Soviet Economy Research Articles

Assessment of the predictive potential of international Sovietology

Aim. The work aimed to review and analyze the opinions of international Sovietologists regarding the ways of the Soviet economy development of the late socialist period, as well as to identify problems of the prognostic potential of international Sovietology.Tasks. The work was performed to study scenarios for the development of the pre-perestroika Soviet economic model and problems in their prediction by international analysts.Methods. The object of study was the international historiography of the USSR economic history in the pre-perestroika period. The sources of information were official statistics and the works of international analysts. The authors of this article used general scientific research methods, as well as methods of historical and economic analysis.Results. An analysis of international studies shows that the hypothetical scenarios for the development of the Soviet Union put forward by Sovietologists before perestroika were based on prognosis of previous years, conflicting statistical data and scientific methods tested under the conditions of the capitalist economic model. Meanwhile, the Soviet planned socialist model represented a different type of economy, which had not previously been tried to be implemented on a national scale (the situation remains the same in the period considered). According to the position of international researchers, despite the low growth values of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the main leader of the economy, the industrial sector (taking into account the fall in oil revenues and stiffening of sanctions against the USSR in the early 1980s), the economy remained stable. Due to large margins of safety in the form of developed industry, agriculture, infrastructure, high scientific potential, and a huge stock of natural resources, the further existence of the USSR was not in doubt.Conclusion. Many Sovietologists have written about the need for fundamental changes in the Soviet planned economic system. At the same time, they took into account the significant difficulties and risks associated with possible reforms, believing that the consequences of the radical introduction of the market into the planned economy could be significant disturbances. This is one of the reasons why, in the pre-perestroika period, few Western analysts admitted the possibility of large-scale reforms in the near future.

Continuity and variability in the Russian economic discourse: The content analysis of publications in Voprosy Ekonomiki from 1989 to 2021

Key topics in scholarly publications of Soviet and Russian economists in the 1950—1980s, during the periods of Perestroika, radical economic reforms of the 1990s, the economic growth of the 2000s, the 2009 global crisis and economic stagnation of the second half of the 2010s are identified and compared by content analyzing full texts of books and journal articles. Namely, all articles published in Voprosy Ekonomiki from 1989 to 2021 are analyzed. It is shown that the departure from the paradigm of Marxian political economy leaves the question about a new paradigm open. Using the Google Books corpus, the everyday economic discourse in Russian is compared with that in English and French. It appears that the Russian everyday discourse is relatively less adapted to discussion of economic issues.

Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall by Thomas Fleischman

Reviewed by: Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall by Thomas Fleischman Tatsuya Mitsuda (bio) Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall By Thomas Fleischman. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. Pp. 296. In recent years, scholars of science and technology have noted the emergence of what have been variously conceptualized since the 1970s as "bioeconomics," "biocapital," or "biovalue." Such concepts are generally understood as describing the intensified union between the life sciences and profit-driven enterprises. Academics deploy these concepts as heuristic devices to make sense of a significant shift in modern capitalism whereby increasingly small biological materials such as cells, molecules, genomes, and genes, are being exploited for commercial use. Much of the literature analyzing the biopolitical economy also considers how non-human creatures have been drawn into this capitalization of life. Even though the overt financialization of the bioeconomy—creating "assets" as opposed to "products"—signals an original departure, Thomas Fleischman's ambitious new book, Communist Pigs, is a timely reminder about the roots of the bioeconomy: they can be traced back further in time, and observed not just in the capitalist West, but also in the communist East. Drawing on an abundant array of sources, including public documents from state archives, Fleischman's main aim is to revise the image of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a political, ideological, and economic basket case. To do so, he presents a nuanced analysis of the complex and contradictory factors that made it possible for three types of swine—industrial, garden, and wild—to thrive under socialism. The author skillfully places events and actors (pigs included) within a global framework. This allows him to draw arresting parallels between East and West and to reconstruct the flows of both capital and technology that transcended national and ideological boundaries in the construction of factory farms. The book's main argument is that since the capital underwriting mass hog [End Page 525] production came from Western creditors, the GDR was forced to continue exporting cheap pork at all cost to service its debts. This policy not only resulted in pork-deprived East Germans raising pigs on their small plots of land. Wild boars multiplied as the shift to industrial farming disrupted the ecosystem, leading to the kinds of protests that ultimately brought down the communist regime. For the readers of this journal, the most rewarding part of the book is its close analysis of how the industrial pig evolved, facilitated by technological knowledge that came from the United States to Europe via Yugoslavia. Ever since Antony Sutton's three-volume Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, published between 1968 and 1973, a significant body of work has built up showing how the Communist Bloc avidly studied industrial agriculture. Fleischman richly details how events played out in the GDR. At the massive slaughterhouse-cum-meat-processing facility in Eberswalde, porcine bodies were remade, retrofitted, and standardized to align with the dictates of modern industrial factory farming. As the author aptly notes, these industrial pigs were "technology made flesh" (p. 91). Fat, numerous, unhealthy, and environmentally damaging, these pigs were the result of deliberate scientific and technological interventions that reorganized their biological constitution and turned them into machines capable of efficiently converting grain into meat. Building on the recent "animal turn," Fleischman demonstrates how communist pigs could become actors entangled in social, political, and ecological change. Because of their innate biological trait to thrive in any kind of environment, the pigs—be they in the factory, the garden, or the wild—could easily frustrate humans' plans for them. Despite his stated focus on the three types of pigs, Fleischman at times veers off course, referencing other animals, chemicals, crops, or vegetables without necessarily clarifying their relevance to the main topic. Similarly, in his enthusiasm for emphasizing the role of international politics and global capitalism, Fleischman is prone to delving into details about other countries, once again without clarifying either their impact on communist pigs or drawing on comparisons to illustrate national differences and similarities. Putting such small quibbles aside, the book is packed with original insights. It represents a significant contribution to the...

