Reforms of the Russian military-industrial complex in the 90s: conversion or sabotage?

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One of the most erroneous, moreover, criminal decisions of the perestroika reformers of the 90s was the so-called conversion of the domestic military-industrial complex, which essentially resulted in its ruin and destruction, which almost ended in a complete collapse of the defense industry. At the same time, it should be understood that the point here was not in itself the idea of ​​producing civilian products at military enterprises, but in exactly how ugly and perverted way they tried to implement it in our country.

I remember that Mikhail Gorbachev was very offended by the words Vladimir Putin once said about “the inadmissibility of the production of pans at rocket factories,” and he immediately began to prove that nothing of the kind actually happened. He argued that the attempt "to forge swords into plowshares", begun by him in the USSR and "creatively developed" by the followers of "perestroika" already in Russia, "did not cause any damage to the country's defense." Moreover, it also "fully met the needs of citizens in an era of scarcity." Let's leave aside the moment that the mentioned deficit was created by Mikhail Sergeevich and his team. Let's try to find out how much truth is in the rest of his words.



Let's face it - a little. Practically none at all. Is it possible to consider the decline in military-industrial complex production from 1992 to 1996 by almost 78% as “no damage to defense capability”? And the complete collapse of entire clusters of promising armory programs - for example, the development and production of air-to-air missiles, electronic warfare systems and others? Sawing (in the most literal sense of the word - for scrap) unfinished tanks, combat aircraft and ships? Leaving two and a half million specialists from the states of defense plants, design bureaus and research institutes over the course of several years? The questions seem to be rhetorical. But this is only half the trouble.

By 1997, the corporation of half of the Russian military-industrial complex enterprises, their exit from state control, the transfer of 30% of military enterprises to private hands and the "entry" of many of them by foreign representatives who were able to take full advantage of the opportunities provided to master technologies and production secrets, with which they could not even dream not so long ago - is it a "conversion" or is it the purest sabotage? The purposeful destruction of the military-industrial complex almost threw not only the domestic armed forces, but the entire country into the "stone age".

Now, in fact, about the pans. As well as pots, meat grinders and other cheap consumer goods, the release of which at military factories has forever become a part of national folklore. Yes, we did! However, not at all because the directors of the respective enterprises were complete idiots or pests. There were very serious and specific reasons for this. To begin with, the production of not just civilian products, but consumer goods was carried out by enterprises of the Soviet military-industrial complex even before Gorbachev and his guardsmen came to power.

Few people now know and remember this, but it was in this area by the end of the 80s that up to 2 thousand different products were produced, which had no military, but purely economic or even, as they said then, “cultural and household purpose”. And here it was just not about primitive frying pans. Almost 100% of radios, 95% of refrigerators, 69% of vacuum cleaners, 66% of washing machines and so on came out of the shops of enterprises every year.

In addition, it also produced computers worth 5 billion rubles, equipment for light industry enterprises - more than 3 billion rubles. Full-weight, mind you, still quite Soviet rubles. You can also recall the popularly loved Izhevsk motorcycles, cameras of the Leningrad LOMO and Kiev "Arsenal" and much more. It would seem that in the conditions of conversion for all these manufacturers, downright heavenly times should have come. It was not so ...

The drop in the output of civilian products of the military-industrial complex (by 71%) was not much behind the decrease in the production of traditional and basic military products by 88%. Why is this so? Yes, because with their insane foreign trade liberalization, the then reformers opened a wide road to the domestic market for imported consumer goods, which, to be honest, was, as a rule, better than domestic samples, and most importantly - several times cheaper. Especially - imported smuggled or semi-legally. Our industry could not withstand such competition.

The fact that any civilian products manufactured at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex were significantly more expensive than their civilian counterparts also played a role. How much? I will give just one specific example: a pump for pumping raw grain with a capacity of 2500 liters per hour, produced at an ordinary plant, cost 180 rubles, and the same unit in the "military" version - already 3 and a half thousand rubles. And the point here was not at all in "greed" - the enterprises of the military-industrial complex used (and are still using) much more expensive equipment, materials, semi-finished products and everything else. And people work there, whose work is paid somewhat at different rates than in civilian life. Hence the difference.

