Continuation of the NEP

Assume Stalin doesn't get the throne, but someone who supports the NEP does. The NEP was IMO quite successful in restoring the Soviet Economy.

So, what happens to the Soviet Economy now? Will it collapse the way it did (Because of the 'horse' i.e., the Soviet system of economy) or will it collapse differently (Because of the 'jockey' i.e., the Soviet leader at the time)? Or will it not collapse?
 
I dubt the Soviet leadership would keep it in the long run but if they did, they would have had a split economy with a working consumer goods market and a non-working industry due to the problems of central planing. That could lead to 2 things, the removal of the planning of the industry and a removal of the NEP polecies.

The first would have been seen as a removal of the Party while the other would have as a way to keep the power so they chose door no 2.
 

Hnau

Banned
The best option possible for the said Soviet leader (Bukharin?) is to keep the NEP and gradually move to a planned economy, to retain power... similiar to what they did in the Scissors Crisis, they introduced some controls and price fixing and a little economic intervention here... well, that keeps on going until World War II, when the USSR probably uses the war as an excuse to establish a complete command economy. The economy would be much stronger, with possible effects on the Great Depression, while industrialization might be retarded. Hm. Its hard to judge, I guess it really depends on the leader.
 
I dubt the Soviet leadership would keep it in the long run but if they did, they would have had a split economy with a working consumer goods market and a non-working industry due to the problems of central planing. That could lead to 2 things, the removal of the planning of the industry and a removal of the NEP polecies.

The first would have been seen as a removal of the Party while the other would have as a way to keep the power so they chose door no 2.
So... do you want to explain how the Soviet state held together for seventy years?

I mean, if industry didn't work, it should have fallen apart instantly.

I'm no fan of Stalinism or Leninism, but I hate blanket statements like the above.
 
So... do you want to explain how the Soviet state held together for seventy years?

I mean, if industry didn't work, it should have fallen apart instantly.

The long life of the Soviet Economy (even though it was flawed) was due to 2 main things :

1) a 2nd Economy;
At the microeconomic level, managers,
chief engineers, and accountants had an unexpectedly wide range
of discretion outside of the planning system. Vast expanses of unplanned
actions existed in the planned economy. Enterprises supplied themselves,
concealed information from superiors, and formed opportunistic alliances
with their immediate superiors. Studies from the postwar period, in turn,
disclosed a massive '2nd Economy' existing alongside the official economy,
which provided businesses and consumers the goods and services
that central planners could not

2) Unorthodox ways of getting information;
The central officials had learnt how to use unconventional methods of getting information (i.e. tapping phone calls, etc) methods which would otherwise be rather ignored (?) in market economies. This information played a major role in decision making.
 

Hnau

Banned
Maybe. The Soviets would have more people to send at the Germans, thats a plus... and the more efficient economy has to account for something. Hm. I can't get around it, you're probably right, the Nazis would win without a Stalin-like industrialization program. Perhaps it could be done somehow without collectivization and related horrors, I would hope, but I have too little information right now on that (focusing much research on leaders of the SR Party).
 
Nikolai Bukharin is the best potential Soviet leader if you want the NEP or something like it to be continued. He favored continuing the NEP in OTL and encouraging the peasants to pursue profit, and only gradually "evolving" into socialism.

Here's a good thread on this from these boards
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=1681461

Great link :)
But one of the problems of the NEP was exactly that. The sort of peasant economy where if the suppliers refuse to sell their produce, the guys that need them can't do anything. Bukharin was a fine leader, but he lacked the ruthlessness that Stalin possessed.

I'm a bit unsure about this, but IMO Bukharin will descend into Mancur Olson's Referee-Dictator stereotype where he just gets pulled between the interests of industrial and regional elites, pulling the leadership in a myriad of directions until it lacks any coherence at all. This pattern seems to show up in old economic dictatorships, but IOTL Stalin also had to do this in the 1930s (though not for long).
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The NEP was never meant to be permanent. I can see it survive a little longer, but not into the 30s. NEP was against all things the Soviet leaders believed in, and was only implemented as a temporary solution.
 
So... do you want to explain how the Soviet state held together for seventy years?

I mean, if industry didn't work, it should have fallen apart instantly.

I'm no fan of Stalinism or Leninism, but I hate blanket statements like the above.

I said that a working consumer product economy and a non working industry which is different from OTL Soviet with a non working industry and a non working consumer goods sector. I'm aware that working and non working is some very binary words for what is a continium but compare Soviet cars with western cars. Or compare western and Soviet grocerie stores.

The point is that a working consumer goods market would have rewarded those working in it. And a non-working industry wouldn't, it wouldn't be much to reward with. So the industrial workers would leave to the consumer market.

That would put a huge strain on the Soviet society and I dubt they would handle that. And my bet is that they respond with force.
 
The NEP was never meant to be permanent. I can see it survive a little longer, but not into the 30s. NEP was against all things the Soviet leaders believed in, and was only implemented as a temporary solution.

A nice thought, but you have to remember that parties can, and did, change; look at Soviet ideology in the 1930s and 1950s, or better yet Germany's Socialists today.
 
The NEP was never meant to be permanent. I can see it survive a little longer, but not into the 30s. NEP was against all things the Soviet leaders believed in, and was only implemented as a temporary solution.

NEP was never meant to be permanent? Where did you get that?

It was somewhere in between State and Market economies, it provided the peasants a choice whether to sell their produce to the State or to Market. IMO the NEP failed when in 1927-1928 State prices for grain fell (now who allowed that?) and the Market prices soared. So the State had little grain and declared a 'Grain Procurement Crisis' and this gave Stalin an excuse to carry out 'Extraordinary Measures'.

So, a good POD would be that those prices didn't fall and the peasants continued to deliver their goods to the State. So how do we prevent State prices from falling?
 
More importantly, who will become the leader of the USSR that will preserve the NEP (other than N. Burkharin)? Mikoian?
 
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