Stalin's unbuilt economy. When liberals say that the Stalinist economy was built and within its framework the USSR bought grain from the West, they are lying. Grain began to be purchased only under Khrushchev, who destroyed what Stalin had built. Therefore, Stalin’s economy is “Terra incognita”. First, the difficult pre-war five-year plans, the relatively short peace before the war. Then terrible destruction and deprivation. Recovery. Annual price reductions. Gold ruble, refusal to trade for the dollar. And then Stalin was poisoned and his economy was destroyed.

The material of retired captain 1st rank, member of the Military Scientific Society of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, Sevastopol resident Vladimir Leonidovich Khramov, will help us understand what it was like - the Stalinist economy.

"Apologetics of Economic Stalinism

Dedicated to the Stalinist economic system.

There are more than enough modern teachings about how to do the right thing in those long-gone times. At the same time, it seems to go without saying that some stupid and narrow-minded people took part in making those long-standing decisions. It is also not customary to take into account the fact that those long-standing Soviet managers, led by I.V. Stalin, during the first five-year plans created and implemented a unique “Stalinist economic system”, the effectiveness of which was confirmed by the Great Victory over Nazi Germany and subsequent scientific and industrial achievements of the Soviet people.

The highest competence of Soviet managers is confirmed by the powerful scientific and production potential created under their leadership. The quality and reliability of his main brainchild—Soviet strategic weapons—to this day are the only and reliable guarantee of our state sovereignty. Therefore, for an “introduction to the topic”, a better understanding of the structure of the Soviet Union and the logic of Soviet managerial behavior, it is necessary to realize the presence of a number of features that fundamentally distinguish Russia (USSR) from other states.

ORIGINAL PROBLEMS OF RUSSIA

The entire history of our Motherland is a continuous overlay of negative factors on top of each other, wherever you look there is not a single bright spot. And the fact that the greatest of states was created on 1/6 of the earth’s land, half of which was in the permafrost zone, and the rest in areas of eternal raids from outside, is a fact quite unnatural...

For these reasons, there have always been two main problems in Russia:

1. Increased energy consumption of life (domestic and industrial human activity) - energy costs for the production of any product or service in our territories are 1.5 - 2 times higher than the corresponding indicators in Western countries only due to the cold climate. At the same time, increased transport and other infrastructure costs caused by our vast distances further increase this ratio.
2. Chronic lack of human resources necessary for the maintenance and development of social, economic, defense and other infrastructures under the influence of the mentioned negative factors.

It is quite obvious that the conditions for any type of material production in Russia are always initially worse than in the West, and this factor manifested itself with particular force during the development of capitalist relations. The essence of capitalism is the extraction of profit from the labor of hired workers in the interests of capitalists, owners of the means of production. The driving force of capitalist production is competition, in which those capitalists who can produce the same product at the lowest cost win. A loss, as a rule, is followed by degradation and loss of production. Thus, in an open capitalist market, the increased cost of our production, for objective reasons, makes our products uncompetitive and leads to degradation and collapse of the domestic economy.

SOVIET STATE CAPITALISM

Before the First World War, the tsarist government was the first in the world in terms of external debt. Among developed countries, besides Russia, only Japan had external public debt, the size of which was 2.6 times less than Russia’s. The total public debt of Russia on the eve of the October Revolution was 41.6 billion rubles, including external debt - 14.86 billion rubles. It is not for nothing that one of the first decrees of the Soviet government was the “Decree on the Cancellation of State Loans” of January 21 (February 3), 1918, according to which all internal and external loans concluded by previous governments before December 1, 1917 were cancelled. The socialist model of capitalism operated on the basis of a social form of ownership of the means of production. A prerequisite for the functioning of this economic model was the closure of the domestic market from external competition - by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 22, 1918, foreign trade was nationalized (a state monopoly was established).

Our production also developed due to profit from the labor of workers hired by the state, and capitalist competition took the form of socialist competition. The difference was that the profit, which we called “profitability,” was used in the interests of the entire society, and losing in social competition no longer meant the destruction of production, but only caused a reduction in bonus payments. In conditions of high energy costs and a shortage of labor resources, planned state capitalism, as a system of production relations, first of all, solved the problem of optimizing all types of activities to ensure the vital needs of the population and the country's sovereignty.

State planning bodies distributed available material and labor resources, first of all, to accomplish priority tasks. The priorities were:

— military-industrial complex (weapons and military equipment);

— fuel and energy complex (coal-oil-gas production, electric power industry);

— transport complex (railway, air and water transport);

— social complex (health care, education, housing, vital food and industrial goods).

STALIN'S ECONOMIC SYSTEM

(DOUBLE-CIRCUIT MONEY CIRCULATION MODEL)

In 1930-32 of the last century, as a result of the Credit Reform in the USSR, the “Stalinist economic system” was finally formed, the basis of which was a unique two-circuit model of monetary circulation:

— in one of its circuits the circulation of non-cash money (rubles) was carried out;

- in another circuit - cash (rubles).

If we omit individual accounting and banking subtleties, then the essence of the two-circuit system is as follows:

Mandatory, basic conditions for the existence and functioning of the double-circuit model of monetary circulation are:

— absolute inadmissibility of turning (converting) non-cash money into cash;

- the most severe state monopoly on foreign trade.

In non-cash rubles, production activity indicators were planned, resources were distributed, and mutual settlements between enterprises and organizations were carried out. The “total amount of payments” to individuals (salaries, pensions, scholarships, etc.) was planned in cash rubles. The “total amount of payments” was the monetary equivalent of all creative work performed in the state, one part of which was paid directly to its performers, and the other part was withdrawn through the tax service and paid to “state employees” (officials, military, pensioners, students, etc. ). The “total amount of payments” always corresponded to the “total total price” of consumer goods and services available in the country , intended for sale to the public.

« The total total price,” in turn, was formed from its two main components:

1. The total price of “social”, vital goods and services (health care, education, housing, vital food and industrial goods, fuel, electricity, transport and housing services).
2. The total price for “prestigious” goods and services that are not vital (passenger cars, complex household appliances, crystal, carpets, jewelry).

The “highlight” of the two-circuit model was that the state set “optimal” retail prices for consumer goods and services, which did not depend on the cost of their production and reflected the principle of social and economic feasibility:

1. Prices for “social” goods and services were set much lower than their cost or made them completely free;
2. Prices for “prestigious” goods and services, accordingly, were set much higher than their cost in such a way as to compensate for losses from lower prices for “social” goods and services as part of the “total total price”.

To justify and maintain high retail prices for “prestigious” goods, they were produced in volumes that supported their constant shortage and excessive demand. For example, the cost of a VAZ 2101 passenger car was 1,950 rubles, and its retail price was 5,500 rubles. Thus, by purchasing this car, the employee contributed 3,550 rubles to the state treasury free of charge, but this money did not disappear anywhere during Soviet times, but was redistributed to pay workers producing cheap or free social goods and services, including:

Cheap transport and housing and communal services;

Cheap gasoline, electricity and vital food and industrial goods;

Free healthcare, education and housing.

Thus:

The main task of the functioning of the non-cash money circulation circuit was to organize the optimal, planned development of all sectors of the national economy, providing for the vital needs of the population and ensuring the sovereignty of the country.

The main objectives of the functioning of the cash circulation circuit were:

1. Fair distribution of vital goods and services among the population of the USSR.
2. Material incentives for the fulfillment of established targets, high quality and discipline of work.

In organizations and enterprises there were queues for the purchase of prestigious goods and housing. The leaders of production were among the first to receive these benefits, while the laggards and undisciplined people were among the last.

1. Maintaining an optimal balance of supply and demand in the domestic market for goods and services at a level that excludes inflationary processes.

The system was very fair - no one was forced to buy “prestigious” goods, everyone, on the contrary, did it with enthusiasm and pleasure, and the overpayment made upon their purchase was returned to everyone as part of a package of social goods and services.

Note: It should be noted that the category of such goods also included tobacco and vodka(!), the demand for which, at any inflated prices, never fell, even with their absolute abundance. These goods were the object of a state monopoly - wages to the military and other government officials were paid from the profits from their sales. Taking into account the volume of its turnover and cost, these products were extremely profitable. Especially vodka. According to some data, the cost of 1 liter of vodka was about 27 kopecks, while its retail price, on average, was about 8 rubles per liter.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE OF WORLD HISTORY

Two significant events in the final phase of World War II marked the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in world history:

- On September 8, 1944, regular shelling of London with German V-2 guided ballistic missiles began;

Thus, on our planet, capable industrial designs of fundamentally new guided means of delivering warheads over long distances, as well as fundamentally new warheads of enormous destructive power, were created and used (still separately from each other). The combination of these two qualities in one type of weapon - a guided ballistic launch vehicle with a nuclear charge could provide its owner with unprecedented military-strategic capabilities, as well as guarantee security from any external threat. This weapon had great prospects for development, both in achieving unlimited reach of targets and in increasing the power of the delivered charge. It was this factor that aggravated the post-war international situation to the limit, as it served as the impetus for the start of the nuclear missile arms race.

The arms race is an objective, self-sustaining process, developing according to the logic of “confrontation between armor and projectile”, when a potential enemy is forced to respond to the creation of a more advanced weapon of destruction by creating a corresponding effective means of defense (and vice versa) and so on ad infinitum. Given that the parties have “absolute” nuclear missile weapons, such behavior of the race participants is quite understandable. Everyone fears that as soon as the ratio of their combat capabilities reaches a level where one side can be guaranteed to destroy the other side with impunity or with acceptable damage to itself, it, at its own discretion, can do this at any time convenient for itself.

THE LOGIC OF THE ARMS RACE

It was the “Stalinist economic system” that provided the conditions for preparing the Soviet economy for the inevitable war. The Soviet Union won the Great Patriotic War, but as a result of the strategic arms race that unfolded immediately after its completion, they found themselves in a difficult economic situation. Half the country lay in ruins and there was a chronic shortage of labor resources (in the war the country lost 27 million of its most capable population), and the entire Western world stood against us.

Not falling behind in the race was a matter of life, so the whole country was forced to adapt to its needs. And the “Stalinist economic system” again confirmed its highest efficiency. It is precisely thanks to its unique properties that the country was able to handle the greatest scientific and technical projects and the enormous economic costs necessary to create new types of weapons. Entire industrial sectors and scientific areas had to be created literally from scratch - so in the first half of the 50s, two specialized ministries were created, “tailored” to nuclear missile issues:

- 06.26.1953 - Ministry of Medium Engineering (MSM) - a specialized industry that was engaged in the development and production of nuclear warheads;

- 04/02/1955 - Ministry of General Engineering (MOM) - a specialized industry that was engaged in the development and production of rocket and space technology. The nuclear missile race also caused a sharp increase in the country's demand for aluminum and the capacity of existing aluminum plants became clearly insufficient. Aluminum is the main metal from whose alloys rockets, airplanes and spacecraft are made, as well as some types of lightweight armor coating, which is in demand in conditions of the use of nuclear weapons. Thus, in connection with the beginning of the mass use of aluminum alloys, the organization of its mass production began to be a priority state task. The specificity of aluminum production is that it is very energy-intensive - to produce 1000 kg of rough aluminum it is necessary to spend about 17 thousand kWh of electricity, therefore, first of all, it was necessary to create powerful sources of electricity.

The country tensed up, “tightened its belt” and in the center of Siberia the following were built:

Powerful hydroelectric power plants (HPP):

- Bratsk hydroelectric power station (4500 MW) - in 1954-67;

- Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station (6000 MW) - in 1956-71;

Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station (6400 MW) - in 1963-85.

Large aluminum smelters:

- Bratsk Aluminum Plant - in 1956 - 66;

- Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant - in 1959 - 64;

- Sayan Aluminum Plant - in 1975 - 85.

Due to the urgency of the ongoing tasks to create strategic nuclear missile weapons, the issue of ensuring their implementation with the necessary material and labor resources has become especially acute. There were no free people and they could only be removed from other, less important at that time, directions - that is why shipbuilding programs were curtailed and massive reductions in the Armed Forces were carried out and other similar events. Some of the industries and scientific areas, for objective reasons, pulled ahead, some lagged behind, but the inexorable laws of the arms race dictated their conditions.

There was no time and it was impossible to wait for the moment of proportional development of all industries and directions, sufficient to create an ideal weapon. At least some kind of deterrent weapon was needed now and immediately - and it was created from what was available, relying on already achieved (not always perfect) scientific, design and technological capabilities. Thus, the arms race is, first of all, a race of the real economic, organizational, scientific and technological capabilities of the racing states...

COLLEGIALITY AS THE BASIS FOR MAKING ANY DECISIONS ON MILITARY-TECHNICAL ISSUES

The need to create strategic weapons entailed a multiple complication of the designs and technologies used, and therefore, the main distinguishing feature of this new stage was the proportional increase in co-executors of defense work at all levels:

At the top level, dozens of organizations and enterprises - co-executors representing various ministries and departments - are involved in the creation and production of specific types of strategic weapons.

At the lower level - in the creation and production of even an insignificant design element of a specific sample B and VT, as a rule, a significant number of various narrow specialists from various departments (designers, technologists, chemists, etc.) are involved.

Thus, the creation and production of strategic naval weapons is a very complex joint work of numerous teams representing various industries and departments (rocket scientists, nuclear scientists, shipbuilders, metallurgists, various military specialists, etc.). This feature of the creation of new weapons has caused an objective need to develop mechanisms for making joint decisions that take into account a mutually acceptable balance of the capabilities of numerous co-executors of this work and the interests of the Customer (USSR Defense Ministry). Since joint collective work was impossible without such a mechanism, one was worked out, created and ideally spelled out in numerous regulatory documents.

In general terms, a joint decision is any organizational and technical document that defines the methods and procedure for solving any technical, organizational or financial problem, sealed with the consenting signatures of interested parties. The established mechanism for making joint decisions on military-technical issues was mandatory for any level of competence - starting from solving an intra-shop problem of an enterprise that manufactures military equipment (at the level of a military representative) and ending with decisions at the national level, by which the strategic desires of military leaders were brought into line with real-life capabilities branches of Soviet industry.

