AHC: 'Red Plenty' becomes reality

Now, I don't know how many of you have read Francis Spufford's book, 'Red Plenty', but I have been recently. And, whilst I didn't really understand all of it (due in large part to my reading of it over a period of several months, resulting in great gaps in my understanding), the basic background was that, throughout the 1950s and 60s, Khruschev, in his burst of reforming energy, wanted to make the Soviet economy wealthier than the US one, better at providing consumer goods for all, with Ladas better than Porsches. It would be the envy of the capitalist world, a true triumph of socialism. And, for a time, it seemed to be working. (Sadly, a number of factors, such as the discovery of oil, meant that this ultimately failed.)

How to make it actually work, then?
 

Dialga

Banned
Probably ASB. Communism as it was practiced in the Soviet Union was flawed from the start.
 
Now, I don't know how many of you have read Francis Spufford's book, 'Red Plenty', but I have been recently. And, whilst I didn't really understand all of it (due in large part to my reading of it over a period of several months, resulting in great gaps in my understanding), the basic background was that, throughout the 1950s and 60s, Khruschev, in his burst of reforming energy, wanted to make the Soviet economy wealthier than the US one, better at providing consumer goods for all, with Ladas better than Porsches. It would be the envy of the capitalist world, a true triumph of socialism. And, for a time, it seemed to be working. (Sadly, a number of factors, such as the discovery of oil, meant that this ultimately failed.)

How to make it actually work, then?

Unfortunately you can't make it work unless you embrace capitalism (or at least management theories from capitalist economies). A planned economy gives no opportunity for incentives which means that excellence is not rewarded. So why would you make a porsche when a lada does the same job?

The basic education was there (Soviet universities turned out graduates at least as good as US ones, if not better) but the environment they had to work in did not promote competition (even with the West -Soviet products were better than Western ones because they were Soviet. Not becuase they did the job better than Western models).

You'd need to turn Russia into OTL China but the problem Russia would have is that the state organisations were idealogically based as compared to PRC where idealogy supported the continuation of the state). Russia would need to suffer the Maoist repression to allow the state to exploit the workers as PRC does.
 
I don't think they were interested.

The military industrial complex was just too an integral part of the Soviet economy and even foriegn policy to decrease in favor of tiny appliances that free minded working folk don't need anyway. Also, did you ever hear the joke about the Soviet cabinet TV manufacturer that ended up finishing their run with cabinets missing TVs to fufill a quota because it didn't make a difference to put in the extra effort into doing so?:p


But seriously, even if the Soviet Union lacked commodities did you ever hear of Belarus Tractor International. The company sold enough to stay profitable post Soviet breakup in Belarus no less. The state economy always emphasized on heavy industry. I believe Warsaw members such as East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia produced more commidies for export.
 
You'd need to turn Russia into OTL China but the problem Russia would have is that the state organisations were idealogically based as compared to PRC where idealogy supported the continuation of the state). Russia would need to suffer the Maoist repression to allow the state to exploit the workers as PRC does.

Really? after 30 years of Mao's insanity you think the Chinese were more flexible?

Actually PRC repression isn’t necessary most of the hard work of modernizing Russia was done by the time Stalin died. Economic reforms were possible and likely to be more successful in the 1950’s as the Soviet economy had plenty of growth potential and the regime was stable, in higher esteem with a population more or less content to support the current system.
You need Khrushchev to go down a very different reform path or an alternate leader like Beria (funnily enough he was pretty reformist when it came to economic matter, but then of course unlinke Krushchev etc his commitment to Marxism was dubious from the start)
 
Now, I don't know how many of you have read Francis Spufford's book, 'Red Plenty', but I have been recently. And, whilst I didn't really understand all of it (due in large part to my reading of it over a period of several months, resulting in great gaps in my understanding), the basic background was that, throughout the 1950s and 60s, Khruschev, in his burst of reforming energy, wanted to make the Soviet economy wealthier than the US one, better at providing consumer goods for all, with Ladas better than Porsches. It would be the envy of the capitalist world, a true triumph of socialism. And, for a time, it seemed to be working. (Sadly, a number of factors, such as the discovery of oil, meant that this ultimately failed.)