In the end, the directors of military factories, from which the "higher authorities" with a knife at their throats demanded the release of "conversion products", and the remnants of the labor collective - at least some kind of salary, had no choice but to rivet the most miserable examples of consumer goods that could be released the consumer at least is not at a loss. Lucky only those who quickly and successfully found new "niches", having managed to master the production of something really worthwhile, such as equipment for construction or oil production. The rest could only hope for good luck, because the law on conversion adopted in 1992 was nothing more than a set of general phrases and good wishes, but nothing was said about how military enterprises should survive in reality.

Fortunately, completely destroying the most powerful military-industrial complex created during the Soviet Union was not within the power of the entire pack of then reformers. He survived them, however, with great losses for himself, the consequences of which he has to overcome and make up for in the current years. The calls for a “new conversion” that are periodically heard from the lips of the country's “top officials” may well be justified. But in no case can you repeat the mistakes of those years, which were discussed above.
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33 comments
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  1. +4
    15 October 2020 12: 07
    What don't we know yet?
    What haven't we discussed yet?
  2. +16
    15 October 2020 12: 13
    Everything that has happened and is happening in the country since 1991 is one continuous gigadiversion .. For any type of liberal reform is a crime against the people.
    1. +2
      15 October 2020 12: 30
      Quote: paul3390
      Everything that has happened and is happening in the country since 1991 is one continuous gigadiversion.

