Valentin Katasonov, "Stalin's Economy": summary, reviews

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

The main goal of the book "The Economics of Stalin" is to explain in an accessible language everything that happened in the country during the reign of Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. The practice of teaching at the university prompted Valentin Yurievich Katasonov to ascertain with great regret that the younger generation lacked economic knowledge. In particular, important facts from the history of the USSR.

The book "Economics of Stalin" is not the final of Katasonov's economic investigation. It is complemented by the second work of the author, which is called "Economic war against Russia and Stalin's industrialization". This book focuses on the events of recent years. Especially the so-called economic sanctions against the Russian Federation.

The target audience for the second book is "non-students". According to Valentin Katasonov, those people who are now designing the economic policy of Russia are poorly acquainted with the experience of Stalin's industrialization. Therefore, without taking a breath, it was for them that he sat down to write “our answer to Chamberlain” - his second book, which is moreopportunistic.

About Stalin's personality

In his book, Valentin Katasonov notes that in parallel with industrialization, Stalin tried to create an economic theory. However, according to the author, it would be more efficient to first create something, and then implement it.

The desire to prepare a textbook on political economy arose from Stalin back in the 30s, during the period of industrialization and building the foundations of socialism, for which he called the leading economists of the USSR. This happened when he realized that it was practically impossible to implement the ideas of Marxism in a country with a special culture, which is the USSR. Therefore, Stalin drew attention to the political economy that was popular at that time in England.

Reviews of the book "Stalin's Economics" are mostly positive. Many note the depth of the work done, the reliability of the data presented, the simplicity of the material presented.

What is it about?

In his book, Valentin Yurievich closely studies the following periods:

1. The period of industrialization of the USSR.
2. The period of the Great Patriotic War.
3. Post-war economic recovery (until about mid-1950s).

This time period, which does not exceed 30 years, became the main experimental subject of Valentin Yurievich. Back in the 70s, the author asked himself the question: why did this efficient machine begin to f alter?

Are you interested too? You will find the answer to the question in the book by Valentin Katasonov "Economics of Stalin".

Shortcontent. Chapter 1

In Chapter 1 "On the Stalinist economy and higher goals" the author introduces us to the subject of discussion. And already in the title of the first chapter, it seems to hint at the solution of the task.

According to Valentin Katasonov, the main disadvantage of the "efficient machine" is that all the goals set for society were purely economic. Absolutely everything was confined to the material and technical base of communism, to the satisfaction of man's material needs. But for a peaceful period of existence of countries, like wartime, you need your own “holy” goal.

Of course, there was something high on the list of priority tasks of the Stalinist economy. In addition to creating a material and technical base, improving industrial relations, the task was to create a new person. But what is he like? It was not decided. According to Valentin Yuryevich, this became the Achilles' heel of Stalin's economy.

Chapter 2

The second chapter of the book "Stalin's Economy" tells about the "economic miracle" of the USSR. The author admits that in it he does not bring anything new to society. In addition to systematized statistical data, which indicate that the USSR in the post-war period showed miracles. Compared to the West, our country has accomplished the practically impossible - in a few years it has risen from its knees, begun to work, earn money and build! The West tried in every possible way to prevent the development of such violent activity. Intelligence tricks, information and other methods of the Cold War were used.

One of the "miracles of Stalin" -lower retail prices. And it was a real system, not a pre-election PR campaign. The first wave of price cuts was timed to coincide with the monetary reform of December 1947. The latter was carried out after the assassination of Stalin in April 1953. A total of 6 consecutive retail price reductions were organized.

It's no secret that such a policy cannot be implemented without a serious economic background - a consistent reduction in production costs. Under Stalin, an unknown counter-cost mechanism worked for us now.

Chapter 3. "Dismantling the Stalinist Economy"

The author formally limits the period to 1956 or the XX Congress of the CPSU. It was after this that the sectoral principle of managing the economy began to collapse. Nikita Khrushchev made a significant contribution to this matter.

Chapter 4. Interesting to both historians and economists

In chapter number 4, the author talks about Stalin's industrialization as an economic miracle. He admits that he was literally forced to write about this, since many modern textbooks on economic history contain distorted facts. The period of the new economic policy in the book "Stalin's Economy" is described in sufficient detail. Therefore, it will be of interest to both historians and economists.

The author begins the study of the topic with a financial issue. Because neither economic nor historical sources contain information about the means by which industrialization was carried out. The author tried to reproduce formulate its formula. He analyzed the main versions of the sourcesforeign exchange coverage of the costs of industrialization, but did not find an answer to my question.

