Abstract
The rise of communism in the twentieth century is briefly reviewed, and there is an overview of how the communist economic system worked. This did not rely on the market, but instead decisions were taken centrally using commands as to what would be produced and where the products would be made. In practice, there were problems in doing this. The history of agriculture in Russia and the Soviet Union is taken as an example, although not a typical one. The circumstances leading up to the end of Soviet and East European communism are reviewed and reasons for the end reviewed. The chapter concludes with a brief history of two current communist survivors—China and Cuba.
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Notes
- 1.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism; Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history; Gaidar, Collapse of an empire; Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy; Kornai, Socialist system; Okey, Demise of communist east Europe; Montefiore, Stalin; Pipes, Communism: A brief history; Service, History of modern Russia.
- 2.
February, according to the Julian but not the Gregorian calendar. In Russia, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in early 1918. The October Revolution thus took place in November according to the Gregorian calendar.
- 3.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, Chap. 3; Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 3; Pipes, Communism, pp. 38–42.
- 4.
For example, Brown, Rise and fall of communism, Chap. 4; Pipes, Communism, pp. 46–63.
- 5.
The Red Army was renamed as the Soviet Army in early 1946.
- 6.
Overy, Russia’s war.
- 7.
Communist government in Mongolia was effectively imposed from 1921. The Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940.
- 8.
Jenkins, Churchill, p. 809.
- 9.
Kornai, Socialist system, p. 437.
- 10.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, Chaps. 9, 10, 15. Okey, Demise of communist east Europe, pp. 7–29.
- 11.
Ellman, Socialist planning. Kornai, Socialist system, Chaps. 6, 7, and 8.
- 12.
I follow Ellman (Socialist planning) in using the word “enterprises” to cover all productive organisations in a communist economy. “Firms” (as used by Kornai in Socialist system) may be too closely linked to a market economy; “factories” excludes too many types of industry; “institutions” seems oddly applied to collective farms or a steel factory.
- 13.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy; Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history. Ellman, Socialist planning, Chaps. 2 and 3. Kornai, Socialist system, Chaps. 6, 7, and 8.
- 14.
Fear (2006).
- 15.
Owen. Corporation under Russian Law.
- 16.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, pp. 108–110. Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, pp. 10–18. Ellman, Socialist planning, Chaps. 2 and 3. Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 7.
- 17.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, pp. 147–148. Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 7.
- 18.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, pp. 16–20.
- 19.
Kornai, Socialist system, p. 113. See also Chap. 7; Ellman, Socialist planning, Chap. 3. Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, pp. 10–20.
- 20.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, p. 7.
- 21.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, p. 65.
- 22.
Ibid, p. 121.
- 23.
Kornai, Socialist system, pp. 270–271.
- 24.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, p. 482.
- 25.
Bruce, The firm, for example, pp. 144, 162–163.
- 26.
Gaidar, Collapse of an empire, p. 75.
- 27.
For example, Ellman, Socialist planning, pp. 61–79. Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 9.
- 28.
Brown, Gorbachev factor, p. 132.
- 29.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, pp. 187–208.
- 30.
Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 10.
- 31.
Arnot, Controlling Soviet labour.
- 32.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, p. 39.
- 33.
Ellman, Socialist planning, p. 53.
- 34.
Kornai, Dynamism, rivalry, and the surplus economy, pp. 5–31.
- 35.
Ellman, Socialist planning, Chap. 5. Kornai, Socialist system, Chap. 9.
- 36.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, pp. 20–99.
- 37.
For example, Kornai (1986).
- 38.
Dennis, German Democratic Republic, Chap. 5.
- 39.
For example, Ellman and Kantotovich, An insider’s history, pp. 168–169.
- 40.
Kragh, Exit and voice dynamics, Chap. 2.
- 41.
Ibid, Chaps 4 and 5.
- 42.
For example, Round (2004).
- 43.
- 44.
Kornai, Socialist system; Kragh, Exit and voice. For evidence of storming, see Chap. 5.
- 45.
Hayden, Technology transfer to East Europe. For example, Chap. 2, p. 49.
- 46.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, Chap. 19.
- 47.
Ibid., p. 292.
- 48.
Dennis, German Democratic Republic, Chap. 14.
- 49.
Atkinson, End of the Russian land commune; Volin, A century of Russian agriculture. A good brief summary is the introduction to O’Brien and Wegner, Rural reform in post-Soviet Russia.
- 50.
Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 1, 2, 3, and 4; McCauley and Waldron, Emergence of the modern Russian state.
