So much destruction post 1940s coupled with slave labor (local political prisoners and German prisoners of war) leads to roads and steel plants being built quickly. The population though lived on near nothing till the 60s.
Plus a lot of technology, scientists and engineers taken from Germany. For example the AK-series of rifles were in 'production hell' until the Russians put the captured Germans responsible for producing the STG-44 onto the task.
Much of the productive capital assets in Germany were simply lifted up and taken into the Soviet Union.
Yeah, also I wonder how you compare something purely state run like Russia with something more along market lines in the short term .... they operate so differently. State run can often create a pretty big economic short term bump if they wish... not sure that means much.
Comparisons, however made, turned out to be false because of lack of information. Soviet Union may have had tremendous output of steel, on paper, but nobody had a microwave till the 1990s. The word economy was something else there than what it meant in the West. In the West it relates, though quite imperfectly, to financial wellbeing of the citizenry. In the USSR it meant how many tanks could be built. No one, even in the 1980s owned a car in practical terms. Some had a car but only used it sparingly, like going to countryside on weekends if they could find and afford the gas.
Plus all the numbers coming from inside USSR were inflated or imagined. Steel output was verified by CIA probably through satellite imagery, which turned out to be wildly false because industrial plant efficiency was nowhere near the West's.
A not well-researched viewpoint. In USSR since late 20s, a significant portion of workforce was compensated on a "per unit of goods produced" basis, not "per hour worked", which was the standard in contemporary capitalist countries.
Slave labor in the post-renaissance era cannot compete with other types of labor.
If it could then the South would have fared much better in the US Civil War and everyone and their grandmother would have industrialized economies in Africa by now. Or at the very least Ethiopia should have, which was never a colony of anyone for any meaningful period of time.
Not to mention, the North Korean Famine of 1994-1998, in which 3% of population died, would not have been a thing.
Incorrect. Farmers were closer to slave labour and paid in "work-days", which could be accounted for handouts by administration. Farmers had no freedom of movement outside their farm territories. Life in Soviet villages was largely subsistence based. Slavery for farmers was abolished in 1974 when they were issued domestic passports (the primary ID in USSR) just like townspeople.
As for countless prisoners, they were working for survival with no compensation.
A strawman. Farmers alone could never account for the record Soviet rates of economic growth. And neither could they if combined with convicts/POWs.
In late 20s this was the deal:
- Poor peasantry cannot provide wheat due to very poor productivity. They use primitive and crude tools, because by definition they cannot afford anything better and can barely even feed themselves, let alone produce any meaningful surplus that can be exchanged for goods or money.
- Rich peasantry is not incentivized to, since the state has monopoly on pricing and is the only legal buyer.
- It's impossible to offer industrial goods to the peasants in exchange for wheat because all resources are directed toward industrialization to create means of production.
- There are foodstamps in the cities, food becomes more expensive, the workers are discontent.
- The state loses most of it's export revenue because the global price of wheat declines as the Great Depression begins.
- The West refuses to trade with USSR even in exchange for gold.
The entire point of collectivization was to raise workforce productivity in agriculture to free enough people to work in cities and to allow these farms to be able to buy industrial goods.
Forced collectivization mostly stopped in 1932-1933, you could run a farm on your own if you wanted to, but you would have been taxed at a much higher rate than a collective farm.
The other key point is that state monopoly allows for concentration of capital that cannot otherwise be achieved in a dirt poor country. Would an efficient soviet land owner (or a foreign investor) have invested in a tractor factory in 1929?
The answer is: No, because the demand simply did not exist. And even if it would have appeared, it would have been much easier for a land owner to just buy Ford's tractors worth $300-350 each, not invest in a tractor factory.
And even though the West refused to trade, the US engineers played pivotal role in construction of key soviet factories and plants:
Most grand industrial projects in 1920s-1930s indeed were built by the West, or bought from the West wholesale. They were paid largely from proceeds of selling the confiscated grain, which led to famines taking lives of millions.
So tell me, are you keen to invest into a tractor plant if it takes the lives of your family? Improves productivity for those that survive alright?
The USSR also had many satellite nations, like the Eastern European block. Moscow was known to drain those countries' resources, with little local investment in return outside of military bases.
I only have personal anecdotes to back that up having grown up in one of those satellite countries.
Actually, all of those states had higher standards of living than core USSR and also access to this huge Soviet market. Didn't do much good since communism is so bad, but still.
After the collapse of the Bloc most of those countries lost their industrial capacity, some have not yet recovered, some only recovered on outsource.
That may be true, but it does not invalidate the idea that resources were drained from the satellite nations. How the USSR chose to spend those resources seems to have been to invest in the military and expansion of the empire while ordinary Russian citizens were left to "eat grass."
No, it does. Manufactured goods are not "resources". Those are made for selling, and in modern world markets for goods are considered more of a gift than goods themselves.
Are they not? Does USA drain resources from China?
With all due respect, the comparison between the relations of USA/China and Russia/Poland for example does pass the sniff test. The USA did not appoint the Chinese government, the USA does not have its military across China. USSR/satellite state relationships were nothing like a normal economic relationship. They were more like colonial era relations such as England/India prior to Indian independence.
Unfortunally we have diverged from economic arguments to purely political ones.
And politically, you've got what you've got, especially as a small country. Things could go massively worse. The USSR had complete freedom of action and it was pretty benign for several reasons. Maybe you have feeling that it sucked big time, but the reference point should be 1984 in real life.
From my last comment:
> USSR/satellite state relationships were nothing like a normal economic relationship.
How am I bringing up politics?
From your last reply:
>The USSR had complete freedom of action and it was pretty benign for several reasons. Maybe you have feeling that it sucked big time, but the reference point should be 1984 in real life.
I don't understand what you are saying here in any way. But, relating the USSR to "benign" is so far from the historic truth that I have no idea how to respond.
This conversation is likely no longer appropriate for HN, so have a nice day comrade?
"The last two remaining SovRoms, Sovrompetrol and Sovromcuarţ, were disbanded in 1956"
If we're talking about 1950s especially, I can see how this link is relevant. Unfortunately I can't validate any clauses that are there.
However, in a general context of Soviet-Romanian relationship, USSR imported a huge amount of Romanian furniture, footwear, clothes and other consumer goods. I assume these were paid for nicely. As far as I know Romania had uniquely severe economic problems during communist period even when compared with neighbouring countries, but I don't think you should blame USSR solely for that.
Back then, the USSR was largely a rural backwater. After WWII, there was rapid industrialization, mechanization of agriculture etc.
Of course, during the entire cold war the USSR "overspent" on the military compared to the Western economies. But, during the WWII the economy was understandably 100% focused on the war. So even if the kept "overspending" on the military after the war, there was still a lot of industrial capacity left over that could be used for rebuilding and industrialization.
I'd like to read more about what was happening then, was it largely military investment?