From the first post-war years, under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, units were created and operated in various forms to coordinate the work of the defense industry. Finally, on December 6, 1957, the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues was created under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It was the main collegial body of the country, which coordinated the activities of the military-industrial complex until the end of the Soviet period. The main and most effective form of making collegial decisions on military-technical issues was the SGK - Council of Chief Designers, introduced into permanent practice back in 1947 by S.P. Korolev.

This body was created under the General Designer and under his chairmanship. The SGK consisted of the Chief Designers of the complex's composite products and carried out interdepartmental coordination and technical coordination of the work of all enterprises and co-executing organizations. The decisions of the State Control Commission became binding on all bodies. Issues regarding the types of military equipment being accepted for service were finally settled during the work of interdepartmental commissions (IMC). Any decision at the government level has always been based on dozens of joint decisions at lower levels, which were made by qualified specialists on the components of the general problem. And each of these numerous decisions had its own truth and logic. As a rule, this was the only possible and optimal solution for that period of time, based on numerous objective factors and taking into account the interests and capabilities of all parties involved, some of which simply cannot be seen or understood “at a glance” from our present time...

When trying to evaluate the activities of predecessors using text documents, one must keep in mind that the adoption of those distant organizational and military-technical decisions was influenced by many “self-evident” considerations and factors characteristic of that time, which were equally understood and meant by all “signatories” , but, due to their obviousness, they were not even mentioned in the documents. It is always necessary to remember that not every thought taken from the context of a historical period can be understood at another time without additional explanation.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE

As already mentioned, the double-circuit financial system was created in the 30s of the last century by smart people, led by I.V. Stalin, and this was the only possible option for the further development of the Soviet economy, providing for the vital needs of the population and the sovereignty of the country. These people proved their professionalism and high business qualities even during the years of the Revolution and the Civil War, and during the difficult years of the first five-year plans and the Great Patriotic War, they provided the necessary technical and organizational conditions for Victory over Nazi Germany.

The life resource of these people, unfortunately, was not limitless - I.V. Stalin passed away in 1953, A.N. Kosygin in 1980, L.I. Brezhnev in 1982, D.F. Ustinov in 1984 , in 1984 - Yu.V. Andropov, in 1985 - K.U. Chernenko. These were also those Soviet leaders who understood how the unique mechanism of the Soviet economy worked and what absolutely could not be touched in it.

In 1985, a person who was formed as a personality in post-Stalin times, during the “undercover” struggle and party-apparatus intrigues, took over the highest party and state post of the Soviet Union - this was the beginning of the end of the Soviet economy and state.

It all started with a thoughtless fight against alcoholism...

According to the memoirs of the former chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N. Baibakov: “According to the 1985 plan, adopted before the anti-alcohol regulations, it was planned to receive 60 billion rubles from the sale of alcoholic beverages. arrived". This was precisely the cash that was used to pay salaries to the military and other government officials. After the implementation of anti-alcohol regulations, the state treasury received 38 billion rubles in 1986 and 35 billion rubles in 1987. Then the collapse of economic ties with the CMEA countries began, from where the retail trade network received consumer goods worth about 27 billion rubles in 1985. In 1987, they were received in the amount of 9.8 billion rubles. For these items alone (vodka and imports), an excess of cash rubles amounting to more than 40 billion rubles was formed on the domestic market, not covered by goods...

In 1987, the basic foundations of the Soviet economy were finally destroyed:

- The “Law on State Enterprise (Association)” of 1987 opened the contours of non-cash money - their conversion into cash was allowed;

- the state monopoly of foreign trade was actually abolished - from January 1, 1987, such a right was given to 20 ministries and 70 large enterprises.

Then things started to happen - there was a shortage of goods, prices went up and inflation began. In 1989, mass strikes of miners began... Quite predictably, August 1991 came, when the actions of the overgrown and unshaven people of the capital destroyed the last foundations of the Soviet state, created in the interests of all working people...

Note: The notorious “oil needle,” which “democrats” love to talk about, did not have any decisive influence on the destruction of the domestic consumer market, since petrodollars were used to purchase only consumer goods from capitalist countries, the share of which in the total volume of consumer imports was small - about 17% (the decrease in their volume in the total volume of the consumer market in 1985–87 amounted to approximately from 6 to 2 billion rubles). In settlements with the CMEA countries, where the bulk of consumer imports came from, the internal collective currency of the CMEA, the “transferable ruble,” was used.

MAIN CONCLUSIONS:

1. The October Revolution of 1917 occurred due to the impossibility of further economic development of Russia in the conditions of an open capitalist market. Its final result was the creation, the only possible for our further existence, of the “Stalinist economic system”, based on a double-circuit model of monetary circulation, with the obligatory condition of closing the domestic market from external competition. This economic model confirmed its effectiveness in the pre-war five-year plans, during the Great Patriotic War and during the era of the nuclear missile arms race.
2. From the heights of modern historical experience, we can safely say that it is the presence of nuclear missile weapons in a state that is the most important component of the system for ensuring its real sovereignty. And now there is no longer any doubt that the military-political leadership of the USSR in those distant years, at least, was not mistaken in concentrating all available resources on the creation and development of this particular type of weapon. It is this type of weapons, inherited from the USSR, that is currently the only guarantor of Russia’s state sovereignty.
3. There were no objective reasons or prerequisites for the destruction of the Soviet state system. The cause of the death of the USSR is the forcible bringing of the Soviet economic system into a non-working state.
4. In an open capitalist market, Russia has no economic future. The further sovereign existence of our Motherland can only be ensured by its return to the basic principles of the Stalinist economic system (by the way, the technology for returning to the Stalinist economic model can be previously “tested” in Novorossiya).

Retired captain 1st rank Vladimir Leonidovich Khramov,

The 74 years of existence of the USSR (from 1917 to 1991) can be divided into several periods, which differ significantly from each other in a number of economic and political characteristics:

1. The period of “war communism” (1918-1921).
2. The period of the new economic policy, or NEP (1921-1928).
3. The period of industrialization and building the foundations of socialism (1928-1941).
4. The Great Patriotic War and post-war economic recovery (1941-1948).
5. A period of peaceful development based on the Stalinist economic model (1948-1956).
6. The first period of dismantling the Stalinist economic model (Khrushchev period: 1956-1964).
7. The second period of dismantling the Stalinist economic model (the period of preparation and implementation of the Kosygin reform: 1964-1969).
8. The period of the era of developed socialism (1969-1985).
9. The period of perestroika and active destruction of the remnants of the Stalinist economic model (1985-1991).

So, the first and second periods can be called the early economy of the USSR. The third through fifth periods refer to the Stalinist economy. And the sixth to ninth periods cover the late economy of the USSR. The latest model can also be called the post-Stalin economy. And in a broader historical aspect, it should be defined as a transitional economy - from a socialist model to a capitalist model. Some harsh critics in the West, who took the position of strict, “pure” socialism, called the post-Stalin period in the history of the USSR a period of creeping restoration of capitalism.

The Stalin period was the period of creating the foundations of the Stalinist economy, testing its strength during the war years and post-war reconstruction, peaceful construction. In total, the period of the Stalinist economy accounts for no more than 30 years. We can start counting the Stalinist economy not from 1928, but from a slightly earlier time - the mid-1920s, when in the party and state Stalin managed to achieve an advantage in the fight against the Trotskyists and the new opposition and began preparations for the collapse of the NEP and the implementation of industrialization.

The end of the period of the Stalinist economy did not literally occur at the time of Stalin’s death in March 1953. By inertia, the Stalinist model continued to function with minimal changes until 1956, when N.S. Khrushchev held the 20th Congress of the CPSU with the aim of debunking Stalin’s cult of personality. In fact, this congress launched the dismantling and destruction of the Stalinist economy. This process of destruction continued for almost 36 years and ended in December 1991 with the collapse of the USSR.

After the death of I.V. Stalin left a legacy of a powerful economy, which, according to most indicators, ranked first in Europe and second in the world (after the USA). Six decades have passed since then. We have lost a significant part of the material and technical base during this time (especially over the last 20-25 years of destructive democratic “reforms”). But we also have another, perhaps even more valuable legacy - the experience of building the Stalinist economy. No one can steal this inheritance from us. And the opportunity to use it depends only on us.

In 1913, Russia's share of world industrial production was about 3.8%, by 1937 it reached 10%, and by the mid-1970s - 20%, and remained at this level until the start of "perestroika". The most dynamic were two periods of Soviet history: the 1930s and 1950s.

The first period is industrialization, which was carried out under the conditions of a “mobilization economy”: in terms of the total volume of gross domestic product and industrial production of the USSR in the mid-1930s. came out on top in Europe and on second place in the world, behind only the United States and significantly surpassing Germany, Great Britain, and France. In less than three five-year plans, 364 new cities were built in the country, 9 thousand large enterprises were built and put into operation - a colossal figure - two enterprises a day!

Of course, the mobilization economy required sacrifices and the maximum use of all resources. But, nevertheless, on the eve of the war the standard of living of the people was significantly higher than at the start of the first five-year plan.

The statement of I.V. is widely known. Stalin that the USSR lagged behind industrialized countries by 50-100 years, history has given 10 years to overcome this lag, otherwise we will be crushed. These words, spoken in February 1931, are surprising in their historical accuracy: the discrepancy was only four months.

The second period is economic development based on the model that was formed after the war with the active participation of I.V. Stalin. This model, by inertia, continued to function for a number of years even after his death (until N.S. Khrushchev’s various “experiments” began). For 1951-1960 The gross domestic product of the USSR increased 2.5 times, with the volume of industrial production more than 3 times, and agricultural production by 60%. If in 1950 the level of industrial production of the USSR was 25% relative to the USA, then in 1960 it was already 50%. Uncle Sam was very nervous because he was “outright” losing the economic competition to the Soviet Union. The standard of living of Soviet people grew continuously. Although a significantly higher share of GDP was allocated to accumulation (investment) than in the United States and other Western countries.

An analysis of the same work, “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” (1952), shows that Stalin sought answers to many questions in the notorious “law of value.” It’s just that, according to Stalin, this law allegedly acquired other forms of manifestation under socialism and had a limited scope of action. But all this created internal contradictions. By the way, the head of the team of authors who prepared a textbook on political economy on Stalin’s instructions, academician K. Ostrovityanov, wrote in 1958: “It is difficult to name another economic problem that would cause so many disagreements and different points of view as the problem of commodity production and the operation of the law of value at socialism." Unfortunately, these epistemological contradictions after Stalin’s death imperceptibly transformed into real contradictions in the practice of economic construction in the USSR and created cracks in the foundation of the building of the Stalinist economy.

I am not alone in a very restrained assessment of the work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” (which is presented by some indefatigable admirers of Stalin as “brilliant”). I will turn again to M. Antonov: “Although Stalin made attempts to illuminate some issues of socialist production in a somewhat new way, in general this work did not and could not contain any breakthrough in theory, because it was based on the traditional understanding of Marxism-Leninism, which had already did not meet the needs of the coming era. According to Molotov, Stalin was still working on the second part of his work, which, after the death of the leader, disappeared into an unknown place, but one could hardly expect any breakthrough from it - for the same reasons.”

As a practical economist, Stalin achieved much more. In fact, it was thanks to his political will and art that it was possible to create such an economy, most of which was outside commodity-money relations, outside the action of the notorious law of value. In fact, this means that he managed to wrest the country from the suffocating embrace of capitalism. And this is his merit.

To understand the essence of the Stalinist economy, I will try to highlight the main features of the Stalinist economy. Here are the most important ones:

1) public ownership of the means of production;
2) the decisive role of the state in the economy;
3) the use of cooperative forms of farming and small-scale production in addition to state forms of farming;
4) centralized management;
5) directive planning;
6) a single national economic complex;
7) mobilization character;
8) maximum self-sufficiency (especially in the period before the socialist camp appeared);
9) focus primarily on natural (physical) indicators (cost indicators play a supporting role);
10) abandonment of the profit indicator as the main cost indicator, focus on reducing production costs;
11) periodic reduction of retail prices;
12) limited nature of commodity-money relations;
13) single-level model of the banking system and a limited number of banks;
14) two-circuit system of internal monetary circulation (cash and non-cash circulation);
15) accelerated development of group of industries A (production of means of production) in relation to group of industries B (production of consumer goods);
16) special priority for the development of the defense industry as a guarantee of the country’s national security;
17) state monopoly of foreign trade and state currency monopoly;
18) rejection of competition, replacing it with socialist competition;
19) a combination of material and moral incentives for work;
20) the inadmissibility of unearned income and the concentration of excess material wealth in the hands of individual citizens;
21) ensuring the vital needs of all members of society and a steady increase in living standards, the social nature of appropriation, an organic combination of personal and public interests, etc.

Many of the listed characteristics are interconnected, as if flowing into each other. The significance of certain features changed over the three decades of the existence of the Stalinist economy. For example, the mobilization nature of the economy was especially pronounced during the years of industrialization and the Great Patriotic War. The principle (sign) of periodic reduction of retail prices did not work during the Great Patriotic War. Certain imbalances arose between the commodity and money supply, and there was a slight increase in prices for consumer goods, although very moderate by wartime standards. After the restoration of the Soviet economy from the late 1940s. mobilization signs weakened. The sign of maximum self-sufficiency of the Soviet economy has undergone changes since the late 1940s, when the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) arose and the USSR began to actively participate in the international socialist division of labor through the development of international specialization and cooperation of individual industries and enterprises. Some signs of the Stalinist economy were also visible beyond the chronological framework of its thirty-year existence. For example, the state monopoly of foreign trade, the state currency monopoly, the single-tier model of the banking system, and the double-circuit system of internal monetary circulation began to collapse only in the second half of the 1980s. Also, the most important feature of the Soviet economy remained the high priority for the development of the defense industry. It could not have been otherwise, since the West waged a continuous “cold war” against the USSR; since the mid-1980s this priority began to erode under the crafty slogan of carrying out the conversion of military production.