Economic Model of the Post-Stalinist USSR and its Results

Introduction. In 1930th – the 1950th years in the USSR the centralized planned command economic model was realized, where the main resources were aimed at the development of means of production. The production of consumer goods, as well as the wages of the population, were extremely limited, so the emission was the main source of development. After the death of I. V. Stalin, his successors changed the model. They refused to maintain the balance of the economy and money circulation and redistributed part of the state’s income in favor of the population, by significantly increasing cash payments. Results of this model are investigated in the article. Materials and Methods. The study bases on the departmental documents of the State Bank of the USSR. They contain not only departmental statistical data, but also expert assessments, which in the article are compared with the results of modern researchers. Results. The growth of money incomes of the population led to an increase in the cash supply, which took place at an outstripping pace. The deficit of the economy could not be overcome. In the same years, producers’ cooperatives which partially satisfying the needs of the population were nationalized. Their employees have become unregistered private entrepreneurs, who produced goods and services in the shadow economy. A significant part of the population who produced and consumed these goods ensured the flow of money from the official economy to the shadow one. Another part of the excess money was deposited in savings accounts. Ignoring the shadow sector parasitizing the deficit problem, the Soviet leadership did not stop attempts to solve it. A significant part of the USSR’s oil and gas revenues was spent on consumer goods. The result of the implemented economic policy was the inflationary bubble and the growth of the shadow economy. Discussions. The transition to a new economic model can be explained by the fatigue of the ruling class from the stress of previous decades, as well as the populism of Stalin’s successors. Through the production of the consumer goods, the official economy was tightly connected with the shadow one, which began to grow rapidly at the expense of budget funds, subjugating state trade, generating deficits, and corrupting the government machinery. The government lost the fight against the shadow economy, and in fact, ignored its presence. At the end of 1980th the Soviet economy collapsed. Conclusion. The transition to a new economic model led to the long-term destabilization of money circulation and to the concentration of money, which was not provided with goods and services. The failure of the government to stabilize money circulation and solve the problem of commodity deficit has caused an increase in unmet demand, as well as the growth of the shadow economy. The inability of the government to break the link with the parasitic shadow economy and stop the growth of the cash supply predetermined the economic collapse of the USSR.

