35Международная научно-практическая конференция
УДК 338.1
Парушев Александр Валерьевич Parushev Alexsandr V.
Доктор философии
PhD
Высшая школа предпринимательства (г.Тверь) Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (Tver)
РАСПАД СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКОЙ ЭКОНОМИКИ, ЕЕ ПРЕДПОСЫЛКИ
(СССР И СТРАНЫ СЭВ)
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOCIALIST ECONOMY AND ITS PREREQUISITES (USSR AND THE SMEA COUNTRIES).
Аннотация: Статья охватывает период 20-х- начала 80-х годов и исследует экономический рост этого периода. автор утверждает, что в течение этого времени положение СССР было нестабильными в 80-х годах не было возврата к застойному, но стабильному режиму социалистической экономики с крайне низким экономическим ростом. автор доказывает невозможность оставаться экономически стабильным государством к 70-80 годам. в настоящее время социалистической модели следуют такие государства как Северная Корея, Лаос, Куба и в этом состоит актуальность данной статьи.
Abstract: The article covers the period of the 20s - early 80s and examines the economic growth of this period. The author argues that during this time the position of the USSR was unstable in the 80s there was no return to a stagnant but stable regime of a socialist economy with extremely low economic growth. The author proves the impossibility of remaining economically stable by the age of 70-80 at present, the socialist model is followed by states such as North Korea, Laos, Cuba and it is the relevance of this article.
Ключевые слова: экономический рост, энергоемкость, стратегия импортозамещения ВВП, социалистическая экономика, дефицит, экономические ресурсы, национальный доход, ресурсоснабжение, капиталоемкость.
Key words: economic growth, energy intensity, GDP import substitution strategy, socialist economy, deficit, economic resources, national income, resource supply, capital intensity.
The model of the socialist economy dates back to the late 1920s and early 1930s of the USSR, which was based on the import substitution strategy and which caused the
Международная научно-практическая конференция deviation from the development trend of advanced countries.
The main characteristics of the socialist economy were:
1. Dominance of state property, lack of private property as such
2. The existence of a managerial hierarchy, which coordinated all economic activities through administrative acts.
3. Complete elimination of markets, which were the basis of microeconomic regulation
4. Political control, which excluded any form of manifestation of mass activity.
5. An ever-increasing strategy of import substitution, which consists in the redistribution of resources from the agrarian to the industrial sphere, which serves as the basis of structural policy.
6. Decrease in extremely high income differentiation.
7. The exclusive right of the state to mobilize, distribute, and use national savings.
8. Ideology based on self-restraint and the need for selfless labor [1].
All this made it possible to temporarily remove some of the restrictions that are imposed on economic growth with the help of market mechanisms. The dependence of the scale of national accumulation on private savings and investment disappears.
Economic activity does not depend on the autonomous decisions of private companies, therefore the high level of taxation does not suppress economic activity. Strict financial control reliably blocks capital outflows abroad. Political control without any restrictions controls the amount of financial resources that the state mobilizes for accumulation. At the same time, the formed extremely high and stable rate of national savings makes it possible to make a leap in the industry, thereby contributing to an increase in the rate of economic growth.
In 1929-1933. in the capitalist countries, a deep crisis was noted, while in the USSR, rapid industrialization was carried out. This gave intellectual respectability to the methods of socialist development, made them an object of imitation in countries that are faced with the problems of catching-up industrialization.
With the help of the socialist industrialization model, the redistribution of
Международная научно-практическая конференция resources from the traditional sector, as well as the share of accumulation in GDP, can be achieved in a much shorter time frame than in the case of market industrialization. At the same time, state coercion is the main tool that brings about a decrease in the standard of living in the traditional sector and which ensures the mobilization of appropriate resources for the needs of industrialization.
At the same time, the choice of a model of socialist industrialization quickly solves one of the main problems of market industrialization - overcoming inertia, a given rate of national savings. But this does not last long. The lack of chain mechanisms, in particular, motivation for the efficient use of resources, fine tuning mechanisms, a mechanism for selecting effective innovations ensures a constantly high resource intensity of GDP, in particular, the energy intensity of GDP, which is constantly growing, not decreasing, as is the case in a market economy.
Economist G. Offer. in his article "Soviet Economic Growth" (1928-1985) noted that in 1940-60. the growth of the gross national product increased 2.16 times, from 1961-1970 - 1.66 times, from 1971-1980 - 1.2, from 1981-1985 - 1.104 times [2].