The essence of Stalin's economy

The essence of the Soviet model (1928-1960) can be reduced to the following most important features:

Public ownership of the means of production;
- the decisive role of the state in the economy;
- centralized management;
- directive planning;
- a single national economic complex;
- mobilization character;
- maximum self-sufficiency (especially in the period before the socialist camp appeared);
- focus primarily on natural (physical) indicators (cost indicators play a supporting role);
- limited nature of commodity-money relations;
- accelerated development of group of industries A (production of means of production) in relation to group of industries B (production of consumer goods);
- a combination of material and moral incentives for work;
- inadmissibility of unearned income and concentration of excess material wealth in the hands of individual citizens;
- ensuring the vital needs of all members of society and a steady increase in living standards, the social nature of appropriation, etc.

As for the accelerated development of group A of industries (production of means of production) in relation to group B of industries (production of consumer goods), this is not just a slogan of the “Great Breakthrough” period of the 1930s. This is an ongoing principle, given that we are not talking about an abstract “socialist economy”. We are talking about the specific economy of the USSR, which, according to Stalin, was (and in the foreseeable future will be) in a hostile capitalist environment - an environment that will seek to destroy the Soviet Union by both economic and military methods. Only a high level of development of group A of industries is able to ensure the effective struggle of the USSR against the hostile capitalist encirclement. Consistent consideration of this principle actually means that the Stalinist model is a model of a mobilization economy. It couldn't be any other way. Stalin absolutely correctly substantiated this by formulating the following geopolitical thesis: the main content of the modern era is the struggle between two socio-economic systems - socialist and capitalist.

Socialization of the total surplus product is an integral economic task of the proletarian revolution and socialism.

TO ASSESS the significance of the economic system created under the leadership of J.V. Stalin, we must first of all clearly answer the question: what is the integral economic task of both the proletarian revolution and socialism as the first phase of the communist socio-economic formation?

They will say: in the destruction of private property, in the socialization of the means of production.

This is correct, but it is rather a path to achieving a goal, a tool for achieving a goal, but not yet a goal in itself. The goal of socialist transformations in the economy is

it is not so much the socialization of the means of production as such, but SOCIALIZATION OF SURPLUS PRODUCT produced with their help.

Modern Marxist theorists would make their lives much easier if they firmly established this simple thing and always put it at the forefront: the integral economic task of the proletarian revolution and socialism is

SOCIALIZATION OF THE TOTAL SURPLUS PRODUCT produced by the socialized production apparatus.

After all, if you think about it, the means of production by themselves, as they say, are not needed by anyone. What is the purpose of owning land if it is not inhabited by forced peasants who would cultivate it, pay quitrents and work their backs in corvee labor? Why do we need owned factories and factories if they are not filled with hired workers who produce products that are in demand in the market and make a profit? The whole fuss, so to speak, with the ownership of the means of production is burning not because of them themselves, but because of the surplus product that is produced from them and comes at the disposal of their owner.

And therefore, the slogan of public ownership of the means of production, when read more carefully, means:

We want the total surplus product generated in social production to go specifically to society, the people, and not to private individuals, and to be fairly distributed among all of us, to serve entirely and exclusively the common good.

I want to emphasize in every possible way that it is in no way possible to get stuck on the slogan of social property as such, because if it is not equipped with a mechanism for socializing the total surplus product, then it is as if it does not exist; since the goal for which the means of production were socialized has not been achieved.

Over the course of a number of years, this idea in my speeches was presented somewhat differently, namely: any form of ownership has an integral structural, so to speak, partner, in the absence of which it is practically unviable - this

METHOD OF ACCUMULATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL SURPLUS PRODUCT, OR SOCIAL NET INCOME.

The principle of income generation and income distribution is one of the most important components of the economic basis of society; it is a powerful and extremely complex unit of objective social relations. In any society where labor, to one degree or another, is not yet of an end in itself, alienated in nature, there is value, and there the division of the product of labor into necessary and surplus is controlled by value, or commodity-money, or market relations. And to the extent that this entire structural connection of relations regarding the accumulation and distribution of net income can also be called this: it is a specific historical MODIFICATION OF THE LAW OF VALUE (or the relationship of value) corresponding to a given method of production.

A method of production reaches socio-economic maturity and turns into a SYSTEM, when the corresponding form of ownership begins to function confidently and uninterruptedly in tandem with an adequate set of relations for the consolidation and distribution of net income. Or, which is the same thing, paired with a principle of income generation that is adequate to it, or, which is again the same thing, paired with a modification of value that is adequate to the given method of production.

The principle of income generation is not something established by government decree. This is a fragment of objective, material economic reality, and it must crystallize in the thickness of this reality precisely objectively, just as the law of the average rate of profit once crystallized, which is precisely the mechanism of income generation adequate to the capitalist socio-economic formation. This requires time, considerable time at that, plus a whole historical layer of humankind’s economic experience.

And this is the most grandiose social engineering discovery that we made in the economy in the Stalin era, this was the discovery of an adequate socialist public ownership of the means of production of the principle of accumulation and distribution of the total surplus product. The socialist principle of income generation, which is organic to it, was added to socialist public property, or - which is the same thing - a modification of the law of value that is organic to socialism.

In other words, the defining task of the socialist phase was solved in its main features: to socialize not only the means of production, but also the total surplus product. Moreover, this was done in historically, one might say, lightning-fast time.

From this point of view, which, in fact, is the only one that corresponds to historical truth, a whole heap of pseudo-problems that prevent Marxist science and our country from developing at the pace required by the modern extreme situation immediately disappears.

Was socialism built in the USSR? Well, of course, he was, if he managed to solve his objective-historical formation task.

What form must a socialist system have in order to be recognized as fundamentally successful? If fundamentally, then it is the same as under Stalin, and this especially applies to the economic sphere. At the superstructure level, there were shortcomings - however, quite removable. But as for the economy, we must clearly understand that none of the proposed and proposed models, except the Stalinist one, solves the problem of socialization of the surplus product. And therefore, in economic terms, Stalinist socialism is, unambiguously, SOCIALISM AS SUCH; i.e., the only springboard from which the construction of a communist society can be successfully resumed and continued. It is there, to these sociostructural boundaries, that we will have to return upon the final liberation of the country from its current actual occupation by transnational capital.

Another pseudo-problem:

This is socialism and commodity-money relations.

And I should have stopped chewing this bast a long time ago. Value relations are a concrete historical phenomenon; for each method of production they take their own special form, or modification. Between their complete extinction under communism and the form in which they exist under the capitalist system lies their socialist modification. A distinctive feature of the socialist modification of value is precisely the provision of a smooth, gradual self-destruction of the entire range of phenomena associated with value and marketability. The socialist modification of value is as organic to a socialized economy as the law of the average rate of profit is to a bourgeois economy, or the law of extracting maximum profit is to the economy of modern imperialism. Not taking into account the requirements of the law of value in a socialist national economy is the same as “fighting” against the objectively inherent laws of profit accumulation in a private capitalist economy, and the results will be just as disastrous.

Socialism and commodity-money relations. The misleading nature of NEP apologetics.LET'S NOW SEE how, specifically, the socialist modification of value should look and actually looked like in our country.

In order to avoid the confusion that “economists” of a certain persuasion have artificially layered here for decades, it is necessary to at least briefly touch upon the issue of the division of labor and product into necessary and surplus. We will, apparently, have to postpone the question of labor “for later”, and let’s talk more closely about the product.

Excess or surplus product is an entirely social phenomenon. It arises only when and to the extent that the worker begins, spontaneously or consciously, to apply in his work the results of the labor experience of other people, including other generations. Having arisen, the surplus product provokes, so to speak, a certain part of society to try to take it away from the worker and appropriate it. This is carried out through the establishment of private property, first - in ancient times - on the worker himself, then on those conditions or factors of productive activity, without which the worker cannot create a surplus product - land, material and technical means of production, etc.

However, the whole injustice of exploitation does not lie in the fact that the surplus product is generally alienated from the direct producer. The surplus product cannot and should not belong to the direct producer at the place of production. It is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. The whole trouble and injustice is that, having been withdrawn, the surplus product in its overwhelming volume is used not as the property of the whole society, but as a kind of booty, a trophy of the class of private owners.From here you can once again see how important and fundamental the formulation of the goals and objectives of the socialist revolution is precisely as the task of socializing the total surplus product.

After all, you can socialize (i.e., nationalize) the means of production - and be at a complete deadlock as to how to form and distribute the surplus product in this nationalized economy. It was in this situation that the Russian Bolsheviks found themselves on the eve of the introduction of the NEP. Actually, the NEP was the answer to the question, what to do if a modification of commodity-money relations adequate to the new system has not yet been found and has not objectively taken shape? What to do - return to the previous modification, pre-revolutionary, no matter how risky it may be in socio-political terms, otherwise you won’t move at all. To return, but at the same time to devote all efforts to ensure that the new, social method of appropriating the means of production is, as quickly as possible, equipped with a new, also social principle of accumulation and distribution of net income. And this was accomplished under Stalin, I repeat, in historically record time, already somewhere in the mid-30s.

And here the completely misleading nature of another mythology of our current false communists is also clearly visible: it is as if the NEP represented exactly the model of the economic system that a socialist society requires. Under the NEP, the existing socialist property was forced to function in tandem with the old, privately owned, alien principle of income generation. The country's economy, therefore, did not have a holistic, systemic nature at all; it was an auxiliary, artificial structure that should have been dismantled at the first opportunity. And Stalin dismantled it, as soon as our socialist modification of the law of value began to pulsate under this temporary equipment. To call today for a return to the NEP - to this purely opportunistic, internally unbalanced structure fraught with all sorts of socio-political dangers - means either completely not understanding the essence of systemic connections in the economy, or deliberately harming our cause.

There is a version about some phenomenal, supposedly, economic efficiency of the NEP. By and large, this version does not correspond to reality.

In December 1925 The XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place, setting a course for socialist industrialization. This was absolutely not a NEP decision. Therefore, it makes sense to talk about the NEP as such until the turn of 1925/26.

By this time, the NEP had in general fulfilled its specific tasks - and these tasks were purely restorative. Industry reached the level of 75.5% of the pre-war level, agriculture - to the level of 95.3%. No serious technical re-equipment took place; production output increased mainly due to the expansion of production at old enterprises that continued to function, as well as due to the reactivation of those that were stopped for various reasons. Moreover, throughout the entire length of the NEP, such a disastrous phenomenon was observed as the retirement of fixed assets of industry, which, as a result of devastation, military operations on the territory of the country, etc., reached by 1920/21. 30% of the 1917 level By 1923/24 here they “added”, according to various sources, up to 12%. This process was reversed only in 1926/27, with the beginning of socialist industrialization.

During the course of the NEP, the Soviet village became “middled up”; the consumption of bread by the middle peasant and the poor increased. But behind this seemingly favorable, at first glance, trend was hidden a general parcellation of peasant land ownership and a corresponding decline in the marketability of agricultural production. In 1926/27 The middle and poor peasants provided about three-quarters of marketable grain (74%). But the marketability of grain in this group was only 11.2%, and taking into account the more productive kulak farms - 13.3%; i.e., half the pre-war level, which was estimated at 26%. Grain yields, right up to collectivization, continued to remain lower than pre-war (7.9 cents per hectare versus pre-war 8.5 cents).

It should be said that the assertion that during these years the private NEP man “clothed, shod and fed” the country, to a decisive extent, also belongs to the realm of mythology. The country was shod, clothed and fed by state industry and state-sponsored cooperation, which quickly developed on the basis of the “rehabilitation” of commodity-money relations. By 1926/27 state-owned enterprises provided 91% of all industrial products, their share in total trade turnover reached 40%. The maximum of private trade turnover occurred in 1922/23, when it accounted for 43.9% of total trade volume. Subsequently, it sharply decreased from year to year, in 1924/25. fell to 25% and continued to decline.

It is striking that for the NEP as a whole the general economic level of 1913 was in all respects it acts as a kind of standard. But was this level actually such a “reference” level and could it, at that historical stage, even in the slightest degree serve as a guideline for effective economic policy?

This is yet another myth of our “perestroika”ists, pseudo-reformers and their followers in the left movement - the myth of Tsarist Russia as an economically highly developed country.

Indeed, after the peasant reform of 1861, which represented our domestic version of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, in Russia, as it should have been, there was an industrial upsurge and high rates of economic growth were observed. The content of this process was a massive transition from manual labor to machine, factory labor. But it was the end of not the eighteenth, but the nineteenth century. And what was a powerful breakthrough into the future for the second half of the 18th century, for the era of the industrial revolution in England, a hundred years later it was simply and only making up for what had already been accomplished by the leading bourgeois states. Tsarist Russia failed to become one of the leading countries in global industrial development. All the growth rate records it set during the post-reform period fall mainly on such industries as oil production (which previously practically did not exist), coal and ore mining, iron and steel smelting, the spread of steam (i.e. mechanical) engines, etc. P. Whereas in the USA and Germany, for example, in the same decades, industry was already moving to the power base of steam and hydraulic turbines, electric motors, internal combustion engines, diesel engines, and this opened a broad path to the development of the automotive and aircraft manufacturing, electrical, aluminum, and chemical industries. In all these positions, Russia was practically uncompetitive with the leading capital countries.

In 1913, Russia's share in world industrial production accounted for only 2.5%, versus 38.2% for the USA, 12.1% for England and 13.3% for Germany (at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries). . In production of all types of industrial products per capita, Russia lagged behind the United States by 11 times, and in labor productivity by 10 times.

During the years of Soviet power, this gap decreased by more than 5 times. In 1986 Labor productivity in industry in our country was 55% of the American one. The USSR provided a fifth of all world industrial output, the socialist community as a whole - more than 40%.

I will also add that Russia’s dependence on the import of industrial equipment in 1913. was estimated at 63.8%, and this simply did not allow us to talk about its technical and economic independence. The technical and economic independence of the country was achieved only as a result of the implementation of the second Stalinist five-year plan (1932-1937), when the massive import of machinery and equipment ceased completely and only individual samples of new equipment were imported from abroad, so to speak, for educational purposes.

Sometimes you hear that the evil Bolsheviks interrupted the unprecedented rise and prosperity of Russia in the last decades of tsarism. But it was not the Bolsheviks who organized the devastation in the country; they truly had nothing to do with it. The point is not the machinations of the Bolsheviks, but the fact that somewhere around the beginning of the First World War, the possibilities of CAPITALIST industrialization of Russia were objectively exhausted.