      Why since 1991. ? And what about Khrush, how they call him names here on the site, perestroika and, numerous Trotskyists, what to do with these.
  3. +4
    15 October 2020 12: 15
    To be honest, as a rule, it is of better quality than domestic samples, and most importantly - several times cheaper.
    ... At the expense of quality, a moot point, but at the expense of the price I agree ..
  4. +5
    15 October 2020 12: 19
    On this topic, only noncezurism is rushing, sorry !!!
  5. +5
    15 October 2020 12: 37
    They came to power from those bastards who did not break the ridge in 41-45! And they are sitting right now, which is interesting! They have one task - to crush the Russians.
  6. 0
    15 October 2020 12: 46
    There was only one question left: why did military enterprises have to produce any civilian trifles? Yes, because in the USSR it was so established. There is, say, a huge military plant. He has a powerful casting. There they pour, conditionally, turrets for tanks. What, they can't cast dumbbells for home exercise? They can. So the dumbbells were poured. Good ones, by the way. Well, in fact, you can't create a special dumbbell factory. So the receivers, the author writes 100% and refrigerators ... Yes, it was. But not at all from a good life, but from the complete absence of an alternative. There is nothing you can do about it. The time was like that. Everything from tanks to buttons and from planes to elastic bands for panties was produced at enterprises subordinate to the State Planning Committee. Everything seems to be good and correct, only the release of tanks and airplanes is easy for the state to follow, but it is hard to track clips, shaving landings, braces and mascara. These necessary things came in one line - "consumer goods" and the total amount in millions of rubles. Dot. There was no time and no one to sort out the little things. I had to hurry. The USSR had to catch up and overtake the USA. Millions of tons of steel, coal, grain, but not pushpins and hairpins. Millions of pairs of shoes, which, of course, could be worn, but the products of the Skorokhod factory looked poor ...
    Today, I don't want to miss those times ...
    1. +2
      15 October 2020 19: 59
      The question here is not that much was done at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex, but in what it resulted in narrow-profile enterprises, where dumbbells, refrigerators or radios could not be a natural by-product. Nimble young specialists, who came out of nowhere, organized some CJSCs and LLPs, joint ventures under import licenses at a secure enterprise, imported and exported something, opened retail outlets ... Naturally, someone covered all this. But for people who wanted to do what they were attracted to in their specialty, there was no benefit from this - only ruin and moral damage. Moreover, it has been increasing since 1990. In 1989, there was still relative order. And the industry of group "B" as a whole lagged far behind group "A" - this is a fact. There is nothing to say. Everyone who had at least a small surplus of funds, on occasion, preferred to import, at least from the socialist countries.
    2. +2
      15 October 2020 22: 37
      I will supplement your material with details. At that time I got to the office
      out of 30 people They had a party cell of 12 people. pre-retirement and
      retirement age. And here comes another
      the telephone message "the party asset to arrive at -00", which meant
      come to the director, party organizer and trade union organizer. These old men are calling
      and they say - you are young, you have a flag in your hands - go, you will write us down,
      well, listen. I come to the House of Political Education, all
      The city's party activists are assembled and CLOSE this House with a key.
      Glass cabinets along the walls and samples of goods
      of popular consumption - meat grinders, preservation keys, supports
      "Zhiguli" and even a horse-drawn horse. Further, the question is posed harshly
      not a single company leaves without taking a suitable
      sample (documentation is attached). UNACCEPTABLE when
      there are 6 industrial giants in the city, and the meat grinder goes to us through the whole
      USSR from the Volga !!! The funniest thing happened with the horse. Her
      took a small regional mechanical plant (and there were three
      stud farm, their trotters were sold in St. Petersburg for currency). Funny
      the fact that the price was already - 46 kopecks. How they did not turn the press,
      no matter how they tried to perform in three, not four or five operations,
      all the same, the cost price came out three times more than
      from the Kuban people, but they also beat for the economy. And if it's funny then
      then everything was very serious - the leaders were sitting right there
      trade and immediately got theirs. That is, how the director did not fight back
      plant, he took a sample and took "on the chest" - 5 thousand pieces. per quarter.
      And immediately the trade received a plan - to SELL 5 thousand units in this quarter.
      and report back. PLAN - LAW (adopted by the Sun) NOT FULFILLMENT OF THE PLAN -
      NOT FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW. Everyone will be involved. House Doors
      open, everyone is free - FOR WORK, Comrades!
    3. 0
      17 October 2020 15: 15
      There was something else. Radio equipment and electronics in military technology. Parts for it passed the entrance control and were stamped with the VP inside the asterisk. But after all, not every single detail of the batch was checked, for example, transistors or microcircuits. If, out of 1000, suppose 7-10 INCOMPLETELY corresponded to the parameters, this batch went for the production of consumer goods (the same Temp, Horizon or Berezka TVs) or in the Yuniy Technik stores.
  7. 0
    15 October 2020 12: 57
    a pump for pumping raw grain with a capacity of 2500 liters per hour, produced at an ordinary plant, cost 180 rubles, and the same unit in the "military" version - already 3 and a half thousand rubles. And the point here was not at all about "greed" - the enterprises of the military-industrial complex used (and are still using) much more expensive equipment, materials, semi-finished products and everything else. And people work there, whose work is paid somewhat at different rates than in civilian life.

    Well no.
    Consumer goods were produced on exactly the same equipment (and sometimes even worse), from the same raw materials, and the workers were paid the same money.
    The main thing is that the military-industrial complex enterprises were required to have production reserves in case of a "special period" - production areas, equipment, stocks of raw materials, extra people on the staff, etc.
    And all this hung with such a huge weight, and added such huge "bonuses" to the price of products.
  8. +8
    15 October 2020 13: 25
    Fortunately, completely destroying the most powerful military-industrial complex created during the Soviet Union was not within the power of the entire pack of then reformers. THEN !? Where did they come from today, did they bring new reformers? Do we have some reformers in the 90s, after the 2000s and now others? They cover up their traces and their activities, deny their deeds in the 90s.
  9. -5
    15 October 2020 15: 20
    The military-industrial complex is only in the USA. In the USSR, there was an industrial-military complex: ("This is what we can do for you, you will fly on that").
  10. +1
    15 October 2020 17: 29
    The calls for a “new conversion” that are periodically heard from the lips of the country's “top officials” may well be justified.

