economic weaknesses of the USSR (START OF UNIT 5)

Question 1

long term problems
- centralisation

Answer 1

meant that it was inefficient
- fertilisers and pesticides often arrived at the wrong time - hampering crop growth
- factories received the wrong grade of products like steel and oil
- difficult to get hold of spare parts

Question 2

long term problems
- industry

Answer 2

failed to create incentives for hard work or innovation
gosplan set targets for quantity but not quality - most goods were poor quality or useless

Question 3

long term problems
- agriculture

Answer 3

required a much greater proportion of the population than the US buy American farms were still 6x more productive

Question 4

long term problems
- infrastructure

Answer 4

transport system was never fully modernised - transporting food across country was difficult
lack of modern storage facilities - a lot of food was wasted - grain often rotted

Question 5

long term problems
- military expenditure

Answer 5

1965-1985 the proportion of GDP spent o defence rose to 17%
spending on defence starved other areas of the economy like farming and infrastructure