Stalin's latest analytical work “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” was published in the last decade of September 1952 of the year, 65 years ago. Many Western mass media noted that, contrary to the hopes of the “disciples and comrades-in-arms”, Stalin literally shook old times. Moreover, he demonstrated his enormous potential of the country's leader and analyst. But the main thing is that Stalin, according to the same estimates, directly made it clear: the current system of economic management needs to be reformed, which was very dangerous for the party-state nomenclature.
This work is basically a collection of Stalin’s detailed answers to numerous questions addressed to him by participants of the 1950 – 1952 all-union economic discussion on the USSR’s internal and external economic policies and the creation of a textbook on political economy, which was published in 1953 in May. This work was translated into national languages in more than 25 countries, for example, it was reprinted five times in the PRC (the last in the 1999 year).
But in the USSR, most socialist countries have already forgotten about this work since 1955 – 1956, because the nature of their socio-economic development has since more and more contradicted the recommendations of “Economic Problems”. What these contradictions ended in is well known ...
In his work, Stalin with detailed justification indicated that there were many problems in the Soviet economy, and the administrative and management system in this area needed reforms. The main tasks are the reduction of directive state intervention in the economy, the promotion of economic rather than managerial methods of regulation, increasing the level of competence of leading cadres in various sectors and preventing the “expropriation” by the state of all sectors of the USSR economy. In the same work, the basic economic laws of socialism and communist construction, as well as world economic trends, were formulated. It is also characteristic that Stalin noted the advantages of cost accounting, which was actively introduced at that time in Yugoslavia, which had quarreled with the USSR in 1948.
Here are some of the above-mentioned accents of this work, topical without a statute of limitations: “At our enterprises such issues as economic accounting and profitability, the cost price, the price issue, etc. are of current importance. Therefore, our enterprises cannot do without should not disregard the law of value. " This circumstance “teaches our business executives to accurately calculate production quantities and just as accurately take into account real things in production, rather than engage in chatter about“ indicative data ”taken from the ceiling. It teaches our business executives to systematically improve production methods, reduce its cost, carry out economic calculations and achieve profitability of enterprises. This is a good practical school that accelerates the growth of our economic cadres and their transformation into real leaders of socialist production. ”
“The trouble is not that the law of value affects our production. The trouble is that our business executives and planners, with few exceptions, are not familiar with the actions of the law of value, do not study them and do not know how to take them into account in their calculations. This explains the confusion that still “weights” on the issue of price policy. ”
In the same work, Stalin spoke in favor of a clear definition of the property of the private farms of collective farmers, subjected to frequent reductions under Khrushchev. According to Stalin, “it would be wrong to say in the draft textbook that“ every collective farm yard has a cow, small livestock and poultry for personal use ”. In fact, as is known, the cow, small livestock, poultry, etc., are the personal property of the collective farm yard. The expression "in personal use" is taken, apparently, from the Model Charter of the Agricultural Artel ". But this document “made a mistake. The USSR Constitution states: “Each collective farm yard owns a private farm on a private plot, a dwelling house, productive livestock, poultry, and small agricultural equipment.”
In addition, it would be necessary to say in more detail that each collective farmer has in personal property from one to so many cows, according to local conditions, so many sheep, goats, pigs and an unlimited number of poultry (ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys ). These details are of great importance for our foreign comrades, who want to know exactly what actually remained in the collective farm yard in his personal property after the collectivization of agriculture was carried out in our country. ”
Stalin subjected the proposals, supported by Khrushchev already in the last Stalin years, to comprehensive criticism: about the conversion of collective farms into state farms, about the sale to collective farms of machine-tractor stations (MTS) and agricultural chemistry facilities. These ideas, Stalin equated to undermine the Soviet economy through the inevitable bankruptcy of collective farms, if the ideas are implemented. In “Economic Problems” Stalin also spoke out against the nationalization of everything and everyone in the economy: “It is believed that the transfer of property of individuals and groups to state ownership is the only or in any case the best form of nationalization. This is not true. The transfer to state ownership is not the only or even the best form of nationalization, but the original form of nationalization. ” Note that this thesis is part of the ideological basis of Chinese economic reforms.