- 51.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chap. 2. Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 3 and 4.
- 52.
Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chap. 4.
- 53.
McCauley and Waldron, Emergence of the modern Russian state, p. 118.
- 54.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 4, 5, and 6.
- 55.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chap. 14; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chap. 8.
- 56.
Atkinson, Russian land communes; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture.
- 57.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chap. 15; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chap. 9.
- 58.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chaps. 16, 17, 18, and 19; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chap. 10.
- 59.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chaps. 16, 17, 18, and 19; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 10, 11, and 12.
- 60.
Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chap. 11.
- 61.
Brown, Gorbachev Factor, Chap. 2.
- 62.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chaps. 18 and 19.
- 63.
Atkinson, Russian land communes, Chaps. 18 and 19; Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 10, 11, and 17.
- 64.
Abramov, The Dodgers.
- 65.
Amalrik, Involuntary journey to Siberia.
- 66.
Nove, Soviet agriculture.
- 67.
Volin, Century of Russian agriculture, Chaps. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19. Nove, The Brezhnev legacy, p. 12.
- 68.
Nove, The Brezhnev legacy, pp. 12–26.
- 69.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, p. 153.
- 70.
O’Brien and Wegner, Rural reform, Chap. 1; Nove, The Brezhnev legacy, pp. 27–52.
- 71.
Wegren, Agriculture and the state.
- 72.
O’Brien and Wegren, Rural reform.
- 73.
Paxson (2002).
- 74.
Russian Federation 2014.
- 75.
Ibid.
- 76.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, Chap. 22.
- 77.
Ellman and Kontorovich, An insider’s history, p. 169.
- 78.
For example, Brown, Rise and fall of communism, p. 490.
- 79.
Okey, Demise of communist east Europe, p. 160.
- 80.
Ibid., p. 110.
- 81.
Brown, Rise and fall of communism, pp. 522–548.
- 82.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, Chaps. 6 and 7.
- 83.
Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history, for example, pp. 116–117, 128–129, 238–254. Gaidar, Collapse of an empire.
- 84.
For example, Bush (1997).
- 85.
Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history, pp. 40–61. Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, p. 252.
- 86.
Gaidar, Collapse of an empire, p. 113.
- 87.
Gaidar, Collapse of an empire. For Novocherkassk, see also Brown, Rise and fall of communism, p. 264.
- 88.
In approximate increasing order of complexity of the critiques, see Brown, Rise and fall of communism, pp. 582–584; Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy; Kornai, Socialist system; Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history.
- 89.
Kornai, Socialist system, pp. 570–574.
- 90.
Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, p. 7.
- 91.
Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history, p. 188.
- 92.
Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history, pp. 304–311; Hanson, Rise and fall of the Soviet economy, Chap. 8.
- 93.
Brown, Gorbachev factor; Ellman and Kantorovich, An insider’s history.
- 94.
Rabkin, Cuban politics, Chap. 1, 2, and 3.
- 95.
Rabkin, Cuban politics, Chap. 2, 3, 4, and 5.
- 96.
King Fairbank, Great Chinese revolution, Chap. 15. Naughton, Chinese economy, Chap. 3. For Mao’s two-leg policy, see Dikötter, Mao’s great famine, p. 19.
- 97.
Dikötter, Mao’s great famine. Jan, The Chinese commune. Naughton, Chinese economy, pp. 69–72.
- 98.
Estimates of China’s GDP are in Chow, China’s economic transformation, p. 97. Estimates of deaths from Naughton, Chinese economy, pp. 69–72 and Dikötter, Mao’s great famine, pp. 324–334.
- 99.
For example, Dikötter, Mao’s great famine, pp. 105–124.
- 100.
MacFarquhar and King Fairbank, Cambridge history of China, Vol. 15, Chap. 2. King Fairbank, Great Chinese revolution, Chap. 17.
- 101.
Chow, China’s economic transformation, Chaps. 3 and 4. Naughton, Chinese economy.
- 102.
Naughton, Chinese economy, Chap. 4.
- 103.
Naughton, Chinese economy, for example, Chaps. 10, 11, 13, and 15.
- 104.
See McGregor, The party, for a discussion of how communist party control is maintained.
- 105.
Naughton, Chinese economy, Chap. 10.
- 106.
Chow, China’s economic transformation, p. 418.
- 107.
For example, Spicka, Economic reconstruction and politics in West Germany.
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Kemp, S. (2016). A Short History of Communism. In: Was Communism Doomed?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32780-8_4
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