    What kind? What grounds can there be for conversion if the RF Armed Forces are not provided with modern armored combat vehicles, UAVs, aircraft of all purposes, and other types of military equipment, ships in the quantity necessary for a war? What is the conversion ??? !!! am
    1. +2
      15 October 2020 21: 37
      From the experience of the 90s, as an eyewitness to those events, I can say that conversion is a naive temporary measure to survive a difficult time and to preserve at least the main engineering and technical staff of enterprises in the absence of state defense orders. A large defense enterprise will not save civilian consumer goods. And only amateurs can have hope for science-intensive civil instrument making, and even raised from scratch, since this is no less a specific area, like the science-intensive defense industry. Money was allocated only for the defense industry, and complex civilian equipment must be made on our own. Which director would risk such a cost, provided that high-end household appliances are already produced by the Chinese and Koreans? Therefore, not everyone will survive, but only a small part of people united in a small business and able to be self-sufficient, creating a device, or even better, a line of devices that are in demand not voluntarily - compulsorily, but really necessary. And I would also like to remind the "resourceful" directors - do not waste the rest of funds on development, counting on government purchases for the social sphere. If the defense industry does not have money, there will be no money in civilian departments. One pocket. For new developments at a similar time, there are only three independent and cash-backed sectors - banking, transport equipment and trade. At one time we survived, thanks to the ingenuity of our Chief (I always remember him with a kind word), on the development and production of cash registers, cash counting machines and packaging and filling equipment for trade enterprises. Then these were very popular novelties!
    2. +1
      16 October 2020 20: 21
      Conversion is called "sell and tear apart, squander and close"
  11. +4
    15 October 2020 18: 55
    I recall with horror those "blessed years". Died early and many friends died. I drank a lot. With pain I remember how I went to the nearby airfield to watch the Tu-22M3 being destroyed. And then, digging copper in a dump near the railway, I watched the COMPOSITIONS of platforms carrying mutilated pieces of aircraft ...
  12. -1
    15 October 2020 19: 00
    Not, well, of course, in a country with a complete outright surplus of money supply among the population, and with a huge deficit of popular products - the difference in price between the civilian and military ones - did not play a significant role. In the absence of competition. Would have bought it anyway.
    However, due to the lack of competition, quality was reduced, military manufacturers were often overloaded with military products and they did not have time to update their peaceful products. Which in connection with this often had long-standing disadvantages for years.
    Western consumers often bought and changed things - hence competitive issues and the money supply cycle allowed manufacturers to quickly update the required changes (not to mention the pricing approach and Western marketing, which was better than ours).
    Loading military enterprises with civilian products - already for this, in conditions of at least minimal competition with Western products - it was terribly impractical.
    The way out of this "loop" for the USSR was, in fact, to organize the production of export, highly competitive products by military enterprises. And products for peaceful purposes have already been purchased with foreign exchange earnings from these projects, or by establishing barter cooperation with the CMEA countries - and sold already with the state. a mark-up that would go towards the modernization and growth of the peaceful segment of the military industry.
    One way or another, we were part of the international market, it was necessary to use it deeper.
    1. 0
      16 October 2020 01: 35
      There was no need to destroy the Stalinist cooperatives! It was not necessary! They also produced all consumer goods, any household appliances, they caught new items and immediately began to produce them. Whole research teams worked for cooperatives, whole institutes. But these were precisely the Stalinist cooperatives. To destroy the memory of Stalin, this squalor Khrushchev needed to destroy his methods of management, to erase them from the memory of people.
      Destroyed. Erased. And with this, it turns out, they came to socialism - sterile, clean, with a gradually increasing smuggling of other people's products, just as gradually, but with acceleration, took on a threatening scale, as well as the accompanying scale of corruption. We were accustomed to the process of the dying of ideology, which means countries!

