Political Economy of Soviet Communism

I.  Origins of Soviet Communism

A.  Russia in 1917

B.  Mensheviks and Bolsheviks

II.  War Communism (1918-1921)

A.  The "food supply dictatorship"

B.  Nationalization

III.  Lenin's New Economic Program (1921-1928)

A.  Limited capitalism

B.  The agricultural surplus and capital accumulation

C.  The "scissors crisis"

D.  Pros and cons of NEP

IV.  Stalin's centralized, planned economy

A.  Speed and size

"Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence?  If you do not want this, you must put an end to its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist economy....We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries.  We must make good this distance in ten years.  Either we do it or we shall go under."  -Stalin, 1931

Soviet propaganda cartoon.  A Western capitalist mocks the Five Year Plan, then turns green with envy as he sees that the Soviets have successfully industrialized.

B.  Theoretical problems of the Stalinist economy

C.  The Five Year Plan (1929-1932)

1.  Iron and steel

The massive steel production facility at Magnitogorsk.

2.  Bottlenecks and supply problems

3.  Successes and failures of the Five Year Plan

V.  Stalin and the Soviet agricultural economy

A.  Stalin versus the kulaks

B.  Collectivization:  a second serfdom?

"The transition to collective cultivation must be carried out by proletarian state power with the utmost caution and gradualness."  -Lenin

C.  The Ukranian terror famine

VI.  Pros and cons of centralized economic planning

A.  Capital accumulation and investment

B.  Social benefits

C.  Inflexible bureaucracy

D.  Limited consumption

E.  Unbalanced production

F.  Pollution and resource depletion