Revisiting the possibility of economic reforms in the pre-perestroika USSR according to the assessments of foreign analysts

Aim. The presented study aims to review and analyze the opinions of foreign Sovietologists on the possibility of economic reforms in the late socialist USSR.Tasks. The author examines the opinions of foreign analysts on the permissibility and expediency of reforming the Soviet economic system and their proposals on the possible modernization of the pre-perestroika USSR economy.Methods. The study is conducted as part of a thesis research. The object under study is the foreign historiography of the economic history of the pre-perestroika USSR. Sources of information include official statistics and works of foreign analysts. The author uses general scientific research methods and methods of historical and economic analysis.Results. Estimates and data contained in the analyzed foreign works indicate the need to reform the Soviet economy. However, some researchers admit the possibility of modernizing the economic mechanisms of the Soviet economy within the framework of the existing model.Conclusions. Foreign economists come to a consensus that by the mid-1980s the USSR economy needed to be modernized in order to overcome the decline in economic growth. At the same time, the possibility of reforming the Soviet system continued to be broadly discussed. Foreign analysts point out the need for transformations in the economic system of the Soviet Union. However, none of the researchers admit the possibility of radical reforms due to risks for the economic and political system of the USSR.

Equality, Welfare, Myth, and Memory: The Artek Pioneer Camp at the Height of the Khrushchev Era

Equality, Welfare, Myth, and MemoryThe Artek Pioneer Camp at the Height of the Khrushchev Era Mark B. Smith (bio) Artek, with its high-quality buildings and glorious Crimean location, was the most famous Pioneer camp in the Soviet Union. Following its foundation in the 1920s, its significance grew under Iosif Stalin, attracting children from elite families. By 1960, the camp had become an instantly recognizable institution inside the Ukrainian Republic of the USSR, with an all-union cultural presence and an international profile. It was also a gold-standard example of the relaunched post-Stalin welfare system. But if welfare was for everyone, and Artek had an elitist reputation, how did the camp’s social reality and cultural representation match up during the era of apparently proto-communist equality between 1953 and 1964? This article explores the myths and memories that constructed Artek as a Khrushchev-era welfare provider within the Soviet imaginary; it analyzes the lived experience of child welfare in Artek during that period; and it tests the competing pressures of elitism and equality in modulating access to Artek in the example year of 1960. Artek was an exceptional institution in the USSR, and its history is important in its own right, but it also offers a case study of how myths, memories, and social policy shaped childhood experiences during the Khrushchev era. ________ Established in 1925, Artek was inspired by Zinovii Solov́ev, a health-care reformer who imagined a “camp-sanatorium” for children. He found the [End Page 255] location he wanted on the Crimean coast, near the foothills of the Aiu-Dag mountain range. At the start, the camp had places for only 80 children and depended on funding from the RSFSR Red Cross, which Solov́ev himself chaired. Yet within three years, the camp was open year-round, based in permanent buildings, not summer-only tents. By 1930, the complex was divided into a “lower” and an “upper” camp with a total annual capacity of 2,040 children.1 At its post-Khrushchev peak, the Artek complex connected eight camps along the Crimean coast. It had 250 buildings, a canteen for 1,000 diners, a stadium for 10,000 spectators, a staff of 2,000, health-care facilities, classrooms, cinemas, swimming pools, and a post office. Four thousand five hundred Pioneers attended simultaneously in high season.2 Artek was a Pioneer showcase. Established in 1922 within the All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth (VLKSM), or Komsomol, the Pioneers were the core extracurricular club for boys and girls aged between 10 and 14. For all their ideological significance, the Pioneers were more akin to Boy Scouts plus Girl Guides than Hitler Youth, even in the Stalin period. By the Khrushchev era, the Pioneers were deeply entrenched in Soviet society. In 1960, 93 percent of eligible children were members.3 More than one-quarter of them (4.4 million) spent time in a Pioneer camp during that year.4 The quality of these rural or seaside facilities was inconsistent. While they were usually located in ecologically clean and quite often in beautiful surroundings, many were spartan, a few had extremely poor facilities, some had insufficient staff, and most offered strikingly unvaried cuisine. Other camps were located within cities, where children spent the day undertaking activities with child-care professionals, sometimes in temporary facilities in housing districts, before going home in the evenings. It was a surprising truth of the Soviet welfare system that the quality of such institutions as children’s camps depended on the identity of their formal owner. The Soviet “welfare state” did not fit within an undifferentiated “state” but melted into an overlapping landscape of varied public institutions. Welfare facilities, from housing blocks to pensions offices, from kindergartens to polyclinics, were the property of different institutions within the Soviet economy. Some of these institutions were “central”: ministries, the Party, and related agencies, including the Komsomol. Often the most [End Page 256] sought-after welfare providers, such as Kremlin Polyclinic no. 1, were owned within this sector. Unsurprisingly, the top-of-the-scale Pioneer camps, most famously Artek, Orlenok (on the Russian side of the Soviet Black Sea coast), and Zerkaĺnyi...

