In the translated book Planning in the USSR by I.A. Yevenko, the communist hyperbole and delusion begins immediately with the Author’s Notes on page 5:
The system of socialist planned economy has ensured the economic and cultural advance of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries at a pace without precedent in history.
…
The Twenty-First Congress of the C.P.S.U. in 1959 mapped out a magnificent programme of the full-scale building of communism, a programme for accomplishing the main economic task of the Soviet Union in a brief historical period. The drawing up of the control figures for the economic development of the U.S.S.R. in 1959-65 was a great contribution to the theory and practice of economic planning.
Obviously we know the final outcome – the collapse of European communism, republics declaring their independence from the Soviet Union, the majority of East Bloc countries joining the European Union and NATO, German reunification – but even without hindsight the issues inherent in a centrally-planned economy were apparent decades before the Soviet Union’s final collapse.
Agriculture
The territories of the socialist countries have diverse and favourable soil and climatic conditions, which makes possible a wide development of agriculture. The socialist countries account for about 40 per cent of the world grain harvest and about 33 per cent of the cotton crop. Thus, the world socialist system has practically all the natural resources for satisfying the economic requirements of each socialist country. (p100)
And yet poor harvests required that the Soviet Union began importing grain in 1963-64, becoming a regular buyer of Western grain in 1972. Though prior to 1963-64, the Soviet Union was able to get buy without outside assistance (experts disagree whether the Ukraine Famine between 1921-23 was due to lack of grain or strictly politics), collectivization was never the resounding success that communists insisted it would be. However, alternative approaches did meet communist theory and therefore could not be implemented.
Economic Growth
High rates of economic growth are a general law of socialist reproduction determined by the essence of the socialist system. The operation of this law is confirmed by the fast growth rates in all countries of the world socialist system. Between 1954 and 1958, the average annual growth rate of industrial production in all socialist countries was 11 per cent, while in all the capitalist countries taken together it was 3 per cent.
The high rates of economic growth in the Soviet Union, just as in the People’s Democracies, stems from the fundamental advantages of the socialist system of economy over the capitalist system, expressed particularly in the absence of economic crises; they are a result of constantly operating, and not transitory, factors which determine the stability of growth rates over a long period. (p130)
Where to begin? Soviet Union economic data was viewed as widely unreliable: whether the declared completion of the latest five year plan or the flawed data provided by everyone to give the appearance of success, in the end it was not enough to keep the system around. During stagflation, the Soviet Union supported the eastern European communist countries by selling oil and other natural resources at below market prices; by 1976 the Soviet Union sold more oil to Western markets than Eastern European allies, desperate for hard currency, further showing the failures of their “socialist” economic system.
The New York Times article states The Russians, in turn, have learned to allow the Eastern Europeans considerable deviation from the Soviet model, provided they invest in the Soviet economy, retain Communist rule and support the Soviet position in Europe. However, these loyalties, maintained by selling natural resources at friendship prices, became strained as the Soviet Union continued its pursuit of hard currency.
Comparison
The socialist system of economy has incomparably greater possibilities for developing specialisation and coordination between enterprises than under capitalism because it has no private property which disunites the produces and leads to clash of their interests. The socialist state utilises in a planned way the division of labour to develop more rational organisational forms that promote the introduction of advanced technology, growth of labour productivity and reduction of production costs. (pp194-195)
Karl Marx believed that communism was the final stage of social evolution, where the state withers away and society operates on the principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Yet a century after the Russian Revolution, no communist government achieved nirvana; in fact, the more economic-thriving communist countries – China (post Mao Zedong) and Vietnam (mid-1980s) – seemingly lean a market economy with strong state oversight. North Korea is an abject failure, Cuba only slight less. And government has not withered away and money still exists.
Ultimately communist citizenry spoke with their feet: East Germans fleeing to West Germany which led to the building of the Berlin Wall; multiple Cuban flotillas to escape Castro, such as the Mariel Boatlift; North Koreans risking their and their family’s lives by defecting to South Korea via China.
Final Thought
Regardless of intent to show how a planned economy would lead to a better world, it never happened. Communism had its problems – jealousies, rivalries, unforeseen natural disasters, selfishness, the same as in non-communist societies – and no amount of verbal gymnastics could convince people otherwise. Too many people knew that their standard of living was below that of the west, despite what their leaders claimed, and viewed with disdain those leaders living in splendor and abundance in a supposed classless society. Does a market economy have its problems? Yes, but many still believe its superior to the centrally-planned economy attempted in the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