Russian capital was rapidly concentrated and monopolized, and the emerging monopolistic associations, in their own selfish interests, slowed down the development of production in order to keep prices at a sufficiently high level. On the eve of the First World War, an industrial hunger for fuel and metal developed in the country. So much for the fantastic pace... You still need to judge by the final result, and not by what happened at the beginning and in the middle. During the war, the metal famine entailed, firstly, the curtailment of production in civilian industries, which already led to a commodity famine, a frantic rise in prices, speculation, etc. Secondly, the tsarist government was forced to place huge orders for weapons abroad and other army needs, right down to horse harnesses, and this meant the low quality of weapons and equipment, their shortage and the shameless plunder of the country by foreign suppliers.

During the war, transport practically collapsed. In some places they starved and froze, in others mountains of unexported coal, food, etc. accumulated. So there is no need to blame the sick head for the healthy one. The Russian tsarism and the armless Provisional Government that replaced it organized the Bolshevik revolution for themselves.

As a lyrical digression, I will cite an interesting observation shared by the director of one of the factories that was subject to evacuation in 1941.

If it weren’t for the general drama of the moment,” he writes in his memoirs (I retell it in my own words), “one could admire what was happening on our railways at that time. Day and night, continuously and endlessly, from west to east and from east to west, trains went and went, loaded with a wide variety of equipment, the countless material wealth of the people created during the years of Stalin's five-year plans. Trains with equipment from evacuated factories departed into the interior of the country. Military echelons rushed towards them, guards stood on platforms, guns, tanks, and parts of aircraft were visible from the outlines under the tarpaulin.

This is such a symbolic contrast.

And now, since, as I believe, you have had enough rest from the theoretical text throughout the above figures, let’s return to the conversation about the socialist modification of value.

Socialist modification of value: the process of its formation. Tax reform 1930 The first general reform of wholesale prices 1936-40.

SO, since the surplus product - also known as net income - is a public property, then in a socialized economy the state must firmly “lay its paw” on it already at its very formation. The very process of its formation, accumulation, must proceed in such a way that no one except the state has real access to the objectively “ripe”, “precipitated” surplus product.

It follows from this that net income under socialism cannot be generated in any significant amount directly in economic units. And since the end of the 20s, our state has waged a decisive struggle against the inflated selling prices of enterprises, since net income “nests” nowhere other than in price. But the surplus product itself, which objectively accumulates in price, should not have suffered. In fact, as a result of the pressure exerted on prices, it was translated into a non-monetary form of cost savings, or reduction in production costs. In this form, which is its SOCIAL RATIONAL form, it became inaccessible to a given economic unit, neither to its management, nor to the labor collective, and was transferred to the next links in the socio-technological chain.

Subsequently strictly carried out by the state POLICY OF PLANNED REDUCTION OF SALE PRICES, - which is practically equivalent to a systematic reduction in costs - became in the Soviet economy a systemic analogue of CAPITALIST COMPETITION. It also aimed the manufacturer at reducing costs, developing invention and innovation, stimulated receptivity to the achievements of scientific and technological progress, and blocked tendencies towards bureaucracy.

“In our economic system,” said the resolution of the February (1927) Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) “On reducing selling and retail prices”, - the policy of lowering prices is the means by which the working class influences the reduction of costs, ... pushes towards the rationalization of production and thereby creates truly healthy sources of socialist accumulation, so necessary for the advancement of the industrialization of the country.

The real fight against bureaucracy and the streamlining of the industrial economy are closely related to the problem of lowering prices, because it is high prices that serve as a source of excessive growth and bureaucratic perversions of production and especially trading apparatuses.”

Well, the state prevented the division of net income at the local level, and did it absolutely correctly, but how does it itself become the owner of the total surplus product? Indeed, in an economy where commodity-money relations continue to take place, objectively justified, “healthy” accumulation can only be extracted from the PRICE OF THE GOODS, only when the goods are sold on an equilibrium, balanced market.

The structure of the socialist market was generally revealed by I.V. Stalin in his famous "Economic problems of socialism in the USSR". This Stalinist work was published in 1952, but Stalin described in it the already established economic reality, and its formation, as was said, was in full swing from the second half of the 20s. So let us calmly use this description.

On the socialist market, land, material and technical means of production (as well as any of their substitutes, the so-called “securities”), as well as labor, are not goods and are not subject to purchase and sale. Only the means of reproduction of labor power, or consumer goods, continue to be goods. Therefore, only there - in the consumer market - can the state under socialism, as a spokesman for the interests of the entire society, legally extract a full-fledged, “healthy”, objectively mature social net income.

Actually, the state did just that, but in the conditions of the NEP multi-structure, when the planning principle was not sufficiently developed and the methods of socialist economic management as such were just being groped, - under these conditions the state could influence the processes of income generation and income distribution in the national economy mainly only empirically: i.e., for one reason or another, it established the appropriate payment for a specific purpose. But this was by no means a general, disorderly taxation; there was simply a search for the most adequate and effective ways to form the finances of a socialist society.

However, the number of such payments quite soon began to be measured in dozens, and in 1930. tax reform was carried out. The multiplicity of payments was eliminated, they were unified into a single turnover tax (by the way, it included 54 payments).

In subsequent years, all these innovations were subject to clarification and adjustment, and in the end, as stated in Soviet economic literature,

"since January 1, 1934 the bulk of society's net income in the form of turnover tax moves from the sphere of material production, i.e. from industrial enterprises to the sphere of circulation.”

In other words, there has been a massive and widespread suppression of income generation processes where they do not need to occur under socialism: in the prices of socially intermediate products - products for industrial and technical purposes, which in a socialist economy are not goods, are not sold or bought, but therefore, it objectively cannot accumulate net income in its price.

Net income in the form of cost savings was, as it were, squeezed out from everywhere, along various socio-technological chains, into the market of socially final products for us - consumer goods. Here it took the monetary form of a turnover tax and went entirely to the state budget. The value of the surplus product, which is also the net income of society, was accumulated in its determining part, thus, not at the local level, not at enterprises, but at the national level - on the all-Union, nationwide consumer market. But this transfer of income generation from the local level to the national level is the key link, which, if mastered, then we can rightfully say that the task of socializing the total surplus product has, in principle, been solved.

By the way, the results were not long in coming. From January 1, 1935 the rationed rationing of bread and bakery products, introduced in 1929, was abolished, “at the end of the NEP” (ardent admirers of the NEP usually tend to forget that this was precisely its ending). The abolition of bread cards was also facilitated by the fact that with the creation of domestic mechanical engineering in the USSR, there was no longer a need for massive imports of foreign equipment, and therefore for counter-exports of bread and other foodstuffs. From October 1, 1935 rationed supplies for other food products were abolished, and from January 1, 1936, for industrial consumer goods. During the transition from rationing to trading at fixed state prices, the general level of retail prices increased slightly, while the wages of all categories of workers increased. But by the end of 1935. food prices have dropped by almost half. For manufactured goods, prices have also been reduced repeatedly since 1935.

The tax reform, with all its beneficial consequences, had barely ended when the first general reform of wholesale prices in the history of socialist economics in the USSR began - in 1936.

In the previous presentation, the emphasis was placed on the fact that the center of gravity of income-generating processes in our economy has steadily shifted from enterprises to the consumer market. But this, of course, cannot be imagined in an overly simplified way. On the one hand, some share of net income - although not excessive - should still remain at the disposal of enterprises. On the other hand, it was necessary to exclude the opposite phenomenon - the unprofitability of enterprises, their being subsidized by the state.

There was especially a lot of nonsense around subsidies in our state industry: that - they say - during the period of the so-called command-administrative economy, no one cared about profitability, about profitability, the plan was carried out without taking into account the costs, the state, for political reasons, covered any losses, and etc., etc. Indeed, in the late 20s - the first half of the 30s, budget subsidies for enterprises, mainly in heavy industry, were quite widespread. In our economic literature, it was rightly noted that in the conditions of a radical breakdown of old national economic proportions and the creation of new proportions corresponding to socialist production, the regime of budget subsidies was an inevitable and completely justified form of financial assistance to heavy industry enterprises, as well as a unique method of limiting the impact of the law of value on progress of socialist industrialization.

But at a certain stage, subsidies became a brake on the development of production, and already in 1936. The wholesale price of the enterprise for all industries was set at a level exceeding the planned cost at a rate uniform for the entire national economy of 4% of the cost.

Based on the results of the wholesale price reform of 1936-1940. the entire Soviet industry, both heavy and light, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, worked, with rare exceptions, profitably, made a profit and did without government subsidies.

Socialist modification of value (two-scale price model) is a systemic analogue of the “price of production” under capitalism. Its specific type (“wholesale price of an enterprise” plus “wholesale price of industry”). Second general reform of wholesale prices in 1949,BUILDING a new society in the USSR in the 20s - 30s, when they talk about it, you usually hear:

industrialization, collectivization, cultural and personnel revolution, preparation for war.

But let's remember the Marxist definition of production, or basic relations, as the “structure of society.” If this basic structure does not exist, then everything else will not happen:

there will be no industrialization and collectivization, just as there is no finished building without a foundation and frame.

But in the 20s, this basic frame was only half present:

Socialist state property has historically been forced to work in tandem with an inadequate mechanism for the accumulation and distribution of the value of surplus product, temporarily taken from the previous formation.

Essentially, half of the main economic task of the proletarian revolution has not yet received the proper solution; Moreover, the classics of Marxism did not anticipate or foresee this most serious difficulty at all.

And this task, world-historical in its scale and complexity, had to be solved not just on the fly, but also at a faster pace than all the others, since without it, these others would run into a dead end. It is not for nothing that in the party resolution of 1927 cited above. emphasized:

“The problem of prices intersects all the main economic, and therefore political, problems of the Soviet state.”

And they crossed each other in such a way that they did not leave the right for even the slightest mistake, since the vital vital interests of huge masses of people were instantly affected, and jokes with these things are generally bad and can end badly.

And yet, the problem of completing the socialist base to its full systemic and formational integrity was resolved; and although it was decided, at first glance, purely empirically, nevertheless, the deep CONCEPTUAL meaning of what was happening was not only present, but it was tracked, grasped, revealed and embodied in various institutional arrangements with absolutely amazing speed, tenacity and accuracy. But still, due to its enormity, none of the participants in the events at that time, not excluding I.V. Stalin himself, clearly grasped the true scale of the problem being solved. Surely all of them would be extremely surprised if they were told that, among other things and even above all else, they were rapidly forging and bringing to the required conditions a socialist modification of the law of value: that is, the second half of the basis of the socialist economy , if the first is the principle of social ownership of the means of production.

Meanwhile, work in this direction since the mid-20s has been continuous, painstaking and extremely intense. Tax reform and general reform of wholesale prices are highly responsible measures; in their impact on the very type and character of the economy, they are comparable to the impact of a direct political revolution or counter-revolution. Just as a political revolution qualitatively changes property relations, so price reform complements new property relations with a qualitatively new principle of income generation. But it can also “harness” an adequate, already found mechanism of income generation from this harness, and thereby, in essence, structurally disorganize the entire mode of production; as did the third general reform of wholesale prices in the USSR - the Kosygin “reform” of 1965-67, which purposefully destroyed the socialist modification of value and actually played a powerful counter-revolutionary role.

However, if in our leftist press you can read enough about Kosygin’s counter-reform, which destroyed, as was said, the mechanism of socialization of the total surplus product, then about the two Stalinist reforms, thanks to which this mechanism was created, and especially about the very fact of its creation, In general, as far as I know, no one except me speaks. And even then they are rushing in pursuit that, they say, so-and-so Khabarova to this day stubbornly supports Stalinist delusions.

I will say this: whether someone likes Khabarov or not, but without the doctrine of socialist modification of value, without the theory of socialization of surplus product and without the history of its practical socialization in the Soviet Union during the reign of I.V. Stalin, there can be no Marxist political economy in the 21st century and it won’t, I can definitely guarantee that to anyone. Yes, without all this, the political economy of Marxism has long since ceased to exist; because only by being equipped with all the arsenal outlined above is it now able to give answers to the questions that most torment us, and actually gives such answers.

So, today the time has come to restore historical justice and add this, almost crowning achievement, to our recognized achievements of the 30s and 40s:

FINDING A FORM OF SOCIALIZATION OF SURPLUS PRODUCT created by the labor of workers of socialist social production.

Or, finding a “paired” principle of income generation to socialist public property; or, finding a modification of commodity-money relations that is specifically historically characteristic of socialism, which is also a modification of the law of value. Or, to sum up all of the above, BUILDING THE ECONOMY OF SOCIALISM AS A SYSTEM.

The socialist modification of value took shape as a result of the first general reform of wholesale prices in 1936-40. It was called the “TWO-SCALE PRICE SYSTEM”, and this is logical, since price, its structure, is a key category for any modification of cost relations. The capitalist modification of value is characterized by the so-called “price of production” - this is the cost plus the average profit generated in proportion to the invested capital.

The systemic analogue of the price of production in a socialist economy is a unique set of two prices:

prices of non-products, socially intermediate products that do not enter the market, and prices of goods, socially final products.

The price of a non-product was called:

THE WHOLESALE PRICE OF THE ENTERPRISE was the sum of the cost and NET INCOME OF THE ENTERPRISE, or PROFIT.

Let me clarify that all the terms given here are our official terminology of the corresponding era, and not some of my inventions. You can get acquainted with this specifics at least from the textbook “Political Economy”, published in 1955. The net income of the enterprise was uniform throughout the national economy and fluctuated within a few percent of the cost. The production unit used part of the enterprise’s net income for its own needs, including improving the cultural and living conditions of workers; part of it was withdrawn to the state budget in the form of deductions from profits.

It was already mentioned above that non-commodity, socially intermediate products were mainly products of group “A” of branches of social production, or products for industrial and technical purposes.

As for the social final product, it was the product of group “B” of the branches of social production, it was also a consumer product sold through the trading network.