Based on this, Valentin Katasonov in Chapter 5 analyzes 7 versions of industrialization coverage sources.

On the sources of Stalinist industrialization

1. Soviet exports. But if we take into account that during the economic crisis it fell significantly, it was simply impossible to provide the economy only at the expense of these funds. There was not enough money to keep existing businesses afloat, let alone build new ones. In total, during the Stalin era, about 1000 new enterprises were built a year.
2. "Operation Hermitage". The author borrowed the screaming name from Zhukov. This version is associated with the "dispossession" of cultural heritage sites. However, Valentin Katasonov notes that the maximum estimate of foreign exchange earnings from looting in museums was about 25 million gold rubles, which is equal to about half of the Stalingrad plant (50 million worth of equipment was purchased from it).
3. Gold reserves. Here it is worth remembering that by the year 23-25 of the last century the treasury was empty. After industrialization, about 100 tons of gold remained. And even the confiscations of precious metals could not help to carry out the transition process throughout the country. Undoubtedly, after the 1930s there was an increase in the currency department. By the end of the first third of the century, we reached the figure of 150 tons of gold per year. However, the question arises: was this gold used for industrialization? After all, Stalin mined it not in order to buy something from it, but forin order to save.
4. Foreign loans and investments. However, do not forget that during the days of credit blockades, long-term loans were not given, only installments. In 1936, the external debt of the USSR was approaching 0. They built enterprises, accumulated gold - there were no debts. This meant that there were no loans.
5. Geopolitical project of the West. However, according to the author, there are no “documentary ends” here.
6. A broken phone, or what W alter Germanovich Krivitsky said. He was a scout and fled to the West, after which he wrote a book in which he said that Stalin had set up the production of counterfeit dollars (about 200 million a year). The author believes that such a development of events is quite possible. If dollars were printed, then for special services and operations along the line of the Comintern. But not for industrialization. In those days, they did not like to pay in cash, and any production of money, and even on such a huge scale, would be immediately detected.
7. Version 7 the author considers the most delicate and complex. Back in the 70s, Valentin Katasonov heard versions that Stalin carried out dispossession. However, not within the country. Iosif Vissarionovich encouraged offshore aristocracy. This topic rarely pops up in the media, there are practically no sources other than eyewitnesses and their stories. Therefore, the issue of version number 7 remains open.

Next chapter by chapter. Chapter 6

Stalin's economy and the state monopoly of foreign trade. The author devotes special attention in this chapter to all-Union foreign trade associations that specialized in theirexport and import group.

Valentin Yuryevich admits that he was faced with a lack of knowledge among students on such concepts as "the state monopoly of foreign trade" and related to it. Therefore, the book will be useful for both historians and students, because it not only discusses the Stalinist model of the economy, but also provides a lot of useful theoretical information.

Chapter 7

This chapter is about money and credit. In it, the author reviews how the monetary system of the USSR was arranged. It is worth noting that it has been reformed several times and has existed in its final form since the 60s.

Valentin Yurievich notes that it was one-level and very effective. There was a state bank - the Central Bank, an institution that implements the function of the state currency monopoly - a bank for foreign trade, and a bank for long-term lending to investment projects - Promstroibank. Each of them had a powerful branch system. The same "Promstroibank" had thousands of outlets, and "Vneshtorgbank" had social foreign financial institutions that helped to implement the external currency monopoly.

Chapter 8, or "Stalin's Gold"

The author admits that he has been dealing with this topic for more than one year. And not by choice. He is forced to raise it, because the patriots "step on the same rake." For example, they propose to withdraw the ruble into foreign trade. Katasonov notes that even with a strong Stalinist economy, they did not demand rubles for exports, and they did not buy imports for them. Why Joseph Vissarionovichheld such views? Find out by reading the book.

There are 13 chapters in the book. The ninth is devoted to the disclosure of such a concept as "the shadow capital of the USSR." Tenth - the forced alienation of property from the revolutionaries. The author speaks of Stalin as a doctor, as a connoisseur of economics. He demonstrates this with a concrete example, which he reveals in Chapter 9, “Shadow Capital of the USSR.”

After the war, Stalin did not fully capitalize the economy. There remain collective farms, trade artels, which, by the way, are forgotten by many. But it was they who produced stationery, children's toys, radios and other equipment. In 1960 the artels were completely closed. It is the enterprises that appeared in their place that are the shadow economy of the USSR. This issue is still poorly understood by historians.

Chapters 11, 12 and 13 Valentin Katasonov dedicated to the Soviet ruble.