Economic and demographic change: Russia's age of economic extremes
PETER GATRELL
The enduring fascination with Russia's twentieth-century economic history has its roots in the politics of revolution. For the Bolshevik leadership, the events of 1917-18 presaged the foundation of a more equitable, humane and modern economic and social order, one that would hold out hope to millions of oppressed and impoverished people within and beyond Russia's borders. For the Bolsheviks' opponents, the revolution was destructive andbarbaric, reversing a half-century of prior economic progress under the tsarist regime, for the sake of what seemed to many of them to be dubious social and economic goals. These sharply polarised opinions have, to a greater or lesser extent, coloured the way in which later generations have assessed the aspirations and the performance of the Russian economy during the twentieth century. When Stalin launched an extraordinarily ambitious programme of economic modernisation and social change upon the Soviet Union after 1928, jettisoning traditional forms of agricultural organisation and cementing a system of central economic planning, the controversy between enthusiasts and sceptics only deepened. The enthusiasts pointed to rapid economic growth and dramatic technological change during the 1930s, contrasting this with the prolonged depression in the capitalist West. Victory in the war against Nazism seemed to them to have validated the Stalinist industrial revolution. For their part, the sceptics questioned the magnitude of economic growth, drew attention to systemic deficiencies and highlighted the widespread terror and population losses. After Stalin's death, attempts at economic reform - sometimes hesitant, sometimes more purposeful - did nothing to lessen a divergence of opinion between those who saw reform as a dead end and those who regarded it as a worthwhile attempt to redesign the socialist system, in order to respond to fresh challenges from the Soviet Union's rivals, beneficiaries of the post-war
I am grateful to NickBaron, Paul Gregory, MarkHarrison and Nat Moser for their comments
on an earlier version of this chapter.
economic miracle. Finally, the disintegration of the Soviet system after 1991 enabled the sceptics to claim that the planned economy had been built on shallow foundations all along. The enthusiasts, bruised by the sudden collapse of Soviet socialism, bemoaned the high costs of 'transition'. By the end of the twentieth century, they had become the sceptics, whilst those who hitherto pinpointed the shortcomings of the Soviet economic experiment now enthusiastically endorsed Russia's attempt to create a functioning capitalist economy
For these reasons, it is not difficult to understand why the eminent American sovietologist and economist, Alexander Gerschenkron, wrote of Russia's twentieth century that 'it always was a political economic history'. It was bound up with a vision of an economic future that could be deliberately engineered by administrative means, in order to fashion a developed yet egalitarian society. That vision was compelling far beyond Russia. Differences of history and culture notwithstanding, the Soviet economic project inspired politicians, economists and engineers in countries as far apart as Romania, China, Cuba and Tanzania, not to mention in those non-socialist societies where the exchange of ideas operated freely. The 'second world' of socialism enjoyed enormous prestige in the 'third world'. It affected no less the course of intellectual debate and political practice in developed parts of the globe.
The political and ideological context of economic decision-making did not remain stable throughout the twentieth century. The tsarist regime was deeply unsettled by the Revolution of 1905, to which it responded by embarking upon a major reform of property rights in the countryside. Nor did the installation of the Soviet regime bring about greater stability: on the contrary, the civil war unleashed a period of political uncertainty and economic collapse. Following the relatively stable era of the New Economic Policy (1921-8), the Stalinist 'revolution from above' ushered in a fresh period of turmoil. For many peasants, collectivisation had echoes of the wartime exactions that they had rejected in 1920 and carried connotations of the serfdom that had been abolished in 1861. For enterprise managers, the dictates of central planning created a climate of uncertainty rather than security; there was little refuge from arbitrary intervention by the party in economic affairs. The post-war era brought about a more prolonged degree of political stability, but the collapse of Soviet authority in the late 1980s engendered fresh turmoil, from which the post-Communist successor states have not been immune.
Notwithstanding this recurrent political turbulence, Russia's twentieth century displays certain continuities in the style of governance. At a macro level, economic policy was governed by a pronounced sense of the imperial, Soviet and post-Soviet mission of economic modernisation. At stake was the need to tame reckless nature, to improve (and transcend) human capabilities, to arrange population 'rationally' and above all to overcome economic backwardness. The economic history of Russia can thus be read as a kind of Niet- zschean struggle that rationalised overt political intervention in the affairs of subordinate institutions and their agents. Tsarist officials prescribed in microscopic detail the conduct of corporate bodies, whether joint-stock enterprises or trade unions. The Communist Party established formal political departments in economic commissariats (ministries) and in collective farms. To be sure, both regimes might periodically laud the 'heroic' and decisive individual, whether the entrepreneur (before the revolution) or the Soviet factory director who exceeded plan targets. But the imperatives of modernisation - the subjugation of space and the transcendence of time - ascribed particular significance to the state and limited the formal autonomy of agents, whether managers, workers or farmers. These ambitions introduced a campaign style to Russia's economic history. The tsarist programme of land reform, the war on nouveaux riches during the 1920s, the Stakhanovite movement in 1935-6, Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign, Gorbachev's project for economic 'acceleration' - all these are characteristic of a belief that the state had a duty to intervene in order to circumvent potential obstacles to the tasks of economic modernisation.
As already implied, these imperatives had profound implications for Russia's demographic history. The emphasis upon the transformation of space imparted particular significance to population migration. At one level this meant the use of political instruments to promote the settlement of regions earmarked for economic development and expansion. At another it meant that some regions were 'cleared' of 'alien elements' and others were set aside for the incarceration and deployment of forced labour. In the tsarist and Soviet eras alike, defence considerations as well as colonising impulses were at work. As recent work has made clear, this population politics was closely bound up with the global pursuit of'modernity'.[1]
These preliminary remarks serve to suggest a framework for understanding the mixed fortunes of the Soviet economy during the twentieth century. No attempt is made here to survey all aspects of Russian economic history or to provide a full picture of economic growth and development.[2] Instead, this chapter provides a way of thinking about the economic and demographic consequences of the ambitions expressed by successive political leaders in Russia.
Great leaps forward (i): late tsarist industrialisation
The long boom in Russian industry began after 1885 and, after a brief interruption in 1899-1907, finally came to an end in 1916. It rested upon a mixture of direct and indirect initiatives on the part of the state. Under Minister of Finances Sergei Witte the tsarist government embarked on a massive programme of railway-building, including the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, designed in part to open up markets in the Far East and Central Asia. Railway construction in turn helped kick-start the expansion of heavy industry. By its adoption of the gold standard in 1897 the government created an environment favourable to foreign investment. Russia became increasingly integrated into the international economy, through the medium of capital movements and the export trade in commodities such as grain and oil. International movements of labour were less significant, although Russia suffered a net outflow of migrants to the New World, partly because of discriminatory policies towards the empire's Jewish population.
1
David Hoffmann and Yanni Kotsonis (eds.),
2
The most important works are listed in the Bibliography. No detail is providedhere on the economy during the two world wars, for which see Peter Gatrell,