Similar dynamics in the growth of energy consumption: in 1940-1960, energy consumption in the USSR increased 2.97 times, in 1961-1970 - 1.69 times, in 19711980 - 1.54 times, in 1981-1985 - 1.123 times [3].
The redistribution of resources under the control of the state from the agrarian sector to the industrial sector, which results in the stagnation of agriculture, a decrease in the level of the peasantry (at the early stage of industrialization against the background of the growth of industry) is the main difference between the socialist model of industrialization.
I want to emphasize that precisely those factors that ensured the high growth of socialist industrialization (impoverishment of the rural population, the maximum distribution of resources from the agrarian sector at the early stage of industrialization) created a serious anomaly of socialist growth - the opposite of the trends in the development of industry and agriculture.
Food shortages are becoming an inevitable and constant problem, and imports are becoming a necessity. At the same time, the low share of foreign trade, the autarky
Международная научно-практическая конференция of the economy make it difficult to solve the problem of deficit and imports due to the growth of exports of processing industries to support financing of food imports.
The history of industrialization can be conditionally divided into 2 stages: 1. Adequate resources. Food production per capita more per capita consumption, the country is a food exporter. Autarky economy, export of manufacturing industries is limited, due to export
agricultural products and raw materials, foreign exchange earnings are provided, which necessary to borrow advanced technology from the West. Share of exports in GDP decreases and is maintained at a constantly low level.
2 Growing food needs outweigh stagnating agriculture farms. The country becomes a net exporter of food.
Due to the non-competitiveness of the products of the processing industries, the load on the export of mineral raw materials is growing strongly. In this situation, it is necessary not only to ensure technological exchange, but also to finance food imports, to ensure the growth of which it is necessary to increase the share of exports in GDP and the volume of exports of mineral raw materials per capita.
After the complete depletion of resources for industrialization from the traditional sector, the socialist country becomes an importer of agricultural products, and the fuel and energy complex is imposed a double burden, consisting of an increase in energy exports as a necessary source for increasing imports and technologies, as well as a stable energy intensity of GDP, which requires a constant an increase in energy consumption within the country with economic growth. After the agrarian sector is exhausted, socialist development is set by the upper limit of the production of energy resources per capita.
Practice shows that socialist growth in resource-poor countries begins at an earlier stage than in resource-rich countries where labor reserves with zero productivity remained in the traditional sector. If we remain within the framework of the import substitution strategy, then the only way to develop is to redistribute resources and in the already very tough resource constraints in labor-intensive manufacturing industries. The prerequisite for the success of this course is the increased competitiveness of the
Международная научно-практическая конференция domestic manufacturing industry. And this requires the openness of the economy, the launch of market regulators.[6] This process can take place against the background of production growth, if the industrial potential in the traditional sector remains.
Countries with poor resources at the beginning of industrialization, using the import substitution model, can enter the main (world) vector of development due to the available resources of the traditional sector. The first industrial steps allow to raise the savings rate, improve education, form an industrial structure.
Conversely, resource-rich countries, using the model of import substitution within the framework of socialism, have the opportunity to go a longer path of industrial development. But when growth opportunities become depleted, it is much more difficult to trigger market mechanisms than in resource-poor countries. Market mechanisms are being launched against the backdrop of an acute crisis in a hierarchical management system that is not adapted to market conditions.
I would like to note one more problem that is associated with the difficulties of leaving socialism, which is determined by the peculiarities of the interaction between economics and politics. The level of democratization is very closely correlated with the level of economic development. A country poor in resources is able to achieve a very modest level of economic development with the help of a socialist model, while a country rich in resources is able to raise the level of economic development to a level comparable to developed countries following the path of sustainable democracy, to form a socio-economic basis for the democratization of society Therefore, a political crisis is inevitable for the country's resource supply, while a resource-poor country can avoid or smooth over the signs of a crisis.
The basis of the economic policy of the USSR in 1928-1934. there was a withdrawal of resources from the villages, a decrease in the level of peasant consumption.
Thanks to the withdrawal of resources from the agrarian sector, the country is making significant progress in the growth of industrial production. In confirmation of this, there are official data from the CSB for this period (16.8% on average per year in the period 1928-1940) and obtained by researchers of socialist industrialization (from
Международная научно-практическая конференция 9 to 15% per year in the period 1928-1940), obtained taking into account different
deflators [4,7]. This is an abnormally high growth rate.
Analyzing the 30s in the USSR, the first features characteristic of the socialist model are observed: the directions of the vectors of development of industry and agriculture begin to diverge. While agriculture stagnates and decays, industry is showing fairly high growth rates.
