Early Gosplan and the Scientific and Methodological School of V. G. Groman. 1920–1930s

Abstract

Introduction. This study is devoted to the analysis of the professional activities of one of the famous Soviet economists V. G. Groman and his colleagues, who created a scientific and methodological school in the State Planning Committee of the USSR in the 1920s–1930s. Their ideas formed the basis of the minimum draft of the first five-year plan (forecast plan), and also created a new methodological approach to planning in general. Results. The author focuses on the analysis of biographies, views, ideas and features of the planning methodology of representatives of the school of V. G. Groman – V. I. Zeilinger, B. A. Gukhman, G.V. Shub, G. M. Pistrak, R.Ya. Broitman and N. M. Vishnevsky, a number of information about which is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study has been constructed with help of the scientific work and practical developments of V. G. Groman. General scientific methods have been used, as well as the method of comparative analysis in relation to the context of the era before 1917, the period of Military Communism and the NEP, and those methods that were developed and implemented by the Groman school in the State Planning Commission. At the same time, special methods of economic history were used, such as the system-structural and statistical method, analysis of structural transformations for the study of planning methodology in general. Results. The characteristic of V. G. Groman, which is considered in the historical and social context in the period immediately after 1917, examines various evidence of the creation of a planned economy in the 1920s in the USSR, in particular, the personnel potential of specialists with a socialist orientation. An analysis of monographic studies, a complex of journalistic heritage, as well as press materials are given. Scientific discoveries of the school of V. G. Groman were closely connected with practice, in particular, they created control figures in the economy, developed a methodology for the balance of the national economy based on statistical data from industries, proposed the idea of a value ratio and an economic whole, which together made it possible to create centralized planning throughout the country. Subsequently, this approach to planning did not meet the objectives of the industrialization and collectivization of the country, which led to criticism and the political process of the Allied Bureau of the Mensheviks, where this direction was crushed. Discussion and Conclusion. The proposed provisions and conclusions solve the problem of returning the scientific heritage of the Groman methodological school to a wide readership and determine its role and place in the economic policy and planning methodology of Russia – USSR in the 20th century. At the same time, the relevance of the methodological aspect of studying the history of knowledge at the intersection of the interdisciplinarity of history and economics offers a fresh look at economic history during one of the systemic transformations of the country’s economy.