PREFACE

The crucial Soviet debates on strategies of economic development, pace of growth and efficiency, and the theory and practice of planning which preceded and molded the Soviet era of forced industrialization and of comprehensive planning that opened in 1929 occupy a unique place in the history of economics in general and of Soviet economic history in particular. By their breadth, scope, and intensity these debates shaped for decades Soviet thinking on economic development, and Soviet principles and practice of planning. Yet, thus far, these debates have received relatively little attention in the West. Hardly any of the main Soviet studies of the time have been translated. Some of the basic issues of the 1920’s and the positions taken then have been examined from time to time, e.g., the debate on industrialization (by A. Erlich) and the debate on planning (by F. Pollock, A. Kaufman, C. Bobrowski, et al.); but neither an integrated study of all of the debates nor a systematic presentation of the documents involved has so far been attempted.

Since the 1950’s, which saw the emergence of many newly independent countries bent on rapid economic growth, preoccupation with massive state intervention in the economy, forced industrialization, and planning has given rise in the West to a whole body of literature on economic development.

Many of the problems under discussion in this literature and in the newly developing countries were already confronting Russia in the 1920’s. Hence the interest in clarifying the points of view debated in that country at the time and in making the most significant documents produced during these debates accessible to all those interested in Soviet economic history as well as in the current problems and solutions considered in the newly developing nations.

While the Soviet debates were often couched in a peculiar jargon and while certain questionable theories and assumptions played an undeniable role, they were far from representing merely a display in doctrinairism. The truth is that the Soviet mid-1920’s were teeming with interesting and valuable ideas. This was not only because a complex and challenging task necessarily called forth imaginative solutions, but also because, to start with, the Communist party itself was deeply split by the enormous pressures engendered by its own ambitious goals, the isolation of the country, the country’s terrible backwardness, and its conflicting social undercurrents; because, further, under these conditions, differences of opinion were aired openly by opposing journals, ministries, and administrative offices; because, finally, many former “bourgeois” specialists, Mensheviks, and Populists rallied to the regime, and were, in the early years of the so-called New Economic Policy, still shaping up its orientations and its practices.

The “bourgeois” engineers Khrennikov, Gartvan, Kalinnikov—to mention but a few—prepared the first drafts of Soviet longterm plans. The “bourgeois” professor L. N. Iurovski stabilized the Soviet currency in 1924. Professor L. N. Litoshenko pioneered in social accounting and input-output analysis. The former Mensheviks V. G. Groman, V. A. Bazarov, and A. M. Ginzburg formulated some of the most challenging propositions concerning strategies of economic development and planning theory. The former Populists N. D. Kondrat’ev, N. P. Makarov, A. V. Chiaianov, and others contributed new ideas to agricultural planning, planning theory, and business cycles. Among Communists of the “right” faction, N. I. Bukharin formulated a number of propositions which remain basic even today for understanding the rationale of some Soviet institutional arrangements and planning procedures. Among the Communists of the “left,” L. D. Trotsky, G. Piatakov, and, above all, E. A. Preobrazhenskii furnished some of the key arguments which continue to support the Soviet strategy of economic development and its specific sectoral and technological options. Among Communist engineers, planners, and statisticians, some, like G. M. Krzhizhanovskii, S. G. Strumilin, and particularly P. I. Popov, M. Barengol’ts and G. A. Fel’dman made suggestions and contributions which deserve to be known.

The debates of the mid-1920’s produced a vast, complex, and widely ramified literature whose survey has required a number of years. A methodical arrangement and analysis of the sources is presented below in an appendix. In a companion volume to the present work (Soviet Strategy for Economic Growth, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1964) I have presented an integrated discussion of the various phases of the economic debates of the Soviet pre-planning era, with particular emphasis on the choice of a strategy for economic growth. In the present volume I have selected the fundamental economic articles and documents which uncover the origins, assumptions, and concepts of the Soviet method of industrialization and planning. These assumptions and concepts are basic for understanding the past as well as the contemporary Soviet literature on growth. In making the selection I have, furthermore, kept in mind a valid idea expressed once by Bertram D. Wolfe, also in relation to the Soviet 1920’s: “It is not altogether possible to examine the essence of a regime without examining the views of the defeated, the alternatives which were closed off, the truth and aspirations and proposals of those who were later scattered.” This volume therefore presents a broad spectrum of all the positions taken and of all the arguments presented in the debates. The work thus furnishes, I trust, both clues to the “essence” of the Soviet model and broader answers to the problems of economic development in general.

The thirty-six articles and documents included herein are grouped into three main sections:

I.Macro-economic Models

II.Economic Growth

A.Strategies of Development

B.Pace and Efficiency

III.Planning Theories and Methods.

These studies—with but two exceptions—have never before been translated into a Western language. Most of them are articles from specialized Soviet economic journals like Planovoe khoziaistvo (Planned economy), the journal of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan), excerpts from planning documents, or excerpts from economic books such as the crucial study of E. A. Preobrazhenskii, Novaia ekonomika (New economics), a fundamental Soviet work of the time. The articles and documents were translated under my supervision by Dr. Robert M. Hankin, Andrew McAndrews, Ivo Moravchik, and Myron Moroz. I have resorted to cuts in the originals only to avoid irrelevancies or repetitions.

I am deeply grateful to all who have helped me to complete this work, which spanned a number of years. I am indebted to the translators, who have done a competent job. I thank Mr. Arthur W. Wright for preparing the index. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Robert M. Hankin, who has helped me to recheck carefully against originals a number of the final drafts. I am grateful, finally, to the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and its Joint Slavic and East European Grants Committee, and to the Advisory Committee on International Studies of Indiana University, without whose material help this work would not have been possible.

This help should not of course be construed as an endorsement of the ways in which the editor has discharged his responsibilities.

Nicolas Spulber

Bloomington, Indiana