Review of the textbook for masters «Regional Economics and Management of Spatial Development» by Doctor of economic sciences, professor M.P. Burov

The textbook of the famous Soviet and Russian economist, state, public and pedagogical figure, Doctor of Economics, professor, author of many textbooks and textbooks, numerous scientific and popular scientific works by Mikhail Petrovich Burov is a holistic presentation of the formation, development and functioning of the regional economy and spatial development management.

30 years of economic reforms in the post-Soviet space: Macroeconomic processes

The paper contains a retrospective analysis of macroeconomic policy and macroeconomic reforms in the post-Soviet countries in 1992—2021, that is, after obtaining political and economic independence at the end of 1991. Special attention is paid to the problems of macroeconomic stabilization and economic growth. As a result of structural distortions inherited from the Soviet economy and slow pace of economic and institutional reforms, the countries of the former Soviet Union suffered from the long and deep output decline in the 1990s, and their post-transition growth recovery in the 2000s did not last long. Furthermore, they remain vulnerable to both domestic and external economic shocks. Given a limited predictability of post-COVID global economic trends, this vulnerability will continue, most likely, in the next couple of years.

Большие циклы, советская власть и экономисты: из истории дискуссий 1920-х годов

In perspective of intellectual history, the article studies Soviet discussions on long cycles. The study analyzes in detail the connection between Kondratiev’s economic and epistemological ideas, as well as the connection between the debate on long cycles and the political conjuncture of the 1920s. In particular, the article shows that criticism from L. D. Trotsky and Soviet economists prompted N. D. Kondratiev to turn to the issue of epistemology. The article also shows that we should not take the methodological criticism of Kondratiev’s opponents seriously because they were biased against him. In the mid-1920s, Soviet economists’ negative attitude to the idea of long cycles refl ects the conflict between N. D. Kondratiev and employees of the State Planning Committee, which escalated under the influence of the inner-party struggle. The attention of L. D. Trotsky, in its turn, was attracted to the idea of long cycle in connection with forecasts both attributed to N. D. Kondratiev and those formulated by him. The article publishes a previously unknown forecast, declared by N. D. Kondratiev in 1926, about the upcoming economic crisis and the dynamics of military and social conflicts at the turn of the decades.

ИНСТИТУТ ХОЗРАСЧЕТА В СОВЕТСКОМ ГОСУДАРСТВЕ: ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКОЕ ОБОСНОВАНИЕ И ПОЛИТИКО-ПРАВОВОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ ПЕРИОДА «ЗАСТОЯ» (РУБЕЖ 1980 ГОДА)

The article reveals the theoretical aspects and political and legal features of the development of the institute of economic calculation in the Soviet economy at the final stage of the period of «stagnation» (the second half of the 1970s-the beginning of the 1980s). It is noted that «Kosygin reforms» were carried out in the USSR for a decade and a half to this milestone, where increased attention was paid to household calculation. However, within the framework of a planned socialist economy, this principle did not give the expected effect, and the country’s leadership did not dare to make drastic changes (the introduction of elements of market relations). As a result, the period of» stagnation «was replaced by a relatively short» perestroika», the collapse of the economy and the collapse of the USSR.

«Scenes in the Soviet Russia. Summer of 1930». Фильм Франка Феттера о визите в СССР в 1930 г.