How to make it actually work, then?

Such great econoic growth has to be understood in the context. When a country is experiencing it you need to look at conditions existing prior to it. SU (and Europe in general) was recovering from WW2 so large growth was understandable since they were recovering from low position.

This is simialr to Ireland's Keltic Tiger phenomenon. Once they joined EU and got access to all sorts of aid they started catching up with rest of EU. It was a short time frame of big growth because they started from worse position.
 
Oh goodness, where can we start,

throughout the 1950s and 60s, Khruschev, in his burst of reforming energy, wanted to make the Soviet economy wealthier than the US one, better at providing consumer goods for all […] a true triumph of socialism. And, for a time, it seemed to be working. […]
How to make it actually work, then?

You can't make it work, but for reasons different to those outlined below.

If we assume that the true triumph of socialism is actually achieving workers control; then, it can't. If we assume that the true triumph of socialism is an interclass bargain with increasing working class standards of living based on latent working class industrial power, then the US and USSR were both triumphant to 1970.

However, Khrushchev wasn't the pure consumer goods line member of the PC CC CPSU that some make him out to be. Mikoyan, for one, would be a better bet. Then again, as proven in 1956, Mikoyan stood on the side of a working class in control of its own destiny. Which rules him out. Because the one fundamental relationship between the Party and the working class was that the working class could not have political or economic power. See Simon Pirani's work on the pre NEP bargaining. Of course, the failure of the Soviet Elite to supply their half of Pirani's social democratic bargain is a massive problem. One which was attempted to be solved by better management practices.

Probably ASB. Communism as it was practiced in the Soviet Union was flawed from the start.

Not quite. The Soviet Union achieved massive amounts of heavy industrial and consumer growth to the 1960s, and then stalled. Why? I'm going to point to management practices in a little bit.

Unfortunately you can't make it work unless you embrace capitalism (or at least management theories from capitalist economies).

Input output theory? Norm planning? These were developed and perfected in the 1930s and 1940s. For their failure see /Worker in a Worker's state/ on the downfall of the norm. In the West, a stronger working class meant that upping the norm was not a sufficient basis for growth. Additionally, the plurality of development strategies within firms meant that methods were found to undercut the benefits gained by workers through Fordist norm bargaining. Additionally, in the post-1970 period, the West found it much much simpler to liquidate the welfare state. Liquidating the welfare state in the East would have meant shutting down factory provision of social services to the employed, which would have meant a much larger version of Hungary 1956 or Czechoslovakia 1968. For an example, look at Poland under austerity measures in the 1970s and 1980s where direct military rule was required.

A planned economy gives no opportunity for incentives which means that excellence is not rewarded. So why would you make a porsche when a lada does the same job?

You're not talking about worker incentives here, which were commonplace in the Soviet Union; you're talking about management incentives. When you're working a line you make a porsche or a lada because you're damn well told to. This is true East and West. As for why Soviet management was unable to jump the qualitative barrier in the 1960s, the most significant element I'd point to is the large military overhead which the Soviet Union chose and had to maintain. (The necessity was largely to do with the power of the Great Patriotic War in the division of military spoils. Khrushchev's suggestion that the armed forces be reconfigured towards strategic defence through a threat of nuclear annihilation was not well received). Without this political-economic overhead, the East could have placed its most technically developed production lines towards producing consumer goods.

the environment they had to work in did not promote competition

You're misidentifying the nature of competition in the West. Within the firm, prior to the 1980s, competition was little known. Both Western and Eastern Fordist firms are internally command economies.

You'd need to turn Russia into OTL China but the problem Russia would have is that the state organisations were idealogically based as compared to PRC where idealogy supported the continuation of the state).