In addition, in his last work, Stalin speaks in detail about the feasibility of creating an economic bloc of postcolonial and socialist countries, including the “de-dollarization” of their foreign trade and financial system. This project stems from the recommendations of the international economic meeting held at the initiative of the USSR at the beginning of April 1952 in Moscow with the participation of 49 countries. The forum also announced growing barriers in global trade. But the implementation of such decisions has been de facto “frozen” since the second half of 1953 (“Friends of the Golden Ruble”, “MIC”, No. 13, 2017).
But Khrushchev in 1955 – 1964 has achieved the realization of everything Stalin criticized. First of all, these are orders on socialist competition at the rate of consolidation of collective farms and the sale of MTS to them in 1958 – 1961 years, which together in a few years turned most collective farms into chronic debtors of the state. And the situation only worsened, despite the periodic write-off of collective farm debts to the state. As a result, by the end of 80-x to 70 percent of the Soviet collective farms were bankrupt or unprofitable. Moreover, up to 60 percent of this amount accounted for the RSFSR. And it is quite remarkable that those Khrushchev decisions were not canceled in the post-Khruschev period.
The situation of agrarians was aggravated by growing taxes on household farms on collective and state farms, supplemented in 1960 – 1962 by taxing every berry bush, fruit tree, every pig, poultry and small horned cattle in these farms. And cattle were generally forcibly seized from peasants at symbolic prices due to the growing shortage of meat and meat products in most major cities and industrial centers of the USSR due to the effects of virgin and corn campaigns. These Khrushchev laws were abolished in 1965 – 1966, but their disastrous consequences made a significant contribution to economic destruction and, accordingly, to the collapse of the USSR.
In the context of this book of Stalin and what happened in the country after March 1953, it is useful to quote the seemingly pathological anti-Soviet and Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski: “Under Stalin, the Soviet Union really became a great industrial power. Indeed, there was an outflow of its population from the villages. The centralized socialist system was fully rebuilt. And at the same time, the Soviet economy had a relatively high growth rate. Probably, I could advise how to save the system, but by the year of 1985 it was already too late. I think that the Soviet system began to decline as early as 60, and it all began with a fall in the level of governance of the country. I have to admit that Stalin was an incredibly capable and intelligent man and the level of Soviet rule under him was quite high. Then Stalin had already grown old, became sick, tired. And after his death, the level began to decline markedly. "
And the reduction of this level was completed with the destruction of the state, in which many of the leading party and state nomenclatures in the center and in the regions participated. However, already during the formation of this book, Stalin was opposed by the then pro-Stalinist nomenclature. Since, for obvious reasons, it was against the nature of the reform of the system of economic management and socio-economic policy outlined in the same book.
According to economist and historian Vladimir Pisarev, “after 1950, when the USSR became the world leader in the production of heavy stationary equipment for the industry, economists and statistics, hiding it from Stalin and from the people and thus preventing the timely social reorientation of the economy, led the country ways of economic idiocy. This gave rise to endless deficiencies in the country, with the USSR leading in the extraction and use of resources, as well as high prices, taxes and unnatural poverty of the majority of the population. And all the “reforms” of 1985 – 1991 were aimed at aggravating the situation, which is why the economy of the USSR and he collapsed. ”
According to the same data, by the end of the year 1951, the USSR, having overtaken the USA, came out on top in the world also in the number and power of annually produced electric motors for completing all kinds of equipment. But this achievement from Stalin and the public “was also hidden. Thus, Stalin was not allowed to conclude in the “Economic Problems” that the task set back in 1929 “over the years 15 to catch up with the United States in terms of industrialization” was basically solved, despite all the losses in the war, with a delay of only five years ” .
In a word, comprehensive preparation for the collapse of the USSR is a project of more than one decade.