The article presents results of studying the amateur film “Scenes in the Soviet Russia. Summer of 1930” by the American economist Frank Whitson Fetter (1899–1991) filmed in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1930. Firstly, it reviews historiography of amateur cinema and notes methods used in the research on Fetter's film. The section “Context of creation” reconstructs conditions of filming the movie in the USSR and circumstances of its currency. Fetter came to the country with intention of becoming expert in Soviet economics. He came well prepared: he had a Leica camera, a 16 mm Bell & Howell movie camera, and large supply of films. Fetter spent six days in Moscow and six weeks in Kazan, voyaged on the Volga and the Caspian Sea, visited the Caucasus, and then returned to Moscow for three days and went back to the United States. During his trip, he took about 300 photographs and made a 40-minute movie. While photographs have already been introduced into scientific use, the film remains unknown to scholars and wide audience. The section “Movie content and aesthetics” considers plot and film techniques and elements. The movie consists of three parts: his stay in Moscow, his visit to the Autonomous Tatar Republic (ATSSR), cruise on the Volga and the Caspian Sea. The starting point for the analysis was Pierre Bourdieu's research on amateur photography. According to his conclusions, each group of people chooses a certain range of objects, genres, and compositions for shooting, and thus, the image is socially constructed. Fetter's cinematic area was determined by his research interests and experience. His draft notes confirm that his focus during filming was on the economic sphere. The movie aesthetics direct the viewer's eye to these plots. While observing everyday life, Fetter captured urban and rural transport infrastructure, trade relations, purchase and sale process and range of goods, queues. When visiting the countryside, Fetter observed the harvest and filmed various stages of the process. The film focuses on production and material base of individual and collective farms, organization and conditions of peasants work, residential and farm buildings, details of everyday life. The Volga-Caspian voyage permitted to capture the state of water transport, conditions of passenger and goods transportation. He devoted particular attention to filming propaganda materials. Thus, the film represents his professional interests and highlights socio-economic situation during the New Economic Policy dismantlement and transition to forced industrialization and collectivization.

Дихотомия политэкономии социализма 1960–1970-х гг.: между планом и рынком

The study continues the discussion opened in this journal by R. M. Nureev and P. A. Orekhovsky (2021, No. 2) about the development of the political economy of socialism in the 1960s and 1970s in the USSR. Soviet economists of this period were highly aware of the imminent changes in the country’s economy and especially of the need for a transition from the mobilization economy to a more normal economic cycle based on the broader use of commodity-money relations and market relations. These questions were at the centre of the debates between the proponents of economic planning and advocates of the «natural» market system: the latter school of thought consisted of researchers from the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciencies and was led by Yakov Kronrod and the former were members of the Department of Political Economy of the Moscow State University led by Nikolai Tsagolov. This debate helped formulate the key principles of market economy and cast doubt on the feasibility of many Soviet ideological formulae and cliches. The discussion was put to an end by the administrative interference when the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a decree in 1971, which led to the reorganization of the Institute of Economics. Thus, the school that supported economic planning won and the development of a rudimentary market economy was suppressed. As a result of this debate, however, the key concepts and mechanisms of the transition from the centrally planned to market economy (which happened two decades later) were formulated. In the post-Soviet period, the speed of the transition to the market economy and the inadequacy of the economic reforms caused significant damage to the country’s economic system. Until the collapse of the USSR, the proponents of the market economy had continued to defend its advantages over the planned economy but did not support the idea of a market society. Although the political economy played a crucial role in the intellectual history of Russia, in the post-Soviet period, it largely lost its former significance.

Тенденції економічної трансформації промисловості АР Крим у 1991–2002 рр.

Метою статті є дослідження та визначенні основних тенденцій трансформації економіки АР Крим у 1991–2002 рр. для усвідомлення досвіду реформування економіки та її відбудови в майбутньому. Методологія дослідження ґрунтується на принципах науковості, об’єктивності, системності, історизму, а також включає методи аналізу, синтезу та класифікації. Використання наукової методології забезпечило об’єктивне висвітлення зазначеної проблематики. Наукова новизна роботи полягає у тому, що авторкою на основі статистичних матеріалів розкрито основні тенденції економічної трансформації промисловості АР Крим у пострадянський період у 1991–2002 рр., проаналізовано особливості змін промисловості регіону, розкрито основні проблеми економіки АР Крим у пострадянський період, визначено закономірності та регіональні особливості реформування радянської економіки. Також у статті окреслено фундаментальні соціально-економічні проблеми, які отримала АР Крим у спадщину від СРСР, та шляхи їх усунення. Висновки. В означений період 1991–2002 рр. відбулася еволюція економіки у напрямку лібералізації ринкового господарства. Щодо промисловості, то вона втратила домінанті позиції на користь сільського господарства, торгівлі та курортно-санаторного господарства. Економіка перехідного періоду зіткнулася з низкою нових проблем. Відбувся повний занепад деяких галузей важкої промисловості та повне зникнення окремих із них, наприклад, залізорудної та чорної металургії. Інші галузі виробництва змогли дещо пристосуватися до нових умов, що стосується насамперед підприємств легкої промисловості. До найбільших проблем перехідного періоду відносяться як суто економічні (брак власної валюти та тонізація), так і позаекономічні – передусім вплив кримінального світу на процеси господарювання.