      Exactly the same, completing the death of ideology and the country, Chubais did and continues to do, deliberately killing the gigantic Soviet industry. As he put it, every destroyed Soviet enterprise is a nail in the lid of the coffin of communism, and if the country ever produced at least something everyday, under the leadership of the Chubais-Yeltsin pack (if they were all three times cursed - both living and dead!) , then since the 90s all production has been bent.
      It feels like they started dying with the arrival of Khrushchev, so we continue to do this to this day ...

      Yes, military enterprises can produce products for peaceful purposes. In the same States they do it, easily and naturally, there for centuries the system of such production took shape. But is this the time for us now? We have an enemy at the gates in the person of the same States. We urgently need military products! And let small and medium-sized businesses produce peaceful - that is his task. But the authorities set the opposite task - to destroy small and medium-sized businesses as an analogy of Stalin's cooperatives, allowing them only to produce food, small trade, some simple handicrafts, leaving household appliances at the mercy of China. Letting him in for this on our territory in Naberezhnye Chelny, as well as everywhere and wherever possible. And the further, the more confidence arises that Russia is simply being finished off, but in such a way that the population, worried about survival, does not understand anything. Technically, they finish it off. Skillfully, prudently, according to cunning schemes developed by the CIA. Otherwise, forgive me, it does not come to mind.
      1. 0
        16 October 2020 11: 08
        Lyudmila, I understand your position, but personally, from my point of view, some of the successes of the Stalinist pre-war and post-war economies did not have the roots that could be used.

        In the pre-war case, this was a combination of the most brutal acceleration of the construction of heavy industry and the infrastructure and centers serving it. Apart from this, the state did not care about anything. - questions of many fundamental research were drowned by bureaucracy, researchers often sat or worked in dungeons. The issue of political loyalty could advance a person in his scientific career much higher than his real abilities, and often adequacy in general (Lysenkovtsy). During this period, the economy was based on the most severe centralization of resources, a powerful repressive apparatus, pervasive party control and, of course, a little by little growing standard of living of the population - however, this growth was incommensurate with that of the West, like the standard of living itself.
        It was not without reason that I mentioned research - the USSR was a closed state, and research essentially focused on the issues of self-modernization, the effective development of medicine, technology, agriculture, and so on. The Soviet planning meeting, which focused funds and attention on forcing industrialization, simply left a lot of questions "behind the scenes" - that it would not have been too late to get out one fine day (just in the mid-late 40s) BUT here the Second World War comes into play ...

        In a military case, the systematic slaughtering on these issues - partly got out, partly compensated by the cruelty of the moment. Frankly mediocre people crawled through their desks. the lines into the economy-science-army - began to be removed more often, which is due to the not increasing effect. management, and an incredible tension of all forces. Those who created in sharashki-the state was forced to release. In the process of relocation of industry and reorganization-optimization of production,% of more or less competent, or even more accurate - effective people got to the address, bypassing the traditional bureaucracy.
        With the beginning of Lend-Lease, the USSR gained access to the study of many Western-made products, documentation and spare parts for it. Having the opportunity to learn about effective non-effect. solutions - a very convenient field has emerged for copying and accepting ideas. Food and chemical supplies to a certain extent relieved the shortcomings and distortions of the Soviet industry.
        The second powerful breakthrough was the study of captured German technology and equipment, as well as the freed up industrial capacities as a result of the European campaign to Germany.
        The third and most important breakthrough was that the entire patent and industrial massif of Nazi Germany fell into the hands of the USSR (along with the United States). We dismantled and removed entire enterprises, including those for which we did not have any competence since the 1917s. As well as documentation, product samples, specialists, devices, and so on.

        Roughly speaking, the distortions and stupidity of the Stalinist economy in relation to R&D, light, food and chemical industries were largely offset by trophies and good intelligence work. Subsequently, interaction with the newly minted European social services played a role. countries.
        The Second World War made it possible to reorganize the bureaucracy more or less effectively - this effect worked for 10-15 years after the war.