The selling price for these products was called the WHOLESALE PRICE OF INDUSTRY. The wholesale price of industry is cost plus profit (i.e. the wholesale price of the enterprise), plus another income-generating component, TURNOVER TAX. Turnover tax, I repeat once again, was not at the disposal of enterprises; it was entirely directed to the state budget. Together with deductions from the profits of enterprises, it formed the CENTRALIZED NET INCOME OF THE STATE.

And finally, state retail prices for personal consumption goods. These, in addition to the wholesale price of industry, also included distribution costs and profits from wholesale and retail trade.

And so, that price structure, which in our socialized economy is systemically similar to the PRICE OF PRODUCTION in a private capitalist economy, is a link:

ENTERPRISE WHOLESALE PRICE PLUS INDUSTRY WHOLESALE PRICE.

Actually, this is a socialist modification of the law of value:

the price of products for industrial and technical purposes with a minimum income-generating component in it, in the form of enterprise profit,PLUS the price of a consumer product, loaded to capacity with an income-generating component in the form of turnover tax.

If the average profit in the price of production is added up BY CAPITAL, in proportion to its costs, then the main income-generating component of the socialist modification of value - the turnover tax is added up BY LABOR, in proportion to the costs of living labor in the national economy. After all, the turnover tax is extracted from the price of the means of reproduction of labor power, but it is quite obvious that just as much living labor in society is spent as funds went towards its reproduction.

And this time, the terms “turnover tax” and “enterprise profit” can actually be put in quotation marks, since by their economic nature these payments are not profit at all and not taxes at all, but these are specific, concrete historical forms, in which under socialism accumulates social net income. Prominent Soviet economist A.V. Bachurin wrote in his 1955 monograph:

“... the turnover tax has the nature of non-tax income and its name does not correspond to the content of this most important part of the centralized net income of the state...” “... the turnover tax in the USSR has nothing in common with taxes on the population, because it is one of the forms of net income of a socialist society... All this indicates the need to abandon the name “turnover tax”... “... it would be most correct to call this form of centralized net income of the state general state income.”

I’ll say a few more words about the second, post-war general reform of wholesale prices in 1949.

The fact is that during the Great Patriotic War, subsidies arose in a number of sectors of heavy industry, just as in the late 20s and early 30s. Well, what do you want from an enterprise that, for example, was forced to evacuate to a new location, sometimes literally in an open field, develop production from scratch, and then return to its previous address? So that it still gives you profit? Naturally, it had to be subsidized, or, otherwise, the selling prices for its products should be sharply increased.

The Soviet government took the path of strictly maintaining wholesale prices for heavy industry products at pre-war levels. Prices for raw materials and fuel also remained stable. Where planned losses arose, they were compensated for by subsidies. This made it possible to maintain stable retail prices in the rationed trade system throughout the war. The rationed supply of essential items operated throughout the country uninterruptedly and without failure. Lamentations about some very hungry life in the USSR during the war are mostly fiction of a later composition. In the occupied lands, where the Nazis managed to dominate and through which the front line passed twice, or even four times, after their liberation the situation there, of course, was sometimes depressing. But in the territories that did not fall under occupation and did not suffer directly from the fighting, no one died of hunger; this is simply idle fiction.

From the very beginning, subsidies to industry and transport were interpreted as a temporary measure and from January 1, 1949. were discontinued. Prices for all industrial products returned to the level of the industry average cost plus profit according to the standard of up to 5% of cost. There is no dispute, they have increased slightly, as have freight rates. This did not affect retail prices. In the light and food industries, all increases in prices were compensated by the state through turnover tax.

And then the traditional approach to reducing wholesale prices again came into its own. Wholesale prices decreased annually and already on July 1, 1950. became lower than at the start of the general reform, and in 1953. - lower than pre-war. This was achieved under the conditions of the complete abolition of government subsidies and while ensuring a sufficient level of profitability throughout the national economy.

The distribution of the socialized surplus product BY LABOR is a regular reduction in retail prices plus a systematic increase in funds for unpaid public consumption.

Agricultural price policy in the Stalinist model.

SO, the total surplus product is concentrated in the hands of the state in the form of centralized net income of the state (CNSDG) - i.e., turnover tax plus deductions from profits. It accumulated at the general economic, national level, and this is one of the most important OBJECTIVE processes in the socialist economy.

Now it needs to be distributed. And the second thing that we must firmly state on this problem, as they say, is that the distribution of net income, or the value of the surplus product under socialism, can be carried out, equally, only according to GENERAL ECONOMY, NATIONAL, NATIONAL CHANNELS. Such channels are the government's planned REGULAR REDUCTION OF BASIC RETAIL PRICES AND SYSTEMATIC EXPANSION OF FUNDS FOR FREE PUBLIC CONSUMPTION.

Just as it cannot, OBJECTIVELY cannot, net income in a normally functioning socialist national economy accumulate to any significant extent within a single production unit, so under socialism there cannot be any division of the bulk of the surplus product in monetary terms at a given enterprise, within a given labor collective. All this is simply Trotskyist demagoguery, which the sooner and more decisively we put an end to, the better it will be for the cause.

Reducing retail prices and increasing funds for free public consumption is our systemic analogue of APPROPRIATION OF PROFIT BY AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP CAPITALIST AS THE OWNER OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION. Just as under capitalism the surplus product is appropriated by the private owner of the means of production in the form of monetary profit, so we - co-owners of the socialized means of production - appropriate our total, socialized surplus product in the form of regular reductions in consumer prices and an ever-increasing volume of free or symbolically paid social goods and services.

What is happening in this case in our socialist society is DISTRIBUTION BY LABOR. There are no other ways to distribute the surplus product BY LABOR in nature - as I have probably already repeated hundreds of times on every occasion of any relevance.

What happens in this case in a privately owned society is DISTRIBUTION BY CAPITAL, or, as it is sometimes called, distribution by value.

For a long time, we have been associated with the problem of distribution, which is high time to get rid of, since it extremely interfered - and still interferes with - to understand this whole problem correctly. What is this confusion about? Our theorists cannot in any way understand for themselves and for others that what is “distributed according to labor” is in no way wages, but only surplus product, or net income.

The economic function of wages is the reimbursement of labor costs, and in this capacity wages are an integral part of the cost of production. Both capital and current costs of labor force reproduction are subject to reimbursement. Capital costs went mainly to the previous training of the employee, his training, etc., i.e. to ensure that he achieves that degree of professionalism, that qualification, skill, experience that he actually has. And also to ensure that this professional value is constantly maintained at the proper level. Reimbursement of capital costs for the reproduction of labor is the main economic content of the tariff rate or official salary, as well as various qualification categories, etc. This is, so to speak, a line in the staffing table.

And current costs, they largely indicate how the employee used this professional potential in the specific place where he is currently working: how he copes with the planned task, what place he took, for example, in socialist competition, how conscientious and diligent he is in his work, etc. This is a system of various incentive bonuses to the rate and salary, bonus payments, etc., which can be partially provided for in the wage fund, and partially carried out from the profit of the enterprise. But this, strictly speaking, again has nothing to do with distribution according to labor.

Under socialism, the bulk of the newly produced value is distributed among labor, which took the form of a centralized net income of the state. Let me remind you that in a properly functioning socialist economy, i.e. in the Stalinist economic model, the centralized net income of the state is, in fact, the monetary expression of the savings accumulated over a given period from increased economic efficiency. The state transfers part of these savings to workers in the form of another reduction in retail prices. Specifically, this is done through turnover tax. A significant share of savings goes through another channel - to expand the sphere of free public consumption. There are estimates according to which each family under Soviet power received 12-15 thousand dollars a year through this line.

When consumer prices fall, the state must maintain their equilibrium character, which was done impeccably under Stalin. The older generation remembers that Stalin's price cuts never entailed outbreaks of rush demand, the shelves not only did not become empty, but became even more abundant, and the people were even more calm about this abundance.

Maintaining the equilibrium nature of prices with their systematic massive reduction is possible only if the national economy actually saves costs along all socio-technological chains, increases labor productivity and increases the output of goods. Therefore, with a correct, Marxist-based pricing policy of a socialist state, the LEVEL OF BASIC RETAIL PRICES acts in a socialist society as a systemic analogue of the AVERAGE RATE OF PROFIT under capitalism. The tendency towards a steady decrease in the consumer price level in the Stalinist model is similar to the DOWNWARD TREND in the rate of profit in the bourgeois economy.

For a capitalist, proof that he has run his business competently and efficiently is when he receives a normal average profit. For the economic bodies of a socialist state, this confirmation is that they were able to complete the planning period with a massive reduction in consumer prices without losing balance in the commodity market. The level of equilibrium retail prices for us is the same CRITERIAL VALUE as the rate of profit in the so-called market (private-ownership) economy.

Sometimes you can hear that the reduction in retail prices in the Stalin era was achieved through a simultaneous reduction in production prices. I must say frankly - in addition to the fact that this is simply not true, this is generally complete nonsense. Any attempt to reduce prices in a similar way, without actually increasing the production of goods and making them actually cheaper, i.e. without a corresponding reduction in their cost, it would cause a wave of rush demand and instant emptying of shelves, plus a loss of income from the state budget. Is it worth clarifying that nothing similar was ever observed under the Stalinist economic model.

What else remains for us to discuss?

We still have to fix that the TOTAL ANNUAL VOLUME – or, if you like, the “lag” – of the REDUCTION OF BASIC CONSUMER PRICES is, for our conditions, a NATIONAL ECONOMIC CRITERION OF EFFICIENCY. It can be considered as a systemic analogue of INCREASE IN NATIONAL INCOME in capitalist countries.

Without a doubt, one should not get too carried away with these analogies; they are not literal; but we’ll still do another one.

LOCAL EFFICIENCY CRITERION- i.e., an indicator of management efficiency within a single production unit - should serve for us REDUCING PRODUCT COSTS of this production unit. But with one obligatory condition - that the consumer of this product, or the “neighbor on the right”, due to the reduction in the cost of these supplies, the cost also decreases, and does not increase. This requirement in our economy, even in its best times, was not always observed. But if it is elevated to a norm of economic legislation - which, by the way, is proposed in our draft of the new edition of the 1997 USSR Constitution - then it will put a strong barrier to attempts to reduce costs by deteriorating the quality of the product.

THE REDUCTION OF PRODUCT COSTS and the dynamics of this value under socialist management are approximately similar to the dynamics of the NET PROFIT of a private owner of the means of production under capitalism. I repeat again, however, that these analogies are systemic, not literal, and you shouldn’t get too carried away with them.

And another important issue that cannot be passed over in silence is the agricultural pricing policy of the socialist state.

In the Stalinist economic model, it was assumed that the maintenance of collective farms was carried out through machine and tractor stations - MTS. MTS were state-owned enterprises, where the current production process was subject to appropriate economic discipline, and large-scale expanded reproduction of the technical base was financed from the state budget. Of course, the collective farms paid for the work of the MTS, but any rental of equipment always costs much less than its full maintenance.

Thus, a very significant share of total costs was, as it were, withdrawn from the cost of agricultural products; they were actually borne by the state. From the economic side, there were no exaggerations here: everything was done very cunningly, in the good sense of the word, and gracefully. This economic trick made it possible to keep procurement prices for agricultural products consistently low. And this, in turn, was one of the decisive prerequisites that ensured periodic massive reductions in retail prices.

Destruction of the Stalinist economic model(socialist modification of value): third - “Kosygin” - general counter-reform of wholesale prices 1965-67.

The lack of eradication of anti-Stalinism in the “left” movement is the main reason for its current ineffectiveness.

AND IN CONCLUSION, a few words about the wholesale price reform of 1965-67.

Immediately after the death of I.V. Stalin, attacks on the two-scale economic model sharply intensified, “evidence” began pouring in that in the two-scale model the law of value was “violated”, prices for means of production were “skewed downward from value,” etc. By the mid-50s, economic saboteurs managed to get the country’s top party and state leadership to decide that henceforth prices for all products, without dividing them into goods and non-goods, should be built, in fact, according to the “price of production” scheme in capitalist economy. In the prices of any product, the income-generating component should now be formed in proportion to the costs of materialized, rather than living labor: that is, in proportion to the cost of production fixed assets and material working capital used for the manufacture of products.

And since the costs of materialized labor can be measured and taken into account only directly in the production cell, the entire process of income generation was thereby “pulled” from the national economic level back to the local one. That is, the very basic structure of the socialization of the total surplus product was purposefully destroyed. This sabotage strike was so catastrophically accurate that I personally do not believe that all this happened unintentionally, by mistake or thoughtlessness. Some of the bastards who worked on this—a big bastard, at that—understood perfectly well what they were doing.

The result was a kind of “NEP in reverse”; but if at the beginning of the 20s the return to capitalist price and income formation was justified by the fact that the corresponding socialist principle simply did not yet exist, now the fully established SOCIALIST income generation mechanism has been barbarously destroyed - it is unknown in the name of what. Socialist public property was again left without an adequate principle of accumulation of net income, but if in the 20s we had a historically logical, although not very pleasant, temporary stage of our development, now it was already one hundred percent informational and intellectual sabotage.

Having changed the principle of income generation, the “reformers,” naturally, did not even remember that the “price of production” scheme is effective only under conditions of capitalist competition, i.e. free flow of capital investments. But we didn’t have this. And at the same time, the focus on reducing wholesale prices, which, as we have already discussed, under socialism systematically replaces competition, has also been consigned to the archives. In other words, all reasonable levers for forcing the economic unit to perform conscientious and highly productive work have practically been turned off.

In this situation, the dependence of the supposedly extracted “income” simply on the sheer volume of material costs made in production quickly became apparent. Products that were material-intensive, conservative, and even regressive in terms of the technical and technological solutions incorporated into them often became profitable for the manufacturer. Essentially, this system encouraged and encouraged mismanagement by the product manufacturer. This is the source of the REAL, and not at all far-fetched, crisis that gripped the Soviet economy in the pre-perestroika decades.

And that’s why there can only be one answer to the question of where we should return, to what point in our previous evolution: we will have to return to Stalin. Of course, not quotationally, of course, not nostalgically, of course, taking into account all the accumulated vast experience, both positive and negative; but in basic, structural terms, we have not risen higher than under him in the entire history of our people and our state. For half a century we have been crawling from those heights into the current pit, and to this day, unfortunately, there is nothing to compare with. We can only hope that we won’t have to climb back for half a century. But this depends on how soon the movement matures into a final and irrevocable break with any kind of anti-Stalinism - both obvious and disguised.