Except in the 1980s the nomenklatura abandoned ideology all together, sold the factories to itself, and dismantled the welfare state now that they no longer relied on worker consent to maintain power. The issue is how the Soviet Union can abandon its own ideology, dismantle its welfare state, and revitalise management control of production on a political economic level while maintaining an outward veneer of "socialism". The other option: Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968, of a socialism run by the workers themselves in the workers interests with the Party having to compete for workers support was destroyed by force.

Russia would need to suffer the Maoist repression to allow the state to exploit the workers as PRC does.

China's industrial proletariat in 1980s was minuscule, and China gutted its old factories throughout the 1980s—see the centrality of worker involvement in 1989, China's "1956". China's new factories are built out of a new proletariat without a continuity of struggle with the old proletariat. The Soviet proletariat was far too large for the Soviet Union to gut its factories in the manner that China did. Consider the resistance of the British working class to neoliberalism in the early 1980s. Now imagine the Soviet Union suffering a simultaneous multi sector general strike when the nomenklatura tries to reform heavy industry, energy, transport and production industries simultaneous. There's a reason why the nomenklatura used a capitalist revolution as cover for dismantling 72 years of a welfare state promise.

yours,
Sam R.
 
I would say that this is impossible under a communist system, in great part because central planning and government control removes the incentive to produce more and well make profits.

Most posters here only mentionned the indudtry but don't forget the agriculture either. For all the great lands the SU had (Chernozern and such) it barely fed the nation while it could have fed many times over with the proper techniques and right kind of management. If agricultural cooperatives had been adopted as opposed to the OTL Kolkhozes then the results would have been vastly different and the Holodomor among other things would have never happened.
 
The primary factor of Soviet economic growth from 1928-1970-ish was urbanization. Soviet economic policies allowed much more rapid urbanization than other historical countries: in fifty years they had urbanized as much as the United States had in a century. By process of rapid urbanization, they were able to industrialize more swiftly than a traditional model would have allowed. The country's constant labor shortage (by overdevelopment of industries) is probably the most crucial elements of its social and economic development. They were the single swiftest growing country over the 1928-1970 period in the world - besides Japan, naturally.

The problem was that around 1970, the underlying factor - excess labor in the countryside - began to finally vanish. Unfortunately, the entire Soviet system had begun to stagnate by that point under Brezhnev. Kill off Brezhnev and let his historical #2, Yuri Andropov, come to power. Andropov charted an economic course different from Brezhnev's, was popular during his brief reign, and was economically aligned with another historical reformer, Kosygin. Andropov was an experienced KGB chief, a capable politician, and a serious reformer in his own time.

Have Andropov move forward with growth plans that are serious and willing to make cuts - including to the public where necessary - will almost certainly allow the USSR to avoid the pitfalls that historically set it on a negative economic course to be swiftly followed with a really negative economic course.

Has anyone ever made an early-Brezhnev death TL?
 
The problem was that around 1970, the underlying factor - excess labor in the countryside - began to finally vanish. Unfortunately, the entire Soviet system had begun to stagnate by that point under Brezhnev. Kill off Brezhnev and let his historical #2, Yuri Andropov, come to power. Andropov charted an economic course different from Brezhnev's, was popular during his brief reign, and was economically aligned with another historical reformer, Kosygin. Andropov was an experienced KGB chief, a capable politician, and a serious reformer in his own time.

A key engine in economic growth and in all economic miracles has been increases in productivity. If Soviet growth petered out for lack of workforce, it inevitably means that they labour productivity was low compared to the west. Something highly likely considering how antiquated industries like steel were and still are in countries like Ukraine.
 
A key engine in economic growth and in all economic miracles has been increases in productivity. If Soviet growth petered out for lack of workforce, it inevitably means that they labour productivity was low compared to the west. Something highly likely considering how antiquated industries like steel were and still are in countries like Ukraine.
This is also true. Brezhnev left old factories standing and tried to improve them rather than building new factories, due to various social issues and the fact that Brezhnev was an idiot.
 
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