The Political Economy of Stalinism
Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives

This book describes how and why the Soviet administrative command system operated and failed.

Paul R. Gregory (Author)

9780521826280, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 October 2003

322 pages, 22 b/w illus. 29 tables
23.7 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.542 kg

'This is an important book as it presents the first systematic account of the Soviet economic system using these unpublished sources, drawing together the new research by Gregory and others, in a form that is easily accessible to the wider academic community and students. It presents its material in a clear and concise manner that both deepens and broadens our knowledge. It does so by relating the new archive material to the debates that have dominated the Soviet literature for many decades, with Gregory providing a refreshing insight of his own to many of those debates.' The Slavonic and East European Review

This book uses the formerly secret Soviet state and Communist Party archives to describe the creation and operations of the Soviet administrative command system. It concludes that the system failed not because of the 'jockey'(i.e. Stalin and later leaders) but because of the 'horse' (the economic system). Although Stalin was the system's prime architect, the system was managed by thousands of 'Stalins' in a nested dictatorship. The core values of the Bolshevik Party dictated the choice of the administrative command system, and the system dictated the political victory of a Stalin-like figure. This study pinpoints the reasons for the failure of the system - poor planning, unreliable supplies, the preferential treatment of indigenous enterprises, the lack of knowledge of planners, etc. - but also focuses on the basic principal-agent conflict between planners and producers, which created a sixty-year reform stalemate.

1. The jockey or the horse?
2. Collectivization, accumulation, and power
3. The principles of governance
4. Investment, wages, and fairness
5. Visions and control figures
6. Planners versus producers
7. Creating Soviet industry
8. Operational planning
9. Ruble control: money, prices, and budgets
10. The destruction of the Soviet administrative command economy.

Subject Areas: Economic systems & structures [KCS], Political economy [KCP], Politics & government [JP], Sociology & anthropology [JH]