        I will end my thought with the fact that the pre-war USSR, had there not been a war, most likely would not have ended very well - by analogy with the end of the Brezhnev era, but poorer and in darker colors. The exploitation of the individual was brought to the absolute, science was ineffective, agriculture developed mainly by expansive methods. However, the war made it possible to reach our technical level "on a wide front" to the level of pre-war Europe, which, in principle, was relevant until the early 60s.
  13. -2
    15 October 2020 20: 16
    One of the most erroneous, moreover, criminal decisions of the perestroika reformers of the 90s was the so-called conversion of the domestic military-industrial complex,
    Ok, this is a mistake. And what was to be done, there is still no answer. No one in the world wanted to buy weapons, and there was not a penny to produce for themselves and there were hungry mouths everywhere. Yes, we would not have a million tanks, but a billion, but everyone would starve to death. 90 it was a natural process, albeit unpleasant, the task of not allowing it again, but it looks like we are being led in a circle
  14. +2
    16 October 2020 02: 08
    There are a lot of complaints and very unpleasant questions to the communists ..., but there are much more of them towards their last and perestroika ...,
    1. +1
      16 October 2020 11: 22
      This is the correct answer to the comment of colleague Knell Wardenheart. No economy is immune from mistakes, especially the economy of a state with an unprecedented ideology in history.
      I subscribe to your every word, colleague Iskazi.
  15. 0
    16 October 2020 09: 06
    And now we also talk about conversion from time to time.
    Sometimes they boast of their achievements.

    The conversion business is alive and well, maybe ...
  16. 0
    16 October 2020 14: 07
    On my engineering "skin" I experienced the conversion "a la hump" lol
    Gone are military orders from our box. And as a result, the plant itself "left" - p / I.
    Only ruins remain ...

  17. 0
    16 October 2020 14: 56
    The collapse of the military-industrial complex in the 90s is a direct consequence of the country's liberal foreign policy. I remember how in the newspapers and magazines of those times the idea was recklessly carried out that we had no enemies, that there was peace and friendship with America and Europe, that NATO was a partner, not an enemy, that there were no military dangers, and therefore there was no need to waste money on weapons, it is better to rivet pans instead of tanks, and pots instead of rockets. And then the Chechen war broke out, radical militant groups pulled up to the borders of Russia, and by the end of the 90s it turned out that Western friends were not friends at all, we are still enemy number 1 for them. We had to urgently make up for lost time.
  18. 0
    19 October 2020 10: 03
    I made calculations for the conversion of the enterprise.
    it turned out that the conversion was in no way profitable for the company, but at the same time orders for the main products were zero, as a result, in order to have at least some revenue and provide staff, the company began to make pots, ski poles, alarms for cars, etc. .d.
    These processes of destruction of the profitability of enterprises were the reason for the destruction of thousands of industries and the acceleration of their seizure by local kings and criminals.
  19. 0
    19 October 2020 10: 06
    Quote: Iskazi
    There are a lot of complaints and very unpleasant questions to the communists ..., but there are much more of them towards their last and perestroika ...,

    excuse me, there were 2 different parties - the VKP (b) and the KPSS
    which party are the communists?
    communists of the CPSU (b) 90 percent died in the war.
    their replacement was, but rather nominal, since the new party members did not have any conscious knowledge and they simply followed the proposed ideas.
  20. 0
    19 October 2020 10: 13
    Quote: Knell Wardenheart
    In the pre-war case, this was a combination of the most brutal acceleration of the construction of heavy industry and the infrastructure and centers serving it. In addition, the state did not care about anything - the issues of many fundamental research were drowned by bureaucracy, researchers often sat or worked in dungeons. The issue of political loyalty could advance a person in his scientific career much higher than his real abilities, and often adequacy in general (Lysenkovtsy). During this period, the economy was based on the most severe centralization of resources, a powerful repressive apparatus, permeating party control

    it's a bunch of cliches. Now it turns out that most of what you have listed are just myths introduced by specific people for their own benefit. The link to Lysenko is a vivid confirmation of this. If you find real documents, it turns out that this is not a comical utopian adventurer, but a completely rational and normal person. About the bureaucracy, the high was associated with crowds of careerists who literally filled up various authorities with utopian megaprojects with the banal goal of knocking out a convenient position and business.
    For example, the project of a flying amphibian, an underground tank, an airplane, a flying aircraft carrier, a walking tractor, a new literary newspaper, a scarf museum, etc.
  21. 0
    19 October 2020 10: 14
    Quote: depressant
    any household appliances

