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TERRA ECONOMICUS

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  • From realism to utopia: The three versions of the Soviet Union’s first five-year plan

From realism to utopia: The three versions of the Soviet Union’s first five-year plan


TERRA ECONOMICUS, , Vol. 20 (no. 3),

Planning system in the Soviet Union was an integral part of its command economy. This article deals with the first stage of Soviet-type economic planning. I rely on official documents and literature sources to analyze both statistics and discourses related to first five years of planning. The targets of the Soviet Union’s first fiveyear plan were defined by the need to overcome the economic and military backwardness of the Soviet Union compared with advanced capitalist countries. Also, there was a strong conviction among the leaders of the Soviet system that military conflicts with class opponents and unfriendly countries are inevitable. At the same time, the targets were determined by the crisis of new economic policy, official economic reconstruction program of the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1928. My paper compares the three versions of the first five-year plan. I explain the differences in their overall purposes, macroeconomic goals and target proportions between the industry sectors. Based on international economic history and the history of Soviet Union, I assess the feasibility of several versions of the five-year plan and uncover the utopian nature of the five-year plan finally adopted. Besides, the article analyzes the fulfillment of the five-year plan during the first two years. Alternative macroeconomic estimates confirm that almost all of the most important targets have not been achieved. Tendencies to increase some of the indicators for particular sectors of the economy since spring 1929 are analyzed as well. Due to the utopian nature of the adopted plan, the question is considered whether Stalin and his entourage were insane and how they could navigate in what was happening in the economy when guided by unreliable macroeconomic data. Although, they are proved to have sufficient information about the real situation in the economy.
Citation: Khanin G. (2022). From realism to utopia: The three versions of the Soviet Union’s first fiveyear plan. Terra Economicus 20(3), 52–71 (in Russian). DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2022-20-3-52-7


Keywords: USSR economy; versions of the first five-year plan; alternative macroeconomic estimates; fulfillment of the first five-year plan

JEL codes: N14, E01

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Publisher: Southern Federal University
Founder: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606