Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Jockey or the Horse?
- 2 Collectivization, Accumulation, and Power
- 3 The Principles of Governance
- 4 Investment, Wages, and Fairness
- 5 Visions and Control Figures
- 6 Planners Versus Producers
- 7 Creating Soviet Industry
- 8 Operational Planning
- 9 Ruble Control: Money, Prices, and Budgets
- 10 The Destruction of the Soviet Administrative-Command Economy
- 11 Conclusions
- Appendix A Archival Sources
- Appendix B The Structure of the State
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Creating Soviet Industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Jockey or the Horse?
- 2 Collectivization, Accumulation, and Power
- 3 The Principles of Governance
- 4 Investment, Wages, and Fairness
- 5 Visions and Control Figures
- 6 Planners Versus Producers
- 7 Creating Soviet Industry
- 8 Operational Planning
- 9 Ruble Control: Money, Prices, and Budgets
- 10 The Destruction of the Soviet Administrative-Command Economy
- 11 Conclusions
- Appendix A Archival Sources
- Appendix B The Structure of the State
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
“As long as a pack of narcissistic and self-satisfied bureaucrats like Rukhimovich sit in the ministry of transport and are avoiding fulfilling the decrees of the Central Committee and are sowing seeds of skepticism, the decrees of the Central Committee will put off until doomsday. It is necessary to drive out this pack, to save the railroads.”
Stalin to Kaganovich on his opinion of the soon-to-be fired minister of transport, September 19, 1931.“From the decrees that are being received I guess the impression is that we are idiots. Generally speaking, I am obliged to tell you that things are not well. They give us every day decree upon decree, each successive one is stronger than the previous and without foundation.”
Complaint of Minister S. Ordzhonikidze about bureaucratic interference.Despite an extensive literature, we still know relatively little about how the industrial ministry, or the People's Commissariat as it was called in the 1930s, really operated. Industrial ministries were the highest managers of production (khoziaistvenniki). They, not Gosplan, carried out most operational planning. Insofar as ministers were responsible for final results, they took selfish actions to protect themselves (see Chapter 6). The struggle over control of resources was an even more basic source of conflict. The dictator desired to own and control resources, but producers had operational control of capital assets and, at least initially, physical control over output. Whoever controlled capital and output exercised power.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Political Economy of StalinismEvidence from the Soviet Secret Archives, pp. 153 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003