called turnover tax. Turnover tax - this was the very added value that was appropriated for the benefit of the whole society. The wholesale price of the industry (p3) was obtained. Well, 0.5-1% was superimposed on top of this price, of which the activities of the state trade system were financed. As a result, p3 + 0.5-1% was called the retail price.
For example, we made a refrigerator. Its cost + our profit of 3% - 10 rubles. The state imposed on him a turnover tax of 25 rubles + 50 kopecks was spent on providing a trading system. The total retail price of the refrigerator is 35.5 rubles. And these 25 rubles of turnover tax did not go into someone's pocket, but to the whole society.
Thus, the economic cells received a minimum of profit, which was used for material incentives for the workers of the cell. The main part of the added value through the turnover tax was socialized and went to free education, housing, medicine, sports, recreation, compensation for railway and air transportation. And also for the modernization of fixed assets and means of production, the construction of new enterprises and the implementation of infrastructure projects. Let me remind you that machines, land, buildings, etc. did not belong to individual enterprises, but were owned by the people. As you can see, no private planes, a dozen private cars, castles and elite prostitutes. Everything is people.

Improving the well-being of citizens

Since the goal of the socialist economy was to increase the welfare of citizens, the priority of the state and enterprises was to provide people with everything they needed. At first it was work and food. Next - clothes and housing. Then - medicine, education, household appliances. The system was not interested in profit, but in the number of products.
For example, there are refrigerators. A decision was made: to include refrigerators in the list of goods provided to the population. This meant that there were plans to develop models of refrigerators and build factories to produce them. At the stage of development of production - quite naturally - there were not enough refrigerators. There was a deficit. But as development progressed, production reached the planned level and the deficit disappeared. But a new product appeared - televisions and the cycle was repeated.
However, the well-being of citizens increased not only due to an increase in gross indicators. An important role was played by the reduction of production costs. For example, a wardrobe has a cost price of 10,000 rubles and an enterprise wholesale price of 10,500 rubles. How to increase the profit of the enterprise at planned prices? There are 2 ways: a) reduce the cost; b) increase the number of products produced.
That is, if in the first year the profit from one cabinet was 500 rubles, then, for example, in the second year the team was able to reduce the cost to 9,000 rubles and produced several more cabinets in excess of the plan. As a result, the profit of the enterprise increased by at least 1500 rubles. However, so that the staff of the enterprise does not get too drunk, the state annually revised prices downwards. As a result, products gradually became cheaper, which means that the costs of citizens for their purchase decreased. In fact, there was competition for reducing the cost of production and for the introduction of methods to increase production efficiency.

The Soviet economy reached the pre-war level of production by 1948-1949. However, it was obvious that it was impossible to endlessly engage in the production of means of production (category A). Moreover, it contradicted the very idea of socialism. After all, the maximum satisfaction of the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the whole society required the production of category B goods (consumer goods). This problem needed to be addressed. Moreover, to decide taking into account the beginning of a new round of scientific and technological progress. All this required the improvement of the work of the socialist economy and a change in the priorities of its development.

So how did the Soviet economy change after Stalin's death? What decisions did the Soviet leaders make? And how did they see the future of the USSR?

And again the conclusions:
Since the 60s, the economy of the USSR purposefully moved away from a planned system to an unplanned one, which led it first to capitalist cost accounting, and then to complete disorganization.
The socialist economy (1928-1953) prioritizes the efficiency of the national economy of the entire country. "Revisionist" economics - the efficiency of an individual enterprise.
The key reason for the collapse of the USSR is the growth of an uncontrolled bureaucracy and its desire to preserve and expand its privileges.