ХОЗЯЙСТВЕННЫЕ ВЕДОМСТВА ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ 1940-Х ГГ.: К ТИПОЛОГИИ «ЛОББИСТСКИХ ГРУПП» В СОВЕТСКОЙ ПЛАНОВОЙ СИСТЕМЕ. ЧАСТЬ I

The author decomposes mechanisms of cooperative actions taken by departmental struggling parties (People's Commissariats -Ministries above all else) to defend their economic interests. The study covers chronological time range between 1945 and 1950s, period of developing and implementation of the 4th Five-year industrial plan. The specificity of this period was determined by the conversion transition marked the “end of the war”, during which all sectors of the Soviet economy were adapted to work in peacetime. The struggle between the People's commissariats (Ministries) for more reasonable conditions for the fulfillment of economic obligations forced their leaders to create informal groups, which the author calls «lobby groups». Each of them was formed to protect the interests of the industrial sector it represented. The author proposes a typology of such groups based on the analysis of correspondence between economic departments and Stalin's governmental deputies, who were responsible for the success of one or another initiative by industry lobbyists.

УРАЛ ПРОТИВ ЮГА: ГУСЕНИЧНЫЙ ТРАКТОР В ВИЗУАЛЬНОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ СССР ЭПОХИ ИНДУСТРИАЛИЗАЦИИ

The paper analyzes the role of the tractor as a visual symbol in the Soviet culture of the industrialization era, using a number of different cases including those of painting, photography, graphics, textual narratives, and presentations of material objects. The author shows that, originally, it was wheeled tractor that served as a visual symbol of the socialist transformation of the Soviet village, including both imported machines and those produced by Soviet factories in Leningrad. The start of industrialization and launching of facilities in Stalingrad and Kharkov led to changes in symbolic system: the wheeled tractor SKhTZ-15/30 (“international”) moved to the foreground. However, since the mid-1930s, the symbolic status transferred to the crawler tractor, which corresponded with the major trend of the Soviet economy of the period. Thus, the “Stalinets” tractors of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant started to dominate in the sphere of symbols, combining spectacular appearance, technological reputation of the plant, choice of name, and design solutions in regard for coloring. The paper examines the ways in which the “Stalinets” crawler assumed the leading role in the Soviet visual culture of the second half of the 1930s. However, in 1937, both Stalingrad and Kharkov plants launched their own mass-produced crawler under the name of SKhTZ-NATI. A sort of competition between crawler machines of the South and the Urals unfolded in the Soviet culture of the late 1930s – early 1940s. The author investigates the case by studying the presence of crawler tractors imagery in the decorations of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSHV) in 1939 and in the mosaics of Moscow Metro in 1943. The conclusion is made about the double character of the symbolism of crawler tractors, which served both as general symbols of the promoted success of the Soviet agriculture, and as manifestations of the industrial identity of particular enterprises, cities and territories.

К вопросу корректировки подсчетов карательной политики советского государства на трудовом фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны

The article is devoted to the identification of groups of factors that artificially overstated or, on the contrary, underestimated the results of the punitive policy of the state to strengthen labor discipline during the Great Patriotic War in the industrial sector of the Soviet economy. The study is carried out on the basis of an analysis of both the changed legislative framework in the studied area and the office documentation of the Committees of the Communist Party in the Molotov region. Studying the real practice of applying laws in certain large enterprises of the Molotov region, the author concludes that there is a discrepancy between the number of actual labor crimes and the number of workers convicted of them.

On the need for radical modernization of Russian Entrepreneurial Law

The article deals with the problems of Entrepreneurial Law in the era of modern international sanctions pressure on the economy of the Russian Federation. It pays tribute to the merits of Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (RAS) V.V. Laptev, who not only created the doctrine of Soviet Economic Law in the era of planned economy, but also justified its modernization into Entrepreneurial Law for a market economy. The current stage of the Russian economy can be considered a mobilization economy – the article discusses the reasons and grounds for this. The article substantiates new approaches to the system of this branch of law as a science, as legislation and as an academic discipline, new subjects and objects of Entrepreneurial, its new institutions, for the Russian Entrepreneurial Law of the period of the mobilization economy; it also substantiates the need to return to such an important institution of Soviet Economic Law as legal regulation of planning, with its new content in in the form of legal regulation of strategic planning.

