Behind the Façade of Stalin’s Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives

215 Pages·2001·1.48 MB·English

by  Paul R. Gregory

Behind the FaÇade

of Stalin's
Command
Economy
Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives
Paul R. Gregory
EDITOR
HOOVER INSTITUTION PRESS
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
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This volume is part of the
Richard M. Scaife
Initiative on the End of Communism
at the
Hoover Institution
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Behind the FaÇade

of Stalin's
Command
Economy
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TheHooverInstitutiononWar,
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Behindthefac¸adeofStalin’scommandeconomy:
evidencefromtheSovietStateandPartyarchives/
PaulR.Gregory,editor.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-8179-2812-X(alk.paper)
1.SovietUnion—Economicpolicy. 2.Soviet
Union—History—1925–1953. 3.Stalin,Joseph,
1879–1953. I.Gregory,PaulR.
HC335.3.B442001
338.947—dc21 2001024459
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contents

Preface vii
List of Contributors xi
1
Joseph S. Berliner The Contribution of the
Soviet Archives 1
2
Paul R. Gregory The Dictator’s Orders 11
1
E. A. Rees 3 Leaders and Their Institutions 35
R. W. Davies 24 Making Economic Policy 61
Mark Harrison 35 Providing for Defense 81
Oleg Khlevnyuk 46 The Economy of the Gulag 111
Eugenia Belova 57 Economic Crime and Punishment 131
Aleksei Tikhonov and 68 Stalin’s Last Plan 159
Paul R. Gregory
7
Index 193
8
9
10
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PREFACE
The opening of the formerly secret So-
viet state and party archives in the early 1990s was an event of
profound significance. Western scholars, who previously used
Kremlinology to penetrate the official wall of secrecy, could now
use the same documents as had Soviet leaders in earlier periods.
TheSovietstateandpartyarchiveshavealreadypermittedhistori-
ans to rewrite the political history of the USSR. Few deep secrets
remain,especiallyconcerningthe1920sand1930s.Economists—
relativelatecomerstotheuseofthesearchives—cannowusethem
tostudythestillpoorlyunderstoodworkingsoftheStalinistcom-
mand economy. Although the Soviet command economy is sup-
posedly a thing of the past, it continues to plague Russia’s
transition to a market economy, and, more important, it contin-
ues to have considerable emotional appeal as a substitute for a
marketeconomy.Voicesarealreadybeingraisedclaimingthatthe
Sovietcommandeconomywassoundbutitwasrunbythewrong
people, who made wrong decisions. The archives give us a real
opportunity to examine such propositions.
This book summarizes economic research based on the Soviet
state and party archives. It brings together prominent scholars
fromRussia,theUnitedStates,andtheUnitedKingdom,manyof
whom have worked with these archives since they were opened.
Topics are discussed in this collection—the economics of the
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viii Preface
Gulag, the management of military innovation, the specifics of
defense budgets, Stalin’s handwritten marginal comments on
planningdocuments,internalPolitburodiscussions—thecoverage
of which could not have been imagined twenty years ago. Each
chapter focuses on what we have learned from the archives, on
what has surprised us and what has simply confirmed what we
already knew. These essays cover the period from the early 1930s
through Stalin’s death in 1953, namely, the period of creating the
Stalinist system. Since for the postwar era Soviet state and party
archives remain basically closed, archive-based research on the
‘‘mature’’ Soviet economy will have to be done by future re-
searchers.
This publication had its origins in discussions with John Rai-
sian, director of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and
Peace, and with Charles Palm, deputy director, in the summer of
1998 concerning the need to bring to the attention of general
readerstheresultsofongoingarchive-basedresearchontheSoviet
command system. As the result of a series of agreements with the
State Archival Service of Russia beginning in 1992, the Hoover
Institution has acquired almost ten thousand microfilm reels of
the files of the Soviet Communist Party and state. Because of the
deteriorating physical condition of these archives in Russia and
the uncertainty of future access, the presence of these archives in
Hoover ensures that scholars can mine this treasure of informa-
tion over many decades.
I am particularly grateful for the support of the Hoover Insti-
tution of this project, one product of which is the publication of
this book. The chapters by myself, Eugenia Belova, and Aleksei
Tikhonov are the products of research conducted in the Hoover
Archives and, together with the other chapters of the book, were
supported financially by the Hoover Institution through a gener-
ous gift of the Lakeside Foundation. I would particularly like to
thank John Raisian and Charles Palm for their appreciation of
and support of this work. We would also like to thank the dedi-
cated staff of the Hoover archives as a whole but would wish to
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Preface ix
singleoutCharlesPalm,ElenaDanielson,andLoraSoroka,with-
out whoseassistance this projectcould not have beencarried out.
A final word of thanks goes to Patricia Baker, executive editor of
the Hoover Press, who sure-handedly navigated this volume to
completion in spite of the difficulties of dealing with authors
widely dispersed across the globe.
Paul R. Gregory
References to archival material are given using original notations—fond (f.), opis
(op.),delo(d.),andlist(l.)—acceptedinRussianarchives.
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