Khrushchev: MTS, virgin lands, state farms

The starting point for fundamental changes in the socialist structure of the Soviet Union was the 20th Party Congress on February 25, 1956. On it, Khrushchev slandered Stalin and the fundamental ideas of socialism. This congress is the starting point for criticism of the Soviet system. This congress is the beginning of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. This congress is the beginning of undermining the USSR from within. This congress is still a source of dirt for fighting the ideas of socialism and communism, and simply for criticizing our country.
Because the topic of the post concerns only the economy and industrial relations, we will not consider using specific examples how the 20th Congress influenced ideology, internal party struggle, foreign policy, attitude towards political prisoners, etc., but will immediately move on to Khrushchev's initiatives.
Khrushchev's main activity was focused on agriculture. Reason: he considered himself a great specialist in this matter. What decisions did our agronomist make? First of all, it is worth mentioning the reform of the MTS (1957-1959). MTS are machine and tractor stations that cultivated the land and harvested crops on collective farms.
Under Stalin, collective farms and state farms did not have their own heavy equipment: tractors, combine harvesters, harvesters, cars, etc. And Stalin insisted that in no case should they be transferred to collective farms. Here is what he wrote in 1952: Sanina and Venzher are taking a step back in the direction of backwardness and are trying to turn back the wheel of history... This means driving them into great losses and ruining the collective farms, undermining the mechanization of agriculture, and slowing down the pace of collective farm production.” A similar experience took place at the beginning of 1930, when, at the suggestion of a group of collective farm shock workers, they were given ownership of equipment. However, the very first check showed the inexpediency of this decision, and already at the end of 1930 the decision was canceled.
Why MTS cannot be transferred into the ownership of collective farms? Several arguments can be made here. First, the effective use of technology. Let us assume that one combine harvester is enough for an average collective farm to have time to harvest. But no collective farm would risk limiting itself to one combine harvester, because if it breaks down, nothing good will happen. The crop will die. And someone will have to answer for disrupting the restroom. Therefore, such a collective farm will buy 2 combine harvesters for safety. Thus, if the Stalinist MTS served 100 collective farms, then after the transfer of equipment, you will have to have a total of 200 combines. The Stalinist MTS, with a reserve of 10-15%, could have only 110-115 combines and cope with harvesting in all 100 collective farms.
What does it mean? Formally, we will see an unprecedented growth in the production of tractors. All this will be reflected in official statistics. Far-reaching conclusions will be drawn about the growth and efficiency of everyone and everything. But in fact, this is an inefficient use of funds that could be spent, for example, on the construction of schools and hospitals. Plus, you need to understand that Khrushchev forced the MTS collective farms to buy out, and this is not only a serious one-time cost, but also an item in the budget (after all, the equipment must be maintained and modernized). And how can collective farms cover such losses? Only an increase in prices for end products.

Previously, the state could use prices to force MTS to reduce the cost of cultivating the land. The growth in the number of vehicles owned by MTS and the unjustified increase in the cost of this equipment affected the costs of MTS and their profits. They could increase it only by increasing their efficiency and the efficiency of their technology. That is, they were the economic controller of agricultural machinery factories: they did not allow those to produce inefficient equipment, and they did not allow them to produce more than necessary equipment. And with the liquidation of the MTS, the production of agricultural machinery in the USSR began to senselessly increase, increasing the cost of food.
The second and much more important point is that with the transfer to the ownership of the MTS, the collective farm actually becomes an independent producer. This is a violation of one of the fundamental principles of the socialist economy. After all, under such a scenario, the collective farms become the owners of the means of production. Those. they would find themselves in an exceptional position that no enterprise in the country had. This would further alienate collective-farm property from public property and would lead not to an approach to socialism, but, on the contrary, to a distance from it. The collective farm became an independent producer. And what is the motivation of an independent manufacturer? Only profit. And it is logical to assume that such a collective farm will begin to dictate its terms in terms of prices for products and in terms of its volume.
In a letter to Sanina and Venzher, Stalin pointed out that the surplus of collective farm production should be gradually excluded from the system of commodity circulation and included in the system of product exchange between state industry and collective farms. In the end, everyone did the opposite.
Khrushchev's next initiative, put forward in December 1958, was the reduction of personal subsidiary plots. Formally, almost the entire rural population of the country was united in collective farms. But in reality, peasants receive only 20% of their income from working on a collective farm, and the rest of the profit comes from the “gray” sector - from trading in unrecorded products produced by collective farmers in personal subsidiary plots and selling them to state procurers. As a result, Khrushchev accused Malenkov of sympathizing with the petty-bourgeois tendencies in agriculture, achieved his removal and carried out another reform.

What is the logic of this reform? In Anti-Dühring, Engels wrote that in the course of the proletarian revolution all means of production must be socialized. This must be done in order to eliminate commodity production. In principle, this is the right decision, but there is one caveat. Engels, speaking of the elimination of commodity production, has in mind countries where capitalism and the concentration of production are sufficiently developed not only in industry but also in agriculture. Such a country, at the time of writing Anti-Dühring, was only Great Britain.
There was nothing like it in France, or in Holland, or in Germany. Yes, capitalism developed in the countryside, but it was represented by a class of small and medium producers in the countryside. There is no need to talk about our country. The course towards "farming" was taken only under Stolypin a couple of years before the First World War. What happened next, you yourself know.
In September 1952, in The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin wrote: “The opinion of other unfortunate Marxists who think that one should, perhaps, take power and go for the expropriation of small and medium-sized producers in the countryside and socialize them cannot be considered an answer. means of production. Marxists cannot take this senseless and criminal path either, because such a path would undermine every possibility of the victory of the proletarian revolution, would throw the peasantry for a long time into the camp of the enemies of the proletariat. Lenin wrote about this in his cooperative plan.
The data presented in the analytical note of the agricultural economist N.Ya.Itskov dated April 1962 are also interesting. It indicates that the personal household plots of collective farmers at the end of 1959 produced from 50 to 80% of the gross output of milk, meat, potatoes and vegetables, eggs of the collective farm sector. He argued that the state was not ready to take over the supply of the population, which is half the population of the country. Why did Khrushchev ignore all this? What was he guided by in carrying out the reform?
The grain problem was not solved either. The development of virgin lands contradicted the decisions of the September 1953 plenum. Because it made decisions on the intensification of agricultural production, and the plowing of virgin lands was an extensive method of farming. However, it is worth recognizing that the average annual grain harvest for 1954-1958 nevertheless increased and amounted to 113.2 million tons against 80.9 million in 1949-1953. They continued to grow in the 60s. But the “development of virgin lands” was superimposed with a lot of other decisions (enlargement of collective farms, cuts in subsidiary plots, certification, transfer of MTS, voluntaristic decisions about what and where to plant), which did not allow the grain issue to be fully resolved. The situation was exacerbated by the growth of urbanization: in the period from 60 to 64, almost 7 million people moved to cities. In this situation, the virgin lands not only did not strengthen the country's grain balance, but also led (along with other factors) to a decrease in production and the need to purchase grain abroad.

