Soviet And Post Soviet Economic Structure And Performance

This text has been updated to focus on the radical changes which the former Soviet Union has recenly experienced - its reorganization and its transition from a planned to market economy, examining the history of the Soviet Union more succinctly than in previous editions.

The Seventh Edition of Russian and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure offers students a balanced perspective in understanding the Soviet past and Russia's present and future. With thorough coverage of the Soviet legacy, the transition, and the contemporary Russian economy, the text allows instruction from either ahistorical or contemporary perspective. *NEW! A major update of the critical economic issues in contemporary Russia at the dawn of the twenty-first century. *NEW! Increased coverage of the critical energy and agriculture sectors of key issues such as privatization where more and better evidence is now available. *NEW! An assessment of a full ten years of Russian economic performance under transition, including increased emphasis on the basic issues in transition and the important differences between Russia and other transition economies. *NEW! Updated terminology for easier reference by students. *Allows flexible teaching choices. New contemporary focus still allows instructors the flexibility to teach the course from a historical perspective. *Authors are established, active scholars who are widely known and well respected in the field of comparative economic syste

Textbook on economic structure and the performance of planned economy in the USSR - reviews the evolution of the Soviet economic system and economic administration; covers industrialization, trade development, economic integration and CMEA, resource allocation, economic policies, growth rate trends, etc.; and includes historical background. Bibliography, diagrams, statistical tables.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Region: Russia, grade: High Distinction, Flinders University (Social Sciences), course: Introduction to Globalisation, language: English, abstract: This essay aims at explaining the impacts of the processes globalisation on the fall of the Soviet Union and the problems this created for the new Russia in transition. First of all it is necessary to look at some parts of the history of the Soviet Union and the nature of Communism before moving on to defining globalisation and its effects on Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Why is it so important to deal with history first? It is because the former Soviet Union economically and ideologically had shut itself off to most parts of the globe for decades and hence the effects of globalisation must be reflected under the light of these specific circumstances. In short, the Bolshevik uprising in 1917 was successful and brought the Bolshevik Party into power which was renamed Communist Party in 1918. In the years from 1918 to 1921 a civil war followed in which the Bolshevik regime was almost overthrown but managed to stay in power, taking control over the economy and turning it into a war economy. After 1918 the Soviet Union experienced three years of war communism. Under the wing of Socialism the economy was organised in a military sense and forced the whole nation to put their labour into keeping up a traditional army and securing military power.1 In 1921 Lenin introduced The New Economic Policy as he realised that war communism was a failure and that it had led to peasant revolts endangering the Soviet State. The idea now was to maintain industry under state control and to allow a market for agriculture, trade and commerce.2 This system made it possible for peasants and rural capitalists to gain relative wealth whereas the urban population experienced increasing unemployment. By the late 1920s this emerging rural capitalism was regarded as a threat to the system and lead to a very fragile relationship between the Communist government and the rural population. In order to avoid the collapse of Communist Soviet Union, Stalin implemented mass collectivisation of agriculture and rapid industrialisation.3 [...] 1 David Christian, Imperial and Soviet Russia: Power, Privilege and the Challenge of Modernity, Macmillan Press, Houndsmills, 1997, pp.207 – 231. 2 David Lockwood, The Destruction of the Soviet Union, Macmillan Press, Houndsmills, 2000, p.66. 3 David Christian, Imperial and Soviet Russia: Power, Privilege and the Challenge of Modernity, Macmillan Press, Houndsmills, 1997, pp. 262 & 265.

Adapted from the fifth edition of Gregory and Stuart's Soviet and Post-Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, this text looks at the operation of the new Russian economy. It focuses on the radical changes which the former Soviet Union has recently experienced: its reorganization and its transition from plan to market. Its main focus, however, is on Russia and the CIS states: their immediate Soviet past, the meaning of that past experience for current problems and policies, and contemporary working arrangements and outcomes. This text is suitable for new undergraduate students in economics and comparative systems.

The inside story of the political collpase of the Soviet Union is far better understood than the course of economic and social disintegration. In order to capture the story, the editors compiled a list of questions which they addressed to former top Soviet officials and economic and other policy advisors (both Soviet and foreign) who were privy not only to data on the functioning of the Soviet economy but also to the internal policy debate during the 1980s. This volume assembles the Informants' analyses of key issues and the turning points, and weaves them into a compelling history of systemic collapse. Among the topics investigated are: economic policies in the 1980s; the standard of living: the reliability of Soviet statistics; Gosplan's projections for the economy to the year 2000; was the arms race starving the civilian economy? the role of ideology in supporting the functioning of an economic system; the party's participating in economic management; the influence of foreign advisors; the struggle over a transition program; the functioning and collapse of the supply system, the CMEA, and the foreign trade system.

At first, it seemed as if the international financial crisis that broke out in 2008 would have little effect in Russia and the other post-Soviet states. But, by the end of the year, growth was slowing, banks were reluctant to lend, share values had collapsed and unemployment was rising inexorably. The stability of the Putin leadership, it appeared, had been built on the turnaround in economic performance that it had managed to achieve over more than a decade. How would it cope with a sudden reversal? In Ukraine, living standards fell even more sharply. In Belarus, there were fewer obvious signs of economic difficulty, but it could hardly be unaffected by the performance of its major trading partners. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, an international group of scholars address the impact of the international financial crisis in the post-Soviet states and the continuing implications of the crisis for these countries themselves and for the wider world. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, now known as East European Politics.