    I wonder what household appliances were in Stalin's times laughing
  22. 0
    19 October 2020 17: 08
    The Soviet economic space was arranged fundamentally differently than the present one. The socialist economy was aimed at meeting the real needs of people and their needs. Do you understand? Not what you WANT, but what you really NEED. At the same time, real cooperation and planned management of the gigantic economy of several countries, including the colossal USSR, were carried out.
    The capitalist economy aims to maximize profits at minimal cost to individuals. The whole arrangement of economic chains is fundamentally different. The Soviet military-industrial complex did not have the slightest chance of surviving. The fact that separate industries somehow exist, although in an absolutely stupid state, is a real miracle. But all this halepa has no future.
    Its owners, in principle, are unable to cope with the growth and development of military-industrial complex enterprises. At the moment, they are simply sucking out of the state pocket that part of the profit from the sale of resources, which they manage to snatch. This is the limit, the maximum that a sovereign thief is capable of. Alas.
  23. 0
    25 October 2020 11: 59
    Here is a good article: Oleg Falichev, "How to help the defense industry. Diversification of defense industry enterprises is fundamentally different from the conversion of the 90s", https://vpk-news.ru/articles/58853.
    Where a competent approach to the conversion / diversification of the defense industry is shown, the circle of related problems is clearly outlined.
    But this understanding came belatedly and at a very high cost.
  24. 0
    29 November 2020 11: 50
    On mikhail3 19 October 2020 17:08 New
    "The socialist economy was aimed at meeting the real needs of people and their needs.
    Do you understand? Not what you WANT, but what you really NEED. "

    In my opinion, the reason for the failure of conversion in the USSR lies precisely in the opposition between what "you WANT" and what "really NEEDED". The reluctance to admit that meeting the real needs of people is what "you WANT", and not just providing a "science-based norm."
    In the planned economy of the USSR (where most of the resources were spent on defense, the creation of a mobilization reserve and large social programs), what "really NEEDED" was determined by party bureaucrats and party scientists (i.e. "not quite scientists" ideologemes form the basis of the "scientific" approach, and the principle of scientific objectivity is crushed by "party discipline" and loyalty).

    Women are an excellent indicator. they are the main "who WANTS" - smart dresses and shoes, comfortable winter boots. They need cosmetics and hairdressing. They want children to have useful and beautiful books and toys. Women love entertainment (music and dance, movies, magazines).
    And they want their man to be beautifully dressed, clean-shaven and perfumed with good cologne, and drive the family in a comfortable and beautiful car. They want to have their own house (not a room in a barrack or communal apartment, but a spacious apartment or even a private house). They want their life to be filled with good-quality and comfortable things.
    Women are responsible for the main care of children and the care of elderly parents - and they need everything from bottles and diapers to medicines and breathable pads for bedsores.
    In the Union, with its ministries and research institutes, they did not think to come up with convenient hygiene products for women, and our grandmothers and mothers used what they had to do until the 80s-90s.
    I saw light aluminum crutches / walkers for the disabled and the elderly only in the late 80s - imported. Titanium wheelchairs for Afghans (not from our titanium?) - Germans and Americans gave away. Mechanical lifts in hospitals so that nurses and nurses do not overstrain. Special air cushion beds for burn patients. Complicated honey. and diagnostic equipment. Dental equipment and materials. Excellent scientific and measuring equipment (unrealizable "wishlist" of any Soviet scientist and engineer). Road and construction equipment, small mechanization means ...
    In the USSR, they did not want / did not guess / could not do it, because it "you WANT" - "everyday life", "philistinism", "petty bourgeoisness", "servility to the West," "effeminacy." And "really NEEDED" is a dimensionless military-industrial complex and a mobilization reserve that devoured the country's resources; mediocre propaganda waste paper; the scientific research institutes of "comical sciences" that sprouted like mushrooms; overfulfillment of plans for the production of products known to be unrealizable. And all this against the background of chronically unsatisfied consumer demand, which led to the growth of "materialism" and the cult of "foreign" in the 60s-80s (indeed, what they fought with, they ran into it).
    We all know very well about the generic flaws of capitalism - its rather vile ability to turn everything into a commodity, about the exploitation of man by man. But, as much as you like, assure that "the capitalist economy is aimed at maximizing profits at minimal costs by individuals", and in fact it is clear And another thing - the capitalist economy is aimed at maximizing consumer demand. And as a result, this leads to the enrichment of individuals. And it is fundamentally important that in the Market we are all Producers and Consumers of each other's products and services.


