The Partial Recovery of the Economy in 1938

Abstract

This chapter reviews developments through 1938. The narrative starts from the collapse of the state’s capacity to plan the economy under the pressure of purges and continues through the subsequent rebuilding of the planning process. The economy’s main branches and activities are considered, especially the growth of industrial production and rearmament efforts; the allocation of efforts to capital construction projects, many of them built by forced labour; and the state of imbalance and shortage in the retail market. Consideration of agriculture is postponed to the next chapter.