Soviet Industrialization: A Remarkable Success?

Abstract

The aim of Robert C. Allen's book is to provide postmortem on Soviet experiment by seeking to answer the questions What worked? What failed? Why? What lessons can we learn from Soviet history? Allen covers many controversial topics, from the alleged need for collectivization and its role in Soviet industrialization, via the changed position of women in society, to the role of consumption in Soviet growth, the merits of investment in heavy industry, the behavior of Soviet enterprises, and the significance of Soviet economic growth in international perspective. On many issues, Allen's conclusions are quite at variance with the opinions expressed in most current textbooks and with what is currently taught to students throughout the world. Allen sees Soviet as success story with many positive elements ranging from rising standard of living to rapidly increasing urban employment and an efficient agricultural sector. This iconoclastic book is an economic history of the USSR that focuses on the period from 1928 to 1940. The opening chapters place Soviet development in world-historical context and evaluate the pre-Soviet Russian economy. In addition there are two chapters on the New Economic Policy, five on Iosif Stalin's industrial revolution, and one on the postStalin period. It is well written, has useful bibliography, makes good use of comparisons with other countries and other periods, and uses computable general equilibrium model to examine the causes of what happened and the consequences of possible alternative policies. In the first chapter, Allen stresses the USSR's achievements in and economic growth and compares them favorably to such countries as Argentina and India. In chapter 2, he accepts Paul Gregory's data on Russian economic growth from 1885 to 1913 but rejects Gregory's optimistic view that, without the Bolsheviks, Russia would have achieved First World level of economic development. Allen argues that pre-1913 growth was a one-off resource boom with veneer of some tariff-induced industrialization that resulted from the boom on the world grain market combined with state support for railway building (and the use of tariffs to support its suppliers).' Both of these were inherently temporary. After