The restrictions on the export of agricultural products and the mobilization of resources of the traditional sector are lifted by collectivization.
It should be noted that although there was an increase in exports, it was extremely volatile. The reason for this was trade barriers and the unfavorable economic situation in the market, characterized by the level of supply and demand of the main export markets. The constant shortage of foreign exchange resources was covered by large-scale gold exports, austerity measures, and savings on services from foreign specialists. There is no information that the Soviet state at that time deliberately carried out restrictions on foreign trade. On the contrary, the first five-year plan envisaged increasing the volume of exports. But reality dictated its own terms. Despite the fact that several attempts were made to increase export earnings, the share of GDP in foreign trade and the absolute volume of foreign trade were inexorably falling. The level of GDP per capita in the USSR in the late 30s - early 40s (when socialist industrialization already influenced the structural characteristics of the country's economy) corresponded to the level of GDP per capita in Japan and Italy before the First World War. However, the structure of GDP by end use was very different from these market economies.
Table 1. GDP structure by end use
Personal Government Gross national
consumption consumption accumulation
USSR [5] Italy (1901-1910) [5]Japan (1927-11937) [5] 54.9 78.5 22.5 5.6 22.6 18.1
84.7 - 15.3
Международная научно-практическая конференция
A very low share of personal consumption allows for a high level of accumulation and government consumption on a huge scale (especially defense spending).
After the end of World War II, the USSR continued the line of mobilizing resources from the agrarian sector. The difference between purchase and retail prices has reached its maximum. In addition to the increased tax rates, household plots were obliged to supply agricultural products.
By the beginning of the 50s, the limit of the possibilities of the model of socialist industrialization at the expense of the agricultural sector becomes clear. Grain harvests 1948-1952 were comparable to 1928-1930. (77.9 million tons and 76.1 million tons, respectively) [8]. However, due to population growth, the per capita supply of food products continued to fall.
In the early 1960s, subsidies to the agricultural sector appeared to replace the existing turnover tax on agricultural products. The transfer of resources from the agrarian sector to the industrialization of the country is no longer possible. In 1958, the volume of imports of agricultural products is roughly comparable to exports. At the beginning of the 60s, the USSR began to buy grain on a large scale abroad. The state of agriculture is becoming a constant problem, a sore spot for the country, where more and more resources have to be directed, which, unfortunately, are largely used ineffectively.
The inability to take resources from the agricultural sector dramatically changes the economic situation in the country. The early 1960s were a time of reckoning for the massive use of resources from the traditional sector. And from that moment on, the long-term consequences of such a strategy become tangible.
The result of the crisis of economic growth is the formation of "developed" socialism. While maintaining the existing ideology, qualitative changes take place in socio-economic development. This is the so-called "late" socialist economy, characterized by a drop in economic growth against the background of formed production structures. But the maintenance of outdated industries and industries costs the country more and more. The structural lag behind developed market economies is
Международная научно-практическая конференция increasing more and more. And stability itself is getting more and more expensive.
These are the characteristic features of "developed" socialism:
1. Growth in the budgetary burden caused by constant subsidies agricultural products. (as opposed to the withdrawal of resources from the agricultural sector).
2. The emerging and growing food shortage.
3. The growing imports of food as opposed to the pre-existing impressive exports.
By the end of the 60s, when a large percentage of the population moved from the countryside to the cities, the economy of the USSR reached the lower limit of development of the leading economically developed countries. From this moment on, it becomes one of the main tasks for the USSR to increase the share of imports, which is a necessary precondition for economic growth.
The exhaustion of the possibilities of the model of socialist growth puts the country's leadership in front of a choice:
1. Start restructuring market regulation mechanisms, create preconditions for reducing the energy intensity of GDP, re-launch market regulators that will help remove internal restrictions on economic growth within the socialist model, create preconditions for improving quality and make products more competitive, and increase their share in export.
2. Accept the situation when there is no economic dynamics, focus on preserving the existing structures of the economy and production.
Awareness by the leadership of the USSR of the difficulties of reforming the socialist economy and the experience of Czechoslovakia, where such attempts to move to a market path laid the political destabilization of the regime, the leadership of the CPSU Central Committee by the end of the 60s decided to firmly abandon market economic reforms. In this case, structural firmness, intractability and inability to market economy changes, a country rich in resources and a totalitarian system of government, at first glance, seemed to guarantee the USSR and its Eastern European empire sufficient stability at zero or very low economic growth rates. The economy has reached the maximum level of productivity, which is determined by the main
Международная научно-практическая конференция characteristics of the economic model chosen by the country and can fluctuate around these indicators for a long time. However, the socialist growth in the 70s and 80s, or rather, its features, predetermined its very rapid collapse of the seemingly solid socialist model.
