The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives

This book uses the formerly secret Soviet state and Communist Party archives to describe the creation and operations of the Soviet administrative command system. It concludes that the system failed not because of the "jockey"(i.e, Stalin and later leaders) but because of the "horse" (the economic system). This study pinpoints the reasons for the failure of the system--poor planning, unreliable supplies, the preferential treatment of indigenous enterprises, the lack of knowledge of planners, but also focuses on the basic principal-agent conflict between planners and producers, which created a sixty-year reform stalemate. The Soviet administrative command system was th most significant human experiment of the twentieth century. If repeated today, its basic contradictions and inherent flaws would remain, and its economic results would again prove inferior.