Our problem is not that there are supposedly no valuable, productive ideas and concepts; the problem is that the movement as a whole is completely insensitive to these ideas and concepts. I presented all this material in fully developed form five years ago at the Youth Seminar at the State Duma. How many more five-year plans will it take for the theory of a socialist economy to be adopted, against which a normal person has nothing to object, and when expounding on it, a normal Soviet person should rejoice and be filled with a sense of pride for his country, and not be angry and grumble?

This is anti-Stalinism in action. And if this action of his continues without restraint, judge for yourself what prospects can await us.

Stalin's unbuilt economy. When liberals say that the Stalinist economy was built and within its framework the USSR bought grain from the West, they are lying. Grain began to be purchased only under Khrushchev, who destroyed what Stalin had built. Therefore, Stalin’s economy is “Terra incognita”. First, the difficult pre-war five-year plans, the relatively short peace before the war. Then terrible destruction and deprivation. Recovery. Annual price reductions. Gold ruble, refusal to trade for the dollar. And then Stalin was poisoned and his economy was destroyed.

The material of retired captain 1st rank, member of the Military Scientific Society of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, Sevastopol resident Vladimir Leonidovich Khramov, will help us understand what it was like - the Stalinist economy.

"Apologetics of Economic Stalinism

Dedicated to the Stalinist economic system.

There are more than enough modern teachings about how to do the right thing in those long-gone times. At the same time, it seems to go without saying that some stupid and narrow-minded people took part in making those long-standing decisions. It is also not customary to take into account the fact that those long-standing Soviet managers, led by I.V. Stalin, during the first five-year plans created and implemented a unique “Stalinist economic system”, the effectiveness of which was confirmed by the Great Victory over Nazi Germany and subsequent scientific and industrial achievements of the Soviet people.

The highest competence of Soviet managers is confirmed by the powerful scientific and production potential created under their leadership. The quality and reliability of his main brainchild - Soviet strategic weapons, are to this day the only and reliable guarantee of our state sovereignty. Therefore, for an “introduction to the topic”, a better understanding of the structure of the Soviet Union and the logic of Soviet managerial behavior, it is necessary to realize the presence of a number of features that fundamentally distinguish Russia (USSR) from other states.

ORIGINAL PROBLEMS OF RUSSIA

Our entire Motherland is a continuous overlay of negative factors on top of each other, wherever you look there is not a single bright spot. And the fact that the greatest of states was created on 1/6 of the earth’s land, half of which was in the permafrost zone, and the rest in areas of eternal raids from outside, is a fact quite unnatural...

For these reasons, there have always been two main problems in Russia:

Increased energy consumption of life activity (domestic and industrial human activity) - energy costs for the production of any product or service in our territories are 1.5 - 2 times higher than the corresponding indicators in Western countries only due to the cold climate. At the same time, increased transport and other infrastructure costs caused by our vast distances further increase this ratio.
Chronic lack of human resources necessary for the maintenance and development of social, economic, defense and other infrastructures under the influence of the mentioned negative factors.

It is quite obvious that the conditions for any type of material production in Russia are always initially worse than in the West, and this factor manifested itself with particular force during the development of capitalist relations. The essence of capitalism is the extraction of profit from the labor of hired workers in the interests of capitalists, owners of the means of production. The driving force of capitalist production is competition, in which those capitalists who can produce the same product at the lowest cost win. A loss, as a rule, is followed by degradation and loss of production. Thus, in an open capitalist market, the increased cost of our production, for objective reasons, makes our products uncompetitive and leads to degradation and collapse of the domestic economy.

SOVIET STATE CAPITALISM

Before the First World War, the tsarist government was the first in the world in terms of external debt. Among developed countries, besides Russia, only Japan had external public debt, the size of which was 2.6 times less than Russia’s. The total public debt of Russia on the eve of the October Revolution was 41.6 billion rubles, including external debt - 14.86 billion rubles. It is not without reason that one of the first decrees of the Soviet government was the “Decree on the Cancellation of State Loans” of January 21 (February 3), 1918, according to which all internal and external LOANS concluded by previous governments before December 1, 1917 were cancelled. The socialist model of capitalism operated on the basis of a social form of ownership of the means of production. A prerequisite for the functioning of this economic model was the closure of the domestic market from external competition - by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 22, 1918, foreign trade was nationalized (a state monopoly was established).

Our production also developed due to profit from the labor of workers hired by the state, and capitalist competition took the form of socialist competition. The difference was that the profit, which we called “profitability,” was used in the interests of the entire society, and losing in social competition no longer meant the destruction of production, but only caused a reduction in bonus payments. In conditions of high energy costs and a shortage of labor resources, planned state capitalism, as a system of production relations, first of all, solved the problem of optimizing all types of activities to ensure the vital needs of the population and the country's sovereignty.

State planning bodies distributed available material and labor resources, first of all, to accomplish priority tasks. The priorities were:

Military-industrial complex (weapons and military equipment);

Fuel and energy complex (coal-oil-gas production, electric power industry);

Transport complex (railway, air and water transport);

Social complex (health care, education, housing, vital food and industrial goods).

STALIN'S ECONOMIC SYSTEM

(DOUBLE-CIRCUIT MONEY CIRCULATION MODEL)

In 1930-32 of the last century, as a result of the Credit Reform in the USSR, the “Stalinist economic system” was finally formed, the basis of which was a unique two-circuit model of monetary circulation:

In one of its circuits the circulation of non-cash money (rubles) was carried out;

In the other circuit - cash (rubles).

If we omit individual accounting and banking subtleties, then the essence of the two-circuit system is as follows:

Mandatory, basic conditions for the existence and functioning of the double-circuit model of monetary circulation are:

Absolute inadmissibility of turning (converting) non-cash money into cash;

The most severe state monopoly on foreign trade.

In non-cash rubles, production activity indicators were planned, resources were distributed, and mutual settlements between enterprises and organizations were carried out. The “total amount of payments” to individuals (salaries, pensions, scholarships, etc.) was planned in cash rubles. The “total amount of payments” was the monetary equivalent of all creative work performed in the state, one part of which was paid directly to its performers, and the other part was withdrawn through the tax service and paid to “state employees” (officials, military, pensioners, students, etc. ). The “total amount of payments” always corresponded to the “total total price” of consumer goods and services available in the country intended for sale to the population.

The “total total price,” in turn, was formed from its two main components:

The total price of “social”, vital goods and services (health care, education, housing, vital food and industrial goods, fuel, electricity, transport and housing services).

The total price for “prestigious” goods and services that are not vital (passenger cars, complex household appliances, crystal, carpets, jewelry).

The “highlight” of the two-circuit model was that the state set “optimal” retail prices for consumer goods and services, which did not depend on the cost of their production and reflected the principle of social and economic feasibility:

Prices for “social” goods and services were set much lower than their cost or made them completely free;
-Prices for “prestigious” goods and services, accordingly, were set much higher than their cost in such a way as to compensate for losses from lower prices for “social” goods and services as part of the “total total price”.

To justify and maintain high retail prices for “prestigious” goods, they were produced in volumes that supported their constant shortage and excessive demand. For example, the cost of a VAZ 2101 passenger car was 1,950 rubles, and its retail price was 5,500 rubles. Thus, by purchasing this car, the employee contributed 3,550 rubles to the state treasury free of charge, but this money did not disappear anywhere during Soviet times, but was redistributed to pay workers producing cheap or free social goods and services, including:

Cheap transport and housing and communal services;

Cheap gasoline, electricity and vital food and industrial goods;

Free healthcare, education and housing.

Thus:

The main task of the functioning of the non-cash money circulation circuit was to organize the optimal, planned development of all sectors of the national economy, providing for the vital needs of the population and ensuring the sovereignty of the country.

The main objectives of the functioning of the cash circulation circuit were:

Fair distribution of vital goods and services among the population of the USSR.
-Material incentives for the fulfillment of established targets, high quality and discipline of work.
-There were queues in organizations and enterprises for the purchase of prestigious goods and housing. The leaders of production were among the first to receive these benefits, while the laggards and undisciplined people were among the last.

Maintaining an optimal balance of supply and demand in the domestic market for goods and services at a level that excludes inflationary processes.
The system was very fair - no one was forced to buy “prestigious” goods, everyone, on the contrary, did it with enthusiasm and pleasure, and the overpayment made upon their purchase was returned to everyone as part of a package of social goods and services.

Note: It should be noted that the category of such goods also included tobacco and vodka (!), the demand for which, at any inflated prices, never fell, even with their absolute abundance. These goods were the object of a state monopoly - wages to the military and other government officials were paid from the profits from their sales. Taking into account the volume of its turnover and cost, these products were extremely profitable. Especially vodka. According to some data, the cost of 1 liter of vodka was about 27 kopecks, while its retail price, on average, was about 8 rubles per liter.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE OF WORLD HISTORY

Two significant events in the final phase of World War II marked the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in world history:

On September 8, 1944, regular bombardment of London by German V-2 guided ballistic missiles began;

Thus, on our planet, capable industrial designs of fundamentally new guided means of delivering warheads over long distances, as well as fundamentally new warheads of enormous destructive power, were created and used (still separately from each other). The combination of these two qualities in one form - a guided ballistic launch vehicle of a nuclear charge could provide its owner with unprecedented military-strategic capabilities, as well as guarantee security from any external threat. This weapon had great prospects for development, both in achieving unlimited reach of targets and in increasing the power of the delivered charge. It was this factor that aggravated the post-war international situation to the limit, as it served as the impetus for the start of the nuclear missile arms race.

The arms race is an objective, self-sustaining process, developing according to the logic of “confrontation between armor and projectile”, when a potential enemy is forced to respond to the creation of a more advanced weapon of destruction by creating a corresponding effective means of defense (and vice versa) and so on ad infinitum. Given that the parties have “absolute” nuclear missile weapons, such behavior of the race participants is quite understandable. Everyone fears that as soon as the ratio of their combat capabilities reaches a level where one side can be guaranteed to destroy the other side with impunity or with acceptable damage to itself, it, at its own discretion, can do this at any time convenient for itself.

THE LOGIC OF THE ARMS RACE

It was the “Stalinist economic system” that provided the conditions for preparing the Soviet economy for the inevitable war. The Soviet Union won the Great Patriotic War, but as a result of the strategic arms race that unfolded immediately after its completion, they found themselves in a difficult economic situation. Half the country lay in ruins and there was a chronic shortage of labor resources (in the war the country lost 27 million of its most capable population), and the entire Western world stood against us.

Not falling behind in the race was a matter of life, so the whole country was forced to adapt to its needs. And the “Stalinist economic system” again confirmed its highest efficiency. It is precisely thanks to its unique properties that the country was able to handle the greatest scientific and technical projects and the enormous economic costs necessary to create new types of weapons. Entire industrial sectors and scientific areas had to be created literally from scratch - so in the first half of the 50s, two specialized ministries were created, “tailored” to nuclear missile issues:

06.26.1953 - Ministry of Medium Engineering (MSM) - a specialized industry that was engaged in the development and production of nuclear warheads;

04/02/1955 - Ministry of General Engineering (MOM) - a specialized industry that was engaged in the development and production of rocket and space technology. The nuclear missile race also caused a sharp increase in the country's demand for aluminum and the capacity of existing aluminum plants became clearly insufficient. Aluminum is the main metal from whose alloys rockets, airplanes and spacecraft are made, as well as some types of lightweight armor coating, which is in demand in conditions of the use of nuclear weapons. Thus, in connection with the beginning of the mass use of aluminum alloys, the organization of its mass production began to be a priority state task. The specificity of aluminum production is that it is very energy-intensive - to produce 1000 kg of rough aluminum it is necessary to spend about 17 thousand kWh of electricity, therefore, first of all, it was necessary to create powerful sources of electricity.

The country tensed up, “tightened its belt” and in the center of Siberia the following were built:

Powerful hydroelectric power plants (HPP):

Bratsk hydroelectric power station (4500 MW) - in 1954-67;

Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station (6000 MW) - in 1956-71;

Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP (6400 MW) - in 1963-85

Large aluminum smelters:

Bratsk Aluminum Plant - in 1956 - 66;

Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant - in 1959 - 64;

Sayan Aluminum Plant - in 1975 - 85

Due to the urgency of the ongoing tasks to create strategic nuclear missile weapons, the issue of ensuring their implementation with the necessary material and labor resources has become especially acute. There were no free people and they could only be removed from other, less important areas at that time - that is why shipbuilding programs were curtailed, massive reductions in the Armed Forces and other similar events were carried out. Some of the industries and scientific areas, for objective reasons, pulled ahead, some lagged behind, but the inexorable laws of the arms race dictated their conditions.

There was no time and it was impossible to wait for the moment of proportional development of all industries and directions, sufficient to create an ideal weapon. At least some kind of deterrent weapon was needed now and immediately - and it was created from what was available, relying on already achieved (not always perfect) scientific, design and technological capabilities. Thus, the arms race is, first of all, a race of the real economic, organizational, scientific and technological capabilities of the racing states...

COLLEGIALITY AS THE BASIS FOR MAKING ANY DECISIONS ON MILITARY-TECHNICAL ISSUES

The need to create strategic weapons entailed a multiple complication of the designs and technologies used, and therefore, the main distinguishing feature of this new stage was the proportional increase in co-executors of defense work at all levels:

At the top level, dozens of organizations and enterprises - co-executors representing various ministries and departments - are involved in the creation and production of specific types of strategic weapons.

At the lower level - in the creation and production of even an insignificant design element of a specific sample B and VT, as a rule, a significant number of various narrow specialists from various departments (designers, technologists, chemists, etc.) are involved.

Thus, the creation and production of strategic naval weapons is a very complex joint work of numerous teams representing various industries and departments (rocket scientists, nuclear scientists, shipbuilders, metallurgists, various military specialists, etc.). This feature of the creation of new weapons has caused an objective need to develop mechanisms for making joint decisions that take into account a mutually acceptable balance of the capabilities of numerous co-executors of this work and the interests of the Customer (USSR Defense Ministry). Since joint collective work was impossible without such a mechanism, one was worked out, created and ideally spelled out in numerous regulatory documents.

