Upper volta non aligned movement7/3/2023 ![]() Note that in Soviet times, the share of income not distributed to adults was much greater than before or after. New branches for nuclear weapons, space missiles and radio electronics were added during and after the war.įigure 3 The Soviet defence industries, 1917-1987: Number of production, research, and design establishments by branch When WWII broke out, the Soviet Union already rivalled Germany as one of the world’s two leading suppliers of weapons (Davies et al. In traditional branches, as Figure 3 suggests, this complex was largely laid down in the 1930s. One result was a vast military industry, organised for the mass production of armaments. In the domestic economy, Soviet policies profoundly changed the allocation of resources, repressing consumption to finance industrial and military projects. Their confrontational actions continually generated evidence that would serve to validate their beliefs. Having secured their neighbours as allies, they invaded them more than once under the banner of ‘defending the gains of the revolution’. This was a unilinear process that began in 1917 and continued in the background, regardless of policy fluctuations (Harrison 2017b).īeyond the borders, the Soviet rulers subverted neighbouring states, eventually imposing communist regimes on most of them. In the economy, they built the capacity of an authoritarian state to select and direct personnel, to protect its supply chains and to channel and filter information. They saw the world as intrinsically hostile, and their country as a fortress besieged by enemies and penetrated by spies. The dictators shared beliefs that formed their perceived self-interest and how best to promote it. Most obvious was centralised single-party dictatorship. ![]() ![]() Even today, after all, ‘varieties of communism’ persist – from China and Cuba to North Korea.ĭespite the variation, there were important continuities in Soviet policies after 1917. The U-turns give some credence to the idea that the Soviet economy could have developed along more than one alternative path. These years were marked by intense political and social conflict and several U-turns that varied the scope for market organisation and consumer choice. Soviet economic institutions were formed in the period from 1917 to around 1934 (Davies 1994). Together, these two models provided key principles of the ‘Soviet-type economy’ described in western textbooks. The American model, implemented by Henry Ford and celebrated by Frederick Winslow Taylor, was of standardised commodities, mass-produced under centralised, hierarchical management. ![]() In the war economy, there was mobilisation for mass warfare and mass sacrifice, with commodities rationed at fixed prices.
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