Talk:Economy of the Soviet Union
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Economy of the Soviet Union is part of WikiProject Soviet Union, an attempt to better organise information in articles related to the Soviet Union. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. |
What I think would be interesting would be a discussion on the Soviets rejection of computers and automation and its impact on the Soviet economy. I have read that Soviet leadership saw computers and automation as somewhat anti-proletariat, and therefore never invested the time or the energy into developing them until very late. TDC 20:37, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Paranoid's
- Constant lowering of prices by the planning agencies led to an unfortunate side effect. As the prices dropped below the equilibrium point, people were always buying all available stock, leading to "empty shelves". The actual food consumption was high, but psychologically the empty shelves proved to be very hard to endure. Even though per capita consumption of most products (with the exception of meat) in Soviet Union was higher than in the United States, people were unhappy. In 1988 consumption of milk and milk products in the USSR was 356 kg per capita (260 kg in the USA), but 44% of the Soviet people said when polled that they were not consuming enough milk. In Armenia, where people consumed 480 kg of milk (1989) 62% of the people were not satisfied with the consumption levels. The situation with most other products (including both food and consumer goods) was similar (figures quoted according to Kara-Murza).
I will not going to reverse this, but this text shows total lack of understanding what was actually happening. The example of milk is extremely silly for one simple reason: at times bread, milk and potatoes were the only available foods in sufficent supply. Naturally, they were consumed in higher quantities than in USA. If you don't have apple juice, lemonaded, if coffe, tea (! who wuld imagine that people would stand in lines for tea!), you drink milk or vodka. You western people don't have a slightest idea what was with food in the whole Eastern bloc, not only Russia. Have you ever heard a once popular joke about the unificatgion of Germanies? "For the first time in their life East Germans ate bananas at will!" The Soviet agrculture was in disaster. At times there was not enough food to feed livestock. I myself being a mathematician in a research institute was sent three years in a row to cut green bushes for forage! Sausages, raw meat, eggs, poultry... You spent half of your free time standing in lines to get these. And when you had your turn, you bought as much as you could, because you was not sure you will have this next week.
And most ridiculous thing of all, people from a village had to come to a city to buy meat or eggs! Muscovies hated suburbs, claiming they buying out everything. But they didn't hate the government that did not send enough stock to these suburbs.
Have you ever seen a Soviet citizen shopping in Socialist Poland or East Germany? The exchange rate was artificially low in favor of rouble. A person was allowed to carry 30 roubles (only!!!!) across the border. And it is unbelievable how much useful things you could buy for 30 roubles when exchanged to Zlotys or Deutsche Marks. Can you believe that at times $1 was 0.67 ruble (officially, but 8 rubles on black market)? The whole Soviet economy was so twisted, skewed and crooked, that it is impossible to logically describe it in several lines how it worked at all.
Soviet people were drinking much milk. Sheesh!!!! Idiotism. Mikkalai 18:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Possibly you are right, but only concerning to the final, declining period of SU's history. One of course could criticize the economy of SU (there was many flaws), but the second economy in the world couldn't be simply told to be totally wrong (especially, if taking in account the initial level of the development). My personal opinion, that the problems of SU is its population the time of late 70' and 80'. To much of the population turned to midcult peasants, Babbitts, blind philistines, whom strived to gain relative well-being comparing to others. That devastating psychology, led to self-collapsing process. Indeed, population of SU have in general deserved to their ill fate. Again it is my personal opinion.
The problem with the Soviet economy didnt occur near the end of its run, but was inherently and absolutly flawed. The increased productivity and economic output does not reflect a legitimate economic shift in a country but only the introduction of slave labor into industry. The increase in output was indeed amazing but not when you consider that it was a flame fueled by the lives of the people of russia. The second input above is true in that, hunger, disease, and extreme poverty were rampant. Even those lucky enough to have a job waited for days just to get scraps of meat, eggs and bread that we wouldnt touch in America. Some people say that communism "looks good on paper". I ask them, how good does slavery, tyrrany and opression look? "Proletariens of the world unite!"
[edit] Planning
It is high time to cut the "Planning" section into a separate article, merging it with the additional public domain material from Library of Congress Studies, stored at Gosplan/temp, but searchable in LOC as well: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html#su0311 . Mikkalai
- Agreed. There is even more stuff at the LOC about Planning, they have a huge amount of info. - FrancisTyers 21:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Hunger?
As I lived in USSR myself and remember 80s well enough I want to say that it was never close to "extreme poverty, hunger and desease". Shortages were big, but they never went to that level. Also in 70s it was much better, this problems started to appear in the early 80s.
[edit] Milk consumption section
I deleted it. It was written out of total lack of understanding on what was happening: milk and bread were staple foods in Soviet Union, with artificially low prices for them. Of course people consumed more milk than Americans! There were so many skewedness in Soviet economy, so don't even start putting it there without understanding the whole system, or, better, using repotabe analytical works on the issue. For example, did you know that bread was so cheap that in the countryside people bought bread to feed pigs? Of course it is grains are normal kind of nutrient for livestock, but it was impossible to buy it (known as "kombikorm", an abbreviation for "combined forage"). `'mikka (t) 01:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Lowering prices
I removed this naive theory as well. First, there was no "constant lowering". Second, there were no "empty shelves": there were shelves flled with useless things, produced but so ugly that no one wanted them. "Empty shelves" were in food stores. But they were empty because of agricultural disaster, not because greedy people bought everything out. "Emty shelves" (figuratively speaking) were for certain goods, which are necessary, and many people preferred to hoard them "just in case", because it was known that when you need it, you will not find it in stores. And all this had nothing to do with low prices. `'mikka (t) 01:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bias
The article credits central planning with revitalizing heavy industry and making USSR the world's second-largest economy. The only 'fault' is that they didn't shift from total control 'in time' to prevent stagnation. I don't think this is a consensus view, but a pro-socialist one. --Uncle Ed 14:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
-I don't see anything wrong with this article. Only very anti-soviet people have been complaining about problems.
-It's funny that an article that tries to take a neutral stance and isn't completely anti-soviet is considered baised.