In general terms, a joint decision is any organizational and technical document that defines the methods and procedure for solving any technical, organizational or financial problem, sealed with the consenting signatures of interested parties. The established mechanism for making joint decisions on military-technical issues was mandatory for any level of competence - starting from solving an intra-shop problem of an enterprise that manufactures military equipment (at the level of a military representative) and ending with decisions at the national level, by which the strategic desires of military leaders were brought into line with real-life capabilities branches of Soviet industry.

From the first post-war years, under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, units were created and operated in various forms to coordinate the work of the defense industry. Finally, on December 6, 1957, the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues was created under the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It was the main collegial body of the country, which coordinated the activities of the military-industrial complex until the end of the Soviet period. The main and most effective form of making collegial decisions on military-technical issues was the Council of Chief Designers, which was introduced into permanent practice back in 1947 by S.P. Korolev.

This body was created under the General Designer and under his chairmanship. The SGK consisted of the Chief Designers of the complex's composite products and carried out interdepartmental coordination and technical coordination of the work of all enterprises and co-executing organizations. The decisions of the State Control Commission became binding on all bodies. Issues regarding the types of military equipment being accepted for service were finally settled during the work of interdepartmental commissions (IMC). Any decision at the government level has always been based on dozens of joint decisions at lower levels, which were made by qualified specialists on the components of the general problem. And each of these numerous decisions had its own truth and logic. As a rule, this was the only possible and optimal solution for that period of time, based on numerous objective factors and taking into account the interests and capabilities of all parties involved, some of which simply cannot be seen or understood “at a glance” from our present time...

When trying to evaluate the activities of predecessors using text documents, one must keep in mind that the adoption of those distant organizational and military-technical decisions was influenced by many “self-evident” considerations and factors characteristic of that time, which were equally understood and meant by all “signatories” , but, due to their obviousness, they were not even mentioned in the documents. It is always necessary to remember that not every thought taken from the context of a historical period can be understood at another time without additional explanation.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE

As already mentioned, the double-circuit financial system was created in the 30s of the last century by smart people, led by I.V. Stalin, and this was the only possible option for the further development of the Soviet economy, providing for the vital needs of the population and the sovereignty of the country. These people proved their professionalism and high business qualities even during the years of the Revolution and the Civil War, and during the difficult years of the first five-year plans and the Great Patriotic War, they provided the necessary technical and organizational conditions for Victory over Nazi Germany.

The life resource of these people, unfortunately, was not limitless - I.V. Stalin passed away in 1953, A.N. Kosygin in 1980, L.I. Brezhnev in 1982, D.F. Ustinov in 1984 , in 1984 - Yu.V. Andropov, in 1985 - K.U. Chernenko. These were also those Soviet leaders who understood how the unique mechanism of the Soviet economy worked and what absolutely could not be touched in it.

In 1985, a person who was formed as a personality in post-Stalin times, during the “undercover” struggle and party-apparatus intrigues, took over the highest party and state post of the Soviet Union - this was the beginning of the end of the Soviet economy and state.

It all started with a thoughtless fight against alcoholism...

According to the memoirs of the former chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N. Baibakov: “According to the 1985 plan, adopted before the anti-alcohol regulations, it was planned to receive 60 billion rubles from the sale of alcoholic beverages. arrived". This was precisely the cash that was used to pay salaries to the military and other government officials. After the implementation of anti-alcohol regulations, the state treasury received 38 billion rubles in 1986 and 35 billion rubles in 1987. Then the collapse of economic ties with the CMEA countries began, from where the retail trade network received consumer goods worth about 27 billion rubles in 1985. In 1987, they were received in the amount of 9.8 billion rubles. For these items alone (vodka and imports), an excess of cash rubles amounting to more than 40 billion rubles was formed on the domestic market, not covered by goods...

In 1987, the basic foundations of the Soviet economy were finally destroyed:

- The “Law on State Enterprise (Association)” of 1987 opened the contours of non-cash money - their conversion into cash was allowed;

The state monopoly of foreign trade was actually abolished - from January 1, 1987, such a right was given to 20 ministries and 70 large enterprises.

Then things started to happen - there was a shortage of goods, prices went up and inflation began. In 1989, mass strikes of miners began... Quite predictably, August 1991 came, when the actions of the overgrown and unshaven people of the capital destroyed the last foundations of the Soviet state, created in the interests of all working people...

Note: The notorious “oil needle,” which the “democrats” love to talk about, did not have any decisive influence on the destruction of the domestic consumer market, since only consumer goods from capitalist countries were purchased with petrodollars, the share of which in the total volume of consumer imports was is small - about 17% (the decrease in their volume in the total volume of the consumer market in 1985-87 amounted to approximately from 6 to 2 billion rubles). In settlements with the CMEA countries, where the bulk of consumer imports came from, the internal collective currency of the CMEA, the “transferable ruble,” was used.

MAIN CONCLUSIONS:

The October Revolution of 1917 occurred due to the impossibility of further economic development of Russia in the conditions of an open capitalist market. Its final result was the creation, the only possible for our further existence, of the “Stalinist economic system”, based on a double-circuit model of monetary circulation, with the obligatory condition of closing the domestic market from external competition. This economic model confirmed its effectiveness in the pre-war five-year plans, during the Great Patriotic War and during the era of the nuclear missile arms race.

From the heights of modern historical experience, we can safely say that it is the presence of nuclear missile weapons in a state that is the most important component of the system for ensuring its real sovereignty. And now there is no longer any doubt that the military-political leadership of the USSR in those distant years, at least, was not mistaken in concentrating all available resources on the creation and development of this particular type of weapon. It is this type of weapons, inherited from the USSR, that is currently the only guarantor of Russia’s state sovereignty.

There were no objective reasons or prerequisites for the destruction of the Soviet state system. The cause of the death of the USSR is the forcible bringing of the Soviet economic system into a non-working state.

In an open capitalist market, Russia has no economic future. The further sovereign existence of our Motherland can only be ensured by its return to the basic principles of the Stalinist economic system (by the way, the technology for returning to the Stalinist economic model can be previously “tested” in Novorossiya).

The economic miracle of Stalin's » economy
"Stalin's» economics is a fundamentally new model , different from the “market economy”
The essence"Stalin's» economy
"Stalin's» economy The USSR is a huge corporation
"Stalin's» economics: life test
About “distortions” and “mistakes” "Stalin's» economy
About dismantling"Stalin's» economy
About the “human factor” and the “higher goals” on which it depended
"Stalin's» economy...

THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE OF THE “STALIN ECONOMY”

Today we have a dominant “pluralism” of opinions. Some people see some flaws in the Soviet model, and they prefer the “market economy” model. But here's what's surprising: Today, 99.99% of all information classified as “economic” is devoted to “market economics.” The remaining 0.01% of the information is related to the Soviet model. But at the same time, in messages, articles and books there is no almost detailed description of this model; everything is limited to pointless “criticism” and the traditional conclusion: this is “ command economy" There are no clear definitions of a “command economy,” except that it is the opposite of a “market economy.”

It seems that the author of this stamp at the dawn of “perestroika” was an economist Gabriel Popov, one of the most zealous “marketers”. The stamp “administrative command economy” is something like a sentence that does not require proof. In fact, the silencing of the topic “Soviet economic model” can be explained very simply: a serious comparative analysis of the two models is extremely disadvantageous for those who promote the ideology of the “market economy.” This is the information and propaganda policy of the Washington Regional Party Committee.

Whatever critics of the Soviet economy say, it turned out to be, in modern terms, more “competitive” than the so-called “market economies” of the West.
But trying to evaluate the Stalinist economy based on the criteria of a “market economy” and the principles of economic liberalism is a futile exercise.

The most dynamic were two periods of Soviet history: the 1930s and 1950s. The first period was industrialization, which was carried out under the conditions of a “mobilization economy.” In terms of the total volume of gross domestic product and industrial production of the USSR in the mid-1930s. came out on top in Europe and on second place in the world, behind only the United States and significantly surpassing Germany, Great Britain, and France. In less than 3 five-year plans, 364 new cities were built in the country, 9 thousand large enterprises were built and put into operation - a colossal figure - 2 enterprises a day!

Although the mobilization economy in the first period of industrialization required austerity in everything and the maximum use of all resources, nevertheless, on the eve of the war the living standard of the people was significantly higher than at the start of the first five-year plan. We all remember the famous saying I.V. Stalin that the USSR lagged behind industrialized countries by 50-100 years, history has allowed 10 years to overcome this lag, otherwise we will be crushed. These words, spoken in February 1931, are surprising in their historical accuracy: the discrepancy was only four months.

The second period is economic development based on the model that was formed after the war with the active participation of I.V. Stalin. By inertia, it continued to function for a number of years after his death (until N.S. Khrushchev’s various “experiments” began). For 1951-1960 The gross domestic product of the USSR increased 2.5 times, with the volume of industrial production more than 3 times, and agricultural production by 60%. If in 1950 the level of industrial production of the USSR was 25% in relation to the USA, then in 1960 it was already 50%. Uncle Sam was very nervous because he was “outright” losing the economic competition to the Soviet Union. The living standard of Soviet people was constantly growing. Although a significantly higher share of GDP was allocated to accumulation (investment) than in the United States and other Western countries.

Thirty years of our history ( from the early 1930s to the early 1960s.) can be called the Soviet “economic miracle”. This should also include the 1940s, the period of war and economic restoration of the USSR. This was not only a military victory over Hitler and the entire Hitler coalition, but also an economic victory. During the period of reconstruction of the country after the war, we were able to return to the pre-war level faster than European countries, and also create a “nuclear shield”, which was vital for the country in the conditions of the “Cold War” declared by the West.

In the 1960s, we began to lose the economic dynamics that were created during the “Stalinist” period. And since the mid-1970s. signs of so-called “stagnation” began to be observed, the loss of internal sources of development, which were camouflaged by the unexpected collapse of petrodollars on our country. Since the mid-1980s. The destruction of the remnants of the economic model that was created during the years of the “economic miracle” began, covered by the slogans of “perestroika.”

STALIN'S ECONOMY - A FUNDAMENTALLY NEW MODEL, DIFFERENT FROM THE “MARKET ECONOMY”

I am not the first to draw attention to the “economic miracle of Stalin.” In explaining it, the authors rightly emphasize that a fundamentally new economic model was created, different from the “market economy” models of the West (capitalist economic model).

The first years of Soviet history were the economy of “war communism” (1917 – 1921). This model obviously has nothing in common with the “market model”. But it cannot be called Soviet either. Some authors, by misunderstanding or deliberately, try to equate the economy of “war communism” with the “economy of Stalin.” If we were to personify the first one, then it should be called economics Lenin – Trotsky.

Elements of the “market economy” model in the USSR took place only during the NEP period: 1921 – 1929. and during the period of “perestroika” M.S. Gorbachev: 1985 – 1991 That is, in its “pure form” it turns out to be about a decade and a half. If we personalize this model, then it can be called economics N. Bukharin – M. Gorbachev. Let me remind you that in the 20s Nikolai Bukharin was considered the main ideologist of the party and advocated for building socialism and communism precisely on the basis of market principles. Later he became an active member of the “new opposition”, which sharply objected to the model proposed by I.V. Stalin and his supporters (“Stalin’s model”).

For about 25 more years there was a period of the so-called “stagnation economy” from 1961 to 1985, when there was no market model yet, but the Soviet model was slowly being undermined from within through various “partial improvements” that did not increase its efficiency, but only discredited it. So that at the end of the existence of the USSR, the “foremen of perestroika” could declare loudly: “the Soviet model is not effective, it must be replaced with a market one.” If we personify the “economy of stagnation”, then it could be called the economy Khrushchev – Brezhnev – Andropov – Chernenko.

Thus, out of the entire 74-year history of the existence of the USSR (from 1917 to 1991), the period of the “economic miracle” accounts for at most three decades. This period is characterized by the fact that at this time I.V. was in power in the country. Stalin. True, in 1953-1960. Stalin was no longer around, but the economy he created continued to function and had not yet undergone any significant changes. Therefore, the thirty-year period 1930-1960. can be called the time of “Stalin’s economy,” and the economic achievements of this period can be called “Stalin’s economic miracle.”

THE ESSENCE OF STALIN'S ECONOMY

The essence of the Soviet model (1930-1960) can be reduced to the following most important features: national ownership of the means of production, the decisive role of the state in the economy, centralized management, directive planning, a single national economic complex, mobilization character, maximum self-sufficiency (especially in that period the socialist camp has not yet appeared), focus primarily on natural (physical) indicators (cost indicators play a supporting role), limited nature of commodity-money relations, accelerated development of the group industries A(production of means of production) in relation to the group industries B(production of consumer goods), a combination of material and moral incentives for labor, the inadmissibility of unearned income and the concentration of excess material wealth in the hands of individual citizens, ensuring the vital needs of all members of society and a steady increase in living standards, the social nature of appropriation, etc.

Particular attention should be paid to planned nature of the economy. After all, critics of the Stalinist model, using the derogatory phrase “administrative command system,” primarily mean national economic planning. Which is the opposite of the so-called “market”, behind which lies an economy oriented towards profit and enrichment. In the Stalinist model we are talking specifically about directive planning, in which the plan has the status of law and is subject to mandatory execution. In contrast to the so-called indicative planning, which after the Second World War was used in Western Europe and Japan and which has the nature of recommendations and guidelines for economic entities ( By the way, directive planning is not unique to the “Stalinist economy.” It still exists today in large corporations. We'll talk about this a little below.). Therefore, if critics of the “Stalinist model” liked the expression “administrative command system,” then they should also zealously criticize the world’s largest transnational corporations, such as IBM, British Petroleum, General Electric or Siemens. There, at the beginning of the 21st century, there is a truly brutal administrative-command system without any admixture of “democracy” and the participation of workers in management.