Economic theory tells us about the existence of vectors of development that were internally unstable in nature, which relied on resources, the availability of which was subject to drastic changes and which in themselves were reversible.
The hypothesis that the author of this article is trying to substantiate consists in the assumption that the position of the USSR and the CMEA countries was internally unstable, and from this vector of development it was not possible to enter the stagnating but stable regime of the socialist economy with zero and stably low rates of economic growth. In other words, the decline in production in the post-socialist countries is explained not only by the complexity of the approach, but also by the inability to maintain the stable functioning of the economy, formed during the growth process in the 70-80s. It should be noted that at this time two events had a strong influence on the late socialist economy:
1. Oil and gas fields were discovered in Western Siberia.
2. An abrupt rise in fuel prices after 1973 on world markets
Now, instead of the usual traditional sector, "petrodollars" have appeared. They replaced the previously existing turnover tax on agricultural products.
Unfortunately, the country is channeling free resources to raise GDP production above the level characteristic of the socialist model, instead of channeling them for a "soft" exit from socialism and launching market regulators.
The economic growth in the USSR in the 70s was marked by even greater contradictions. Thus, the share of exports of raw materials is growing steadily, exports of products of manufacturing industries are falling. In 1985, the share of exports of machinery, technological equipment, and transport decreased from 5.8% to 3.5% of GDP (State Statistics Committee data).
The dynamics of the energy intensity of GDP is in strong contrast to the main trends in world development. While in the early 1970s in countries that were
Международная научно-практическая конференция approximately at the same level of development as the USSR (Japan, Italy), energy intensity decreased by about three times, in the USSR the real growth was 1.5-1.6 times, energy consumption increased 1.73 times.[4,6] Defense spending continues to rise. The available information, as well as the well-known fact that the USSR achieved parity with the United States, indicate an increase in the military load.
In the early 70s, the Soviet leadership made a bet on continuing competition in the military field and in the living standards of the population, using significant energy, financial and foreign exchange reserves.
The events of the 70s and early 80s testify to a serious deformation of the traditional sector, the irreversibility of processes. And the consequences of this deformation cannot be compensated for by an arbitrarily large inflow of financial resources.
If we compare the 60s and 70-80s, then there is a fundamental difference between them. In 1970, the USSR was a country with a closed economy characteristic of the socialist model (except for trade with the CMEA countries, which, however, was not of a market nature). By 1985, the role of foreign economic relations had grown dramatically. And a lot now depended on foreign trade: financial stability (budget revenues), preservation of the achieved consumption rates, the entire work of agriculture (import of feed), imported equipment for enterprises.
Revenues from foreign trade in the USSR at this time are determined by the situation on the market of fuel and energy resources. In an unfavorable situation, the socialist economy is forced to function under conditions of a shortage of resources. Which is contrary to its essence. Now the authorities cannot influence not only the retention of economic stagnation, but they are also unable to prevent a possible economic crisis caused by an unfavorable situation in the external market of fuel and energy resources.
It is difficult to maintain the scale of energy consumption. The problem for solving this problem lies in the specifics of the oil industry; now the economy of the USSR and the stability of the economies of the CMEA countries depend entirely on its position.
Международная научно-практическая конференция The discovery of new fields, such as Samotlor, ensured a fairly low oil cost at the initial stages. However, when the available reserves are depleted, the average and hard-to-reach reserves, more precisely, their capital intensity, grow significantly.
An economy adapted to consuming large-scale oil rent generated in the early stages of the development of rich fields and using it to increase military spending and food imports is now faced with the insoluble problem of increasing capital investment in the fuel and energy complex in order to at least somehow maintain the existing oil production level.
The end of the 1960s was characterized by stability in the USSR in the understanding that even with a high energy intensity in GDP, the reserves of fuel and energy resources were quite worthy to satisfy the needs of the economy. The growth strategy chosen by the USSR made the country dependent on oil production and oil exports. And not even just dependent on fuel reserves, but the regular commissioning of such unique deposits as Samotlor.