    On yehat2 19 October 2020 10:13 New
    “About bureaucracy, the high was associated with crowds of careerists who literally filled up various authorities with utopian megaprojects with the banal goal of knocking out a convenient position and business.
    For example, the project of a flying amphibian, an underground tank, an airplane, a flying aircraft carrier, a walking tractor, a new literary newspaper, a scarf museum, etc. "

    And why did the "authorities" have to so desperately fight off the "crowd of careerists"?
    Answer, Just because The state itself forcibly monopolized the role of employer and investor... In the market, these people would go to work and finance not to officials, but to private individuals. In the US and Europe, there have been a ton of similar start-ups. Yes, some people managed to get state. funding, but the overwhelming majority found private money for their projects, and then and now there is FFF - family, friends ands fools. Something rose into successful enterprises, someone went broke or drove would-be inventors in time. An excellent example is the fate of Nikola Tesla: when the investor Morgan saw that Tesla fell into an unscientific insanity, he simply deprived him of funding.
    See Nikola Tesla: The Myth That Replaced Reality, https://www.svoboda.org/a/381910.htm. No charges of sabotage or executions were required. As well as the dispute between "Lysenko's / geneticists" or the "Tukhachevsky case" in a more or less mature liberal society, it was resolved without accusations of a "fascist-Trotskyist conspiracy", but through open scientific discussion and routine personnel procedures.
    In my opinion, the fate of the USSR economy is a sad example of how bad the state is an investor in the sphere of consumer demand. Having invested enormous funds in improving human capital, the State was unable to profit from this. It drove all these wonderful specialists on state-owned enterprises of the military-industrial complex, "mailboxes" who were not able to create "what you WANT". Yes, the USSR received a return in the field of basic science and defense, but from the point of view of the economy of consumer demand, these are expenses, not revenues. If you do not know how to effectively turn Knowledge into a Product needed by the Consumer, then this is bad management.

    And more about conversion, from an interview with K. Remchukov, https://echo.msk.ru/programs/personalnovash/2715953-echo/
    “With this vaccine, I was struck by the gap in the views of officials on how we convert scientific achievements. This is the same story as in the Soviet Union. We are the best inventors. Then Gorbachev began to explain to everyone that we would now carry out the conversion, and all these capacities, who were involved in the military-industrial complex, will now begin to shower us. And the entire military-industrial complex could not master the production of disposable syringes, I remember. Some astronomical quantities could be produced by one factory in Spain, but we could not. only it seems that when imprisoned for war, we automatically ensure the diffusion of these innovations into a standard economy, not a military type. No, these are special skills. But most importantly, it should be an entrepreneurial shell. That is, the organizational and legal form: there must be a private business. This very private business is his headache, how he converts it. When state big bellies in gray suits, all as one doctors of technical sciences say: "We will do it now," they do not succeed. "

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