In a conversation on January 29, 1941, Stalin pointed out that it was the planned nature of the Soviet national economy that made it possible to ensure the country’s economic independence:

« If we did not have... a planning center that ensured the independence of the national economy, industry would have developed in a completely different way, everything would have started with light industry, and not with heavy industry. We turned the laws of capitalist economy upside down and turned them upside down. We started with heavy industry, not light industry, and we won. Without a planned economy this would have been impossible. After all, how did the development of the capitalist economy proceed? In all countries, business began with light industry. Why not from the iron and steel industry, the oil industry, etc.? Because light industry brought the greatest profits to the capitalists. We started with heavy industry, and this is the basis that we are not an appendage of capitalist farms... The matter of profitability is subordinated to the construction, first of all, of heavy industry, which requires large investments from the state and it is clear that at first it is unprofitable. If, for example, the construction of industry were left to capital, then the flour industry brings the most profit, and then, it seems, toy production. This is where capital would begin to build industry».

As for the accelerated development of group A of industries (production of means of production) in relation to group B of industries (production of consumer goods), this is not just a slogan of the “Great Breakthrough” period of the 1930s. This is an ongoing principle, given that we are not talking about an abstract “socialist economy”. We are talking about the specific economy of the USSR, which was (and in the foreseeable future will be) in a hostile capitalist environment. In an environment that will seek to destroy the Soviet Union by both economic and military methods. Only a high level of development of group A of industries is able to ensure effective confrontation between the USSR and the hostile capitalist environment. Consistent adherence to this principle actually means that the Stalinist model is a model of a mobilization economy. It couldn't be any other way. Stalin absolutely correctly substantiated this by formulating the following geopolitical thesis: the main content of the modern era is the struggle between two socio-economic systems, socialist and capitalist.

It is well known (from the works of the classics of Marxism) that the most important contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation. So the most important principle of the Stalinist economy is the social nature of appropriation, which eliminates the “eternal” contradiction of capitalism. The principle of distribution according to work is complemented by the principle of social appropriation. Specifically, we are talking about the fact that the surplus product created by common labor is distributed fairly evenly among all members of society through the mechanism of lowering retail prices for consumer goods and services and through the replenishment of public consumption funds.

Focusing primarily on natural (physical) indicators when planning and assessing the results of economic activity is another key principle.Cost indicators, firstly, were quite conditional (especially in the production sector, and not in retail trade). Secondly, they played a supporting role. Moreover, profit was not the most important indicator. The main criterion for efficiency was not an increase in monetary profit, but a reduction in production costs.

STALIN'S ECONOMY AS A HUGE CORPORATION

The Soviet model can be likened to a huge corporation called the "Soviet Union", which consists of separate workshops and production areas that work to create one final product. The final product is not considered a financial result (profit), but a set of specific goods and services that satisfy social and personal needs. Indicators of the social product (and its elements) in value terms serve only as a guideline in the implementation of annual and five-year plans and in assessing the results of plan implementation. Through the division of labor, specialization and well-coordinated cooperation, maximum production efficiency of the entire corporation is achieved. There is no need to say that there can be no competition between workshops and sections. Such competition will only disorganize the work of the entire corporation and generate unjustified costs. Instead of competition, there is cooperation and cooperation within the framework of a common cause. Separate workshops and sections produce raw materials, energy, semi-finished products and components, from which, ultimately, a social product is formed. This common product is then distributed among all participants in production. No distribution or redistribution of the social product occurs at the level of individual workshops and sections, and by definition cannot occur.

All this enormous production, exchange and distribution is controlled by the governing and coordinating bodies of the USSR corporation. This is the government, and a large number of ministries and departments. First of all, line ministries. As the structure of the national economy of the USSR became more complex, their number constantly increased. Within each Union ministry there were also subdivisions called central offices, and various local territorial institutions (primarily ministries in the Union republics). A coordinating and controlling role was played by such bodies as the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the Ministry of Finance of the USSR, the State Bank of the USSR and some others. They also had their own territorial network, including departments with similar names at the level of the union republics.

By the way, a similar organization and management scheme exists in the largest Western corporations (especially transnational ones) associated with the real sector of the economy. There are no market relations within them; there are conditional calculations based on “transfer” (intra-corporate) prices. The key difference between the model of Western corporations and the Stalinist model is that corporations belong to private owners, their activities are focused primarily on financial results (profit), and the financial result is not distributed among employees, but is privatized by the owner of the corporation. True, today this scheme for organizing and managing the activities of a corporation is becoming a thing of the past. For the reason that in the conditions of the current rapid development of the financial sector of the economy, production activities become uncompetitive and even unprofitable. There is a reversal in the activities of corporations traditionally associated with production towards work in financial markets. In such financially oriented corporations, everything works differently.

I would like to note that I have come across a comparison of the “Stalinist economy” with a huge corporation in a number of domestic and foreign authors. Here is a quote from one modern work:

« The USSR was the world's largest corporate economic structure. Corporate economic, economic goals and functions of the state were written in the Constitution. As an economic corporation, the USSR developed and put into operation a scientific system of reasonable internal prices, allowing for the effective use of natural resources in the interests of the national economy. Its peculiarity was, in particular, low prices for fuel, energy and other natural resources compared to world prices... The corporate approach to the economy as an integral organism presupposes the allocation of sufficient funds for investment, defense, army, science, education, and culture. The rejection of the concept of the state - an economic corporation, the destruction of inter-industry and inter-regional ties, the disunity of enterprises, had a catastrophic effect on the post-perestroika economy of Russia» ( Bratishchev I.M., Krasheninnikov S.N.. Russia can become rich! – M.: “Grail”, 1999, p. 15-16).

"STALIN'S ECONOMY": TEST OF LIFE

Stalin's economy has stood the test of time. If you are not a biased opponent or, especially, an enemy of Russia, then you should admit that the Stalinist economy made it possible to: - ensure the overcoming of the country's centuries-old economic backwardness and become, along with the United States, a leading economic power in the world; - create a single national economic complex, What allowed the Soviet Union to become country independent from the world market (what China is now trying to achieve); - defeat the strongest enemy in the Second World War - Hitler's Germany and the countries of the Hitler's coalition; - ensure a steady increase in the welfare of the people based on a consistent reduction in production costs; - show the whole world the inefficiency of the so-called “market” (capitalist) economy and reorient many countries towards the so-called “non-capitalist path of development”; - to ensure the military security of the country by creating nuclear weapons." It seems to me that this is already quite enough to understand in more detail what “ Stalin's economy" Not out of idle curiosity, but based on the fact that today Russia is experiencing a serious economic crisis. And familiarity with the Stalinist economy will allow us to quickly find a way out of today's dead ends.

ABOUT THE “DISTRIBUTIONS” AND “ERRORS” OF THE “STALIN ECONOMY”

Of course, a number of the principles listed above have not been implemented in the actual practice of economic construction in their “pure” form. Partly, due to some conscious “distortions” of I.V.’s political line by some government officials. Stalin, partly due to the weakness of “human nature” (for example, weak performance discipline), partly because I.V. Stalin himself made some adjustments to his political line. Adjustments were made intuitively because there was no good economic theory of the Stalinist model. Stalin tried to intensify the process of developing such a theory in order to systematically improve the economic model. Including writing in 1952 the work “ Economic problems of socialism in the USSR». “Ignorance of theory will destroy us,” Stalin used to say, and these words, unfortunately, turned out to be prophetic.

Without a sound theory, there was an unjustified departure from the Stalinist model and its erosion. Erosion occurs during the period 1960-1985. Individual cases were recorded back in the second half of the 1950s, when Khrushchev began to conduct dangerous economic experiments.

There are many examples of the erosion of the principles of the Stalinist economy. Let us note, in particular, the abolition of such a principle as the primary orientation when planning and assessing the results of economic activity on natural (physical) indicators. The “Kosygin” reform of 1965 began to orient planning bodies and enterprises towards such a basic cost indicator as “shaft” (gross output calculated using the so-called “factory” method). It became possible and profitable to “increase” the “shaft” indicators, while the dynamics of real (natural) indicators lagged significantly behind the “shaft”. The paradox was that the profit orientation made the economy increasingly “costly” and camouflaged serious planning problems.

In a number of ways, Stalin's economics contradicted Marxism. There was no preliminary theoretical understanding and justification of this model. It was created by practice, trial and error. Stalin told his associates: “If you look for answers to all questions from Marx, then you will be lost. We have to work with our heads ourselves.”
By the way, in those years there was not even a textbook on the political economy of socialism. Its preparation dragged on for 30 years, and the first edition was published only after Stalin’s death, in 1954. The textbook turned out to be contradictory; it tried to link the realities of life (Stalinist economics) with Marxism.

ABOUT DISMANTLING THE “STALIN ECONOMY”

A much more serious blow was dealt by the economic reform of 1965-1969, which is personified by the then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. Kosygin. Sometimes called reform E. Liberman- named after one of Kosygin’s consultants. The result was a model that some harsh critics call the state capitalist model. Reform 1965-1969 has already turned socialist enterprises into isolated commodity producers focused on profit (the main target indicator), and not on making their contribution to the creation of a common national economic result. The socialist mode of production was replaced by the commodity (state-capitalist) mode of production. After the “Kosygin” reform, no serious attempts at economic improvements were made for almost two decades. Moreover, there were no attempts to cancel the deadly “experiment” Kosygin-Liberman and the economy sank into “stagnation.”

And life urgently dictated the need for real changes in order to strengthen the country. So, in the first half of the 1970s. The USSR achieved military parity with the USA and NATO. Taking this into account, it was possible and necessary to make adjustments to the proportions of development of group A and group B in favor of the second group of industries. It would be necessary to accelerate the development of such industries as light industry, food industry, production of automobiles, furniture, household and electronic equipment, as well as increase the scale of housing construction. Instead, investments were directed to the construction of the BAM, “turning the rivers,” etc. And then a “magic wand” arrived in the form of petrodollars (increase in prices for “black gold” on the world market in 1973). Instead of a policy of bringing up Group B, a policy was taken of eliminating shortages of a number of consumer goods through imports. And since 1985, a period of deliberate destruction of the economy began under the crafty slogan of “perestroika.” A rapid transition began from state capitalism to another model of capitalism, which can be called equally “private property”, “gangster”, “comprador”.

ABOUT THE “HUMAN FACTOR” AND “HIGHER GOALS”

Let's return to the topic of “Stalin's economy”. The effectiveness of its functioning depended not only on how consistently the leaders of the national economy adhered to the principles of the “Stalinist economy” listed above. It depended to an even greater extent on the degree of participation of society and its individual members in the implementation of the plans of the “Stalinist economy.” Stalin understood this perfectly. Therefore, at one time he formulated the triune task of building communism. It included the following tasks:
A) comprehensive development of the productive forces, creation of the material and technical base of communism;
b) improving industrial relations;
V) formation of a “new man”.

The principles of the “Stalinist economy” that we discussed above describe the relations of production that were necessary during that historical period for the country’s advancement towards communism. The task of forming a “new man” was conceptualized by Stalin and his circle much worse than the first two components of the triune task. She was in third place not only in order, but also in priority. And although during the time of Stalin, the activities of the Soviet media, culture, science, and literature were subordinated to the task of forming a “new man”. The trouble was that the understanding of the “new man” was built on the methodological foundation of Marxist materialism. Whatever one may say, in Marxist schemes man turned out to be not an end, but a means. Such a means, which was often called “factor of production”, “labor force”, “labor resource”.

By the mid-1950s. a refined formula of the basic economic law of socialism has appeared, defining the goal of the socialist economy: “about ensuring the well-being and comprehensive development of all members of society through the most complete satisfaction of their constantly growing material and cultural needs, achieved through continuous growth and improvement of socialist production on the basis of scientific and technological progress" Marxism simply could not offer any “higher” (primarily spiritual) goals because it is materialism in its pure form.

It must be said that during the time of Stalin, a lot was done to ensure that a citizen of the Soviet country could fit into the model of the “Stalinist economy” as much as possible. They are talking about allegedly forcibly “shoving” it into this economy. Yes, at first it was. I mean the “voluntary-forced” collectivization of the peasantry. But coercion alone will not get you far. A slave cannot be an efficient worker.

Stalin since the mid-1930s. a course was taken to improve the status of working people in every possible way. Material incentives for labor were supplemented by moral incentives. Socialist competition appeared (as the antithesis of capitalist competition). The country in the 1930s. The Stakhanov movement swept through. Ranks were introduced “Hero of Socialist Labor”, “Honored Worker”, “Honored Worker” and so on. At all levels, educational work was carried out aimed at strengthening labor discipline, a sense of collectivism, mutual assistance, careful attitude towards socialist property, etc. was formed. The fight against parasitism was carried out. By the way, the state’s consistent fight against various manifestations of luxury wealth and illegal income also strengthened people’s faith in social justice, and the state stimulated employment. At the same time, creativity in work was encouraged in every possible way. A movement of innovators and inventors emerged, in which not only engineers, but also millions of ordinary workers participated.

It must be said that Stalin managed to significantly increase the labor activity of Soviet people, and methods of coercion played a subordinate role here. The Soviet people accepted the “Stalinist model” (although not immediately). Because it had a goal in the future, building a fair society, which went beyond the economy and which required protecting the country from external aggression. And after the death of Stalin, who left the Soviet people a “nuclear shield,” the feeling of an external threat began to recede into the background and even the third plan. Economic tasks have come to the fore, stemming from what we mentioned “ basic economic law of socialism" But here’s a paradox: economic goals do not consolidate the people, do not mobilize them, do not reveal their creative potential, but, on the contrary, separate them, weaken them and deprive them of creative creativity, which they are trying to replace with the so-called “entrepreneurship”.

With economic goals, the “Stalinist economy” cannot work; it is doomed to die and be replaced by various versions of the “market economy” model.

Can we return to the “Stalinist economy”? - We can ifLet’s formulate supra-economic, “higher” goals. Such goals are in the air today . Now, perhaps, the most important thing is that someone is able to loudly voice these goals and that they are heard by the people. We not only can, we must return to the “Stalinist economy.” You should not deceive yourself: the “market economy” dooms Russia to death.

V.Yu. Katasonov , prof., doctor of economic sciences, chairman of the Russian Economic Society named after. S.F. Sharapova

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