Revisionist coup: the Kosygin-Lieberman reform.

oluntarist decisions in the agrarian sphere led to the fact that within two or three years agriculture became commercial. Its cost rose sharply, which forced in 1962, for the first time in the post-war years, to raise prices for all its products. And in 1963, the crisis of commercial agricultural production led to the fact that for the first time since 1934, the USSR was forced to start buying grain abroad. However, the business was not limited to agriculture. The next "target" of the reformers was industry and the system of economic management.
The beginning of the destabilization of economic processes in industry was laid by the economic reform of 1957-1959. Its essence can be reduced to the replacement of a centralized control system with a geographically distributed system. A number of all-Union and Union-Republican sectoral industrial ministries were abolished, their enterprises transferred to the direct subordination of the economic councils. The planning function was also destabilized: long-term planning was transferred to the State Economic Council, and the current one - to the State Planning Commission.
For a better understanding of what all this meant, I will explain the following thing. For example, you need to automate all jobs in industry. Make your production capital-intensive and more efficient. On the scale of the economy of the whole country, this will have a tremendous effect: the workforce will be freed up, it will be possible to reduce the working day while maintaining current wages, more people will strive to get a quality education, this will stimulate the development of science and technology, etc. Obviously, this is not a one day job. To implement all this, you will need a development strategy for 8-10 years, as well as the ability to act on orders for the benefit of the entire national economy.
Such a task will require the involvement of both capital and labor of a large number of enterprises. At the same time, enterprises are not always interested in implementing such initiatives. The reasons can be very diverse: no capital, no personnel, no time, no interest, etc. As a result, you are faced with a dilemma: either the development of the economy of the whole country depends on the plans of individual economic units (enterprises), or the development of economic units will be consistent with the interests of the entire economy.
In a capitalist system (i.e., in a modern economy), everything depends on individual enterprises. It is understandable, because in this system, the main priority is profit maximization, and the main indicator is the growth of capitalization of companies. The benefit of individual companies is an axiom and a sacred law. In the Soviet system until 1957, the priority was the growth of the welfare of citizens, which was impossible without the development of the entire national economy.
In 1957, introducing the system of economic councils, Khrushchev actually made the development of the economy of the whole country dependent on the plans of individual business entities. Now the plans did not descend from the all-Union central ministries, but, on the contrary, went to them. In fact, the development of the plan began to begin at the enterprises, continue in the council of the national economy and in the State Planning Committee of a particular republic, and only then did it get into the State Planning Committee of the USSR. And regional barriers were added to intersectoral barriers.
Could the USSR develop and implement the GOELRO plan in the 1920s if it waited for electrification plans from each enterprise? Would industrialization have been carried out if the country's leadership had been waiting for plans from individual economic entities? How quickly would the mechanization of agriculture be introduced if the USSR waited for the initiative of private traders? I think the answer is obvious.

