Modernization from the Other Shore: American Observers and the Costs of Soviet Economic Development

Abstract

THE SPECTER OF COMMUNISM haunted not just nineteenth-century Europe but most of the world in the twentieth century. The specter of Soviet Communism haunting this century, however, was as much a blueprint for rapid industrialization as an ideology of proletarian revolution, national liberation, or totalitarian control. At the same time, the Soviet specter often bore little resemblance to actually existing circumstances in the Soviet Union itself. In spite of the tremendous costs, including a catastrophic famine in 1932-1933, domestic and foreign commentators widely praised Soviet efforts at economic modernization, especially in the early years of the Five-Year Plans (1928-1937).' What American diplomat George F. Kennan termed the romance of economic development captivated a wide range of foreign observers of all political persuasions.2 These interwar observers valued the fruits of rapid industrialization above its costs-even when these costs included not only repression and privation but also starvation. Many Western observers, ranging from fellow-travelers to anticommunists, summed up their balance sheets on the Soviet Five-Year Plans with the frequently repeated canard that the USSR was starving itself great-a phrase that appeared well before the devastating 1932-1933 famine. In Europe's colonies, political leaders as well as intellectuals enthusiastically endorsed the Soviet goal of rapid industrialization as a shortcut to economic