The growth model exhausted itself in the early 80s, as evidenced by the following indicators. Despite. that resources continue to flow into the fuel and energy complex (in 1985, their amount was exceeded in 1975 by 2 times) and the continuing rapid growth of the fuel and energy complex's share in the total volume of capital investments, the growth of oil stops. In 1980, production was about 605 million tons, in 1985 - 598 million tons
As for the export of oil, it also stopped. In 1980, exports amounted to about 120 million tons, in 1985 - 117.5 million tons. growth in the physical volume of exports also fell: if in 1970-1980. there was an increase of 63%, and the value increased by 3.7 times due to the high dynamics in the external market, then in 1980-1985. it grew by only 7.4%. and the value volume began to decline (having reached a maximum in 1983 - 91.4 billion dollars, began to decline in 1985 to 87 billion dollars)
From this moment the collapse of the socialist system begins. Attempts 19861987 increasing oil production only leads to overshooting of fields, which ultimately aggravates the situation. The country finds itself in a vicious circle: a lack of capital investment in oil production causes a drop in its production, which aggravates the
Международная научно-практическая конференция crisis, a further reduction in investment in the oil industry takes place, which accelerates the decline in production. The decline in resources is observed until 1995 from 542 million tons in 1985 to 304 million tons in 1995 (1971 level). By the beginning of the 80s, the USSR had lost the opportunity for financial maneuver. Actively attracting loans to finance many construction projects led to the fact that in 1981 the funds received for servicing these loans covered only 30% of the liabilities ($ 2 billion was collected to cover $ 6.4 billion). The missing part was covered by new loans. Evidence of this is the constant increase in debt: in 1984 it amounted to $ 5.9 billion, in 1986 - $ 15.1 billion. In subsequent years, it grew with an avalanche force.
In 1985 M. Gorbachev came to power, the state of affairs seemed stable only on paper. In fact, the country no longer had the opportunity to maintain the existing level of production, the situation was reduced mainly to the situation in the oil market in the world market, to the discovery of new oil fields with extremely high oil recovery parameters, long-term loans in the world financial markets with low interest rates. But the fall in oil prices, the decline in exports in 1983 - 91.4 billion dollars, in 1985 - 86.7 billion dollars. talked about the impossibility of improving the situation.
I consider it important to note the following. Economic growth, provided by oil revenues with its internal imbalance and instability, nevertheless by the beginning of the 80s made it possible to bring the country very close to the level of GDP per capita to the group of developed market democracies. However, the rise in the level of education, urbanization, and the increase in the number of the population with a structure of middle class consumption undermined the totalitarian regime. After the first steps of the democratic reforms M. Gorbachev formed a powerful democratic wave that swept over the republics of the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe. The economic crisis caused by the fall in oil revenues, and the very collapse of the economic growth model of the previous decades, gave this wave additional strength.
As a result, Russia before the XXI century found itself in a situation of the beginning of the XX century (at the level of 1913), when GDP per capita in Russia was 17.8% of GDP per capita in the USA in 1994 (for comparison, in 1913, GDP per capita population was 22% of the US level).
Международная научно-практическая конференция
Conclusions:
1. Avoiding market mechanisms, the hierarchical system built instead of them allows to very quickly expand the possibilities for redistributing resources from the traditional sector, expanding the possibilities for maneuvering the rate of accumulation, thereby accelerating the growth rate of the share of employment in industry and the volume of industrial production.
2. After the basic reserves of the traditional sector have been exhausted, the crisis of the socialist model begins. Then there are internal constraints such as low competitiveness of manufacturing industries, high energy intensity. These factors are the reason for the decrease in capital productivity and the rate of economic growth.
3. The harsher resource situation in resource-poor countries is pushing for an exit from the socialist model at an earlier stage than in resource-rich countries with a pool of cheap labor with zero marginal productivity in the traditional sector. As for the resource-rich countries, they are responding to the crisis of the socialist model by increasing exports of minerals and imports of agricultural products.
4. Getting out of the socialist model while maintaining growth is possible only in the early stages of industrialization. After the main possibilities of the traditional sector have been exhausted, any economic growth strategy requires restructuring, which, in turn, is accompanied by a drop in production.
5. In the 70s-80s, economic growth in the USSR and the CMEA countries was an attempt to go beyond the internal limitations of the socialist model, while being an unstable model. However, it was the cause of an acute crisis in the collapse of socialism. The instability of the chosen strategy was explained by the lack of competitiveness, the inability to achieve a reduction in the energy intensity of production.
6. The fall of the socialist system led to a strong decline in production and consumption in the USSR and the CMEA countries.
7. The need to restore the action of market regulators forced to converge the structural characteristics of existing economies with market economies of the same level.
Международная научно-практическая конференция The analysis carried out allows us to understand the reasons for the collapse of socialist economies, attempts to fail to preserve the production structures of the 70s and 80s, characterized by their instability, imbalance and the inability to exist independently without the support of external resources.
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