코시긴과 그의 동료들 – 코시긴 개혁의 인적 요소 형성 과정

Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin served as the most crucial figure in undertaking the economic reform of 1965 in the Soviet Union. The whole process of the 1965 economic reform, which was carried forward by a group of cadres with Kosygin as the center, had been closely related to a human network materialized through his political activities in Moscow. Kosygin was chosen as one of the principal economic managers by the central authorities of Moscow in the late 1930s. This promotion stemmed from not only Kosygin’s performance in works, but also a human network he endeavored to create with high-profile cadres in the Party against the background of generational transition in the Soviet society based on larger societal upheaval in the 1930s. The most crucial turning point of Kosygin’s political career was when he began to take charges of wartime mobilization and distribution of resources as well as asset transfers in the Second World War. As the war approached to an end, Kosygin took charge of reforming currency and abolishing the ration system, both of which were key post-war reconstruction policies, starting to collaborate with currency and financial experts hailing from the Soviet Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of the Soviet Union. During this period, Kosygin accumulated experience in addressing the central issues of finance, budget, and monetary circulation in the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet economy and simultaneously familiarized himself with various attitudes of currency and financial experts regarding the future direction of the Soviet economy. Though Kosygin was out of the central posts as he was involved in “Leningrad affairs” for 4 to 5 years, he rather made a larger human network working in various economic offices and departments. Kosygin began to work in the State Planning Committee in 1957 and then as the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, which were directly related to his career in drawing the 1965 economic reform. During this period, Kosygin directed the planning and management of the Soviet economy in general, constructing the fundamental frame of economic reforms through especially working together with groups of economic experts at varying levels up until 1965.

Changes in Quality of Economic Planning in the Late USSR: Technological and Institutional Dynamics

Introduction. Studying the Soviet economic performance is important in searching for arguments in the ongoing debate on the possibilities of routine and strategic planning application for economic development of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the article is to identify the dynamics of the planning quality of the Soviet economy in the framework of the institutional approach to economic history. Materials and Methods. The author constructed a data set filled with available information on key growth indicators (national income, production volume and labor productivity, capital investment) targeted in five-year and annual plans, which passed their way from initial drafts proposed by academic economists and employees of the State Planning Commission to approved legal documents, and to the further implementation, presented in branch (industry, agriculture, retail) and spatial (union republics) breakdown. The archival data on the growing activity of the State Planning Commission for revising the approved planned indicators is of our primary contribution. Results. The author highlights the factors underlying the deviations for key planned aggregated indicators that arose at various stages of their preparation, adoption and revision, between their approved figures and actual performance. The results of the data analysis basically confirmed our hypothesis that the technological improvement of the planning process was largely offset by the deterioration of institutional interactions between its subjects. Discussion and Conclusion. While there were signs of an increase in the role of scientists in the process of drafting five-year plans from the second half of the 1950s to the mid-1970s, then from the second half of the 1970s we find less and less evidence that they played a meaningful role in the short and medium term planning processes. On the other hand, our analysis revealed a significantly higher level of fulfillment in annual breakdown compared to five-year one. This confirms the view that just annual plans performed more operational functions, as compared to the motivational ones, in managing the Soviet economy.

HUMAN CAPITAL IN THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CATEGORIES CONCERNING THE LABOUR MARKET: THEORETICAL ASPECTS

Introduction. Questions concerning the labour market organization and regulation are getting more and more actual under the current conditions and require theoretical and methodological research economic categories regarded to this process. In a planned economy such terms as «labour resources», «labour power», «labour potential» were basic. The term «human capital» was unacceptable for the soviet economy whereas this economic category was used widely in foreign economic research. Recently domestic scientists have also paid more attention to this problem. This article is devoted to relations between different economic categories concerning the labour market. Methods. Such methods as dialectical method of cognition of economic processes, methods of scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, generalization, structural and functional, and comparative analysis, formalization and monographic methods are used in the article. Results. This study reveals the essence of term «human capital» and shows its features and substantiates the place of this term in the system of economic categories concerning the labour market. Discussion. Studying «human resources» category is very actual and requires further efforts of scientists and practitioners. It is a rather prospective and important direction of research in both theoretical and practical spheres. Human capital should be on the first place in considering questions concerning the labour market. Efficiency of the labour market regulation, an economic growth of the country and improvement of living standards mostly depend on investment in human capital.