Topic 14 - Soviet Russia Flashcards
(26 cards)
What is a Soviet-style command economy?
An economic system where the state owns the means of production and allocates resources administratively via central planning rather than market prices.
Define extensive growth in the Soviet context.
Growth that relies mainly on mobilising additional labour and capital inputs (e.g., new factories, longer hours) instead of raising total‑factor productivity.
What was the second economy in the late USSR?
A broad sphere of legal, semi‑legal and black‑market activity operating outside the state plan, providing goods, services and income often missing from official channels.
Explain the USSR’s implicit social contract.
The regime guaranteed employment, basic welfare and stable prices in exchange for political obedience and limited consumer choice.
What does perestroika mean (1985‑91)?
Literally “restructuring”; Gorbachev’s package of economic and political reforms aimed at revitalising the Soviet system through limited market mechanisms and openness.
What is glasnost?
Gorbachev’s policy of increased transparency and freedom of information that relaxed censorship and encouraged public debate.
Define soft budget constraint (Kornai, 1992).
A condition in which state firms expect to be bailed out if they overspend or miss targets, undermining cost discipline and efficiency.
What were campaign‑style mobilisations?
Short, intense drives (e.g., Five‑Year Plans, Sputnik programme) that diverted resources to flagship goals, achieving quick gains at the cost of distortions elsewhere.
Why did Soviet growth “flat‑line” after the mid‑1960s?
Diminishing returns to further input mobilisation, stagnant productivity, and rising coordination costs under central planning.
How did chronic queuing affect Soviet consumers?
Scarcity forced households to spend time waiting or using connections (blat), effectively raising the shadow price of goods and eroding welfare.
Robert C. Allen’s thesis (2001; 2013) on Soviet growth:
Argues the USSR achieved substantial catch‑up through centrally planned industrialisation, but later policy mistakes and delayed reforms caused decline.
Mark Harrison’s “fundamentals” view (1993; 2017):
Claims intrinsic features of the command system—political repression, secrecy, distorted incentives—made sustained productivity growth impossible.
János Kornai’s core argument in The Socialist System (1992):
Identifies systemic coordination failures like the soft budget constraint and shortage economy as inevitable in socialist planning.
Zhuravskaya, Guriev & Markevich (2022/24) contribution:
Using new archival data, they reassess Soviet growth sources, showing earlier estimates overstated productivity and understated hidden costs.
Sergei Guriev (2019) on why China succeeded where the USSR failed:
Argues the USSR lacked a disciplined ruling party able to sequence market reforms while maintaining authoritarian control (‘dual‑track’).
Vladimir Popov’s institutional path thesis (2015):
Emphasises that institutional quality—legal frameworks, governance—determined divergent post‑socialist outcomes more than initial conditions.
Gregory Grossman’s second economy research (1987):
Estimates 28‑33 % of Soviet household income came from off‑plan activity, revealing the scale of unofficial markets.
Valery Simis’s insider account USSR: The Corrupt Society (1982):
Documents endemic bribery and corruption, showing how plan indicators were falsified to mask inefficiency.
Critique: How does Harrison challenge Allen’s view?
Harrison contends that no sequencing of reforms could offset the command system’s fundamental inefficiencies, whereas Allen stresses policy timing.
Conflict between Kornai’s and Popov’s explanations:
Kornai sees failure as inherent to socialist coordination; Popov points to varying institutional quality that could, in principle, mitigate such failures.
Debate over perestroika: gradual vs shock therapy?
Some argue Gorbachev’s half‑measures destabilised the plan without creating true markets, while others believe faster liberalisation might have prevented collapse.
Critique of soft budget constraint theory:
Allen and state‑capacity scholars note some planned‑economy firms did face hard budget limits, suggesting the problem was uneven rather than universal.
Allen vs archival revisionists (Zhuravskaya et al.):
New data imply Soviet productivity was lower than Allen’s estimates, weakening his case for early success.
Central‑planning capacity critique:
Studies show only ~30 000 product lines could be coherently planned, far below the millions actually produced, leading to chronic shortages.