The development of the country's economy, the growth of the welfare of its citizens and scientific progress are possible only with a centralized (state, sectoral and intersectoral corporations) accumulation and redistribution of resources. Neither a separate enterprise nor a separate economic council can provide anything of the sort. Reform 1957-1959 took planning away from the area of domination of national economic interests to the area of domination of the interests of enterprises and the interests of regional elites.
The reform of 1957-1959. For the first time, the question was raised about what interests would dominate the economic policy of the state - a system or element, a whole or a private one, the national economy or a separate enterprise. The final answer in favor of private interest was given in 1965 by Kosygin.
Kosygin was well aware that the country is successfully developing only on paper. In fact, the plans were carried out only according to the "shaft", and the cost of production grew, and its quality decreased. Manufacturers were chasing the improvement of their departmental indicators. The end consumer and the volume of products sold were of little interest to them.
As a result, a solution was found - the enterprises were transferred to self-financing. The main criteria for the efficiency of the enterprise were indicators of profit and profitability of production. Planned indicators were reduced from 30 to 9. Enterprises were allowed to determine the number of their employees, wholesale prices, average wages, to attract their own funds and loans for the development of production, and to create material incentive funds. In general, it turned out to be a typical capitalist enterprise, but in a socialist system.
Stalin is involuntarily recalled again: “If we take profitability not from the point of view of individual enterprises or branches of production and not in the context of one year, but from the point of view of the entire national economy and in the context of, say, 10-15 years, which would be the only correct approach to question, the temporary and unstable profitability of individual enterprises or branches of production cannot be compared with the highest form of stable and permanent profitability that the operation of the law of the planned development of the national economy and the planning of the national economy give us, saving us from periodic economic crises that destroy national economy and causing colossal material damage to society, and ensuring us the continuous growth of the national economy with its high rates.
As a result of the new reform, the short-term interest of individual enterprises was put at the forefront. And they were motivated only by extracting profits in all possible ways and increasing the material incentive fund. This inevitably led to inflation, because. profit could only be used to increase wages. Wages grew, and its commodity provision lagged far behind. Already in the mid-60s, a “money overhang” began to form, which would result in galloping inflation and denomination in the 90s.

The transfer of enterprises to self-financing meant the subordination of the entire national economy to the interests of individual economic units. We have rolled back to the years 1921-1928, when there was the NEP in the country, when the self-financing of trusts and syndicates was operating in industry and agriculture. That is, the "innovative" reform of 1965-1967 was, in essence, a return to the practice of managing 30 years ago.
Covered with a "copper basin" and the system of price reduction. Last time we gave an example with a cabinet worth 10,000 rubles. In the Stalinist economy, in order to increase the profits of the enterprise, it was necessary either to produce more cabinets or to reduce the unit cost of production. The "Kosygin reform" turned everything upside down - now it has become unprofitable to reduce the cost of the cabinet. After all, the profit was formed as a share of the cost. That is, the higher the cost, the greater the profit. 10% from 10,000 rubles - 1,000 rubles of profit. And 10% of 15,000 rubles - 1,500 rubles of profit. This means that we must strive not to reduce, but to increase the cost of production. Any cost reduction is a blow to the pocket of the enterprise. From here went, and then covered the entire economy of the USSR, the practice of speculative overpricing and falsification of products.

Self-supporting prices broke out of control and state administration, they destroyed the manageability and balance of the Soviet economy, made any planning impossible, distorted ideas about the priorities and prospects for the country's development, led to an increase in the commodity deficit and difficulties in the consumer market. The economy of the whole country became subordinated to the interests of short-term profit, which inevitably led to its disorganization.
But more importantly, it was a blow to industrial democracy. Now it doesn't matter how competent you are. It doesn't matter how productive you are. It does not matter what innovations you can and are ready to bring to production. "Screw everyone." By killing the price reduction mechanism, there was no motivation to work better and harder. I lost my motivation to create. The majority began to care about stable and quiet work with planned increases in positions and salaries.
On the other hand, the clan seclusion of the “red directors” and the “bureaucracy” began to appear, interested in maintaining the status quo. They were the social base that stood for the further decentralization of the economy, the subordination of the State Planning Commission to the agreements of self-supporting enterprises, the abolition of the turnover tax and the planned procedure for withdrawing enterprise profits to the state budget. In 20-25 years, these people and their children initiate "acceleration" and "perestroika". And in the 90s they will become today's oligarchs, effective managers and managers.
The next 15 years before the “acceleration” were marked by an oil rally. After the Yom Kippur War, hydrocarbon prices skyrocketed. This contributed to even greater stagnation of the Soviet economy. Rising oil revenues masked real problems for almost 15 years. However, in the 80s, prices collapsed, and with them, a few years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

The secret of the Stalinist economy

Beginning in the 1960s, the restoration of capitalism was in full swing in the USSR. The "reformers" were able to replace the formula of development with the formula of a rollback to the "market" foundations, passing it off as innovation and a path to a better tomorrow. It was from the 60s that the period of inefficiency and stagnation of the Soviet economy began. But the reason for the stagnation was not the "socialist mode of production", which has been so actively vilified for the past 25 years. The reason was the disorganization of the national economy for the sake of market forces. It was the beginning of decentralization, the transition to self-supporting and the maximization of self-supporting profits that led us to the 90s. And the end point of this whole saga was the privatization of national economy enterprises, and the subsequent legalization of private ownership of the means of production, land, enterprises and infrastructure.

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