All Questions
Tagged with soviet-union economy
24 questions
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did Gosplan use Sears Roebuck and similar catalogues to "fix prices"?
Does anything corroborate the claim, made by Ray Evans in the March 2002 proceedings of the H.R. Nicholls Society (dedicated to deregulating the Australian labour market), that when the American ...
- 61
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How much did the production of the Tsar Bomba cost to the Soviets?
The Tsar Bomba, also known as the "King of Bombs," was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Developed and tested by the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, this ...
- 121
-2
votes
3
answers
363
views
How did the accounting and capital organization system work in communist countries like the USSR? [closed]
It's difficult to see how the leaders could have kept track of such a complex system, in such a big country as the Soviet Union (USSR), without recognizing the existence of capital relations, the ...
- 518
1
vote
3
answers
681
views
Was the US dollar, the Soviet reserve currency too?
Was the Soviet rouble also backed by the US dollar, which was the global reserve currency at the time?
I remember reading something about Soviets taking aid from the US, in the 1970s, after Soviet ...
- 127
20
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Why did the USSR have two sources of currency?
An inscription on the 1, 3, and 5 rubles notes says that it is a State Treasury Note (Государственный Казначейский Билет), and that it is guaranteed by the entire property of the Union of SSR (...
- 898
1
vote
4
answers
804
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Can we meaningfully compare the poverty levels in the USSR to those in the USA at the same time and to those in the USA today? [closed]
I was told (by people who had lived there) that the USSR had homeless people but I would guess that the levels of homelessness were much lower and in general there were far fewer desperate people due ...
- 2,350
4
votes
5
answers
2k
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Was there car insurance in the USSR?
I can't imagine how it works in a planned economy. Does the government replace your car if you crash it? Was there no sort of insurance?
user41834
1
vote
1
answer
350
views
Why did Shock Therapy fail so badly?
Why did shock therapy fail during perestroika? Has shock therapy ever worked in other situations?
Was it responsible for the creation of the nomenclature and oligarchs?
Are there any authors who ...
- 121
3
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Income versus living expense in USSR during the 1980's and 1990's
My understanding of life in the USSR was that both the salaries and living costs were more or less state controlled and fixed with very little variation.
I wanted to ask about the sizes of peoples ...
- 286
3
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Was there an embargo of Soviet gold in 1932, and was grain the primary exportable good?
In this article, the author and leader of "The Great Fatherland Party" Nikolai Starikov, claims one of the causes of the Holodomor may have been that the USSR was unable to export anything other than ...
- 979
4
votes
3
answers
509
views
Did the Soviet Union investigate greenhouses in the early 1920's?
The Soviet Union had major food problems in the 1920's, what with the civil war and an attempt at forced requisitions. Their solution was the NEP, which used grain taxes instead of total requisition, ...
- 17.3k
1
vote
2
answers
774
views
Was Brezhnev's rule an "era of stagnation" [closed]
Reading my IB textbooks, they say Brezhnev's rule was an "era of stagnation". However they are only able to cite evidence of economic stagnation when claiming that would require "stagnation" in ...
- 600
45
votes
12
answers
13k
views
Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
Generally, Communism believed in economic central planning, with each field being serviced by one "company" (to avoid waste).
Why was it that the Soviet Union had multiple airplane manufacturers, ...
- 1,427
12
votes
2
answers
2k
views
At the time of Sputnik, what kind of radios were common in the Soviet Union?
Sputnik was launched 1957 Oct 4. At that time, what kind of radios were common in the Soviet Union?
I'm interested in what kind of radios were privately owned and kept in people's apartments. What ...
- 17.3k
9
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Were bicycles widespread in the Soviet Union?
In the Soviet Union, did most people own a bicycle? Were streets crowded with bikes? Or was there a shortage of bikes? What was the price of bikes and were they affordable?
The time period I'm most ...
- 17.3k
11
votes
4
answers
2k
views
In the Soviet Union, how was payment enforced for public transportation?
From my previous, related question, public transport was not free in the USSR. It seems prices were very low, around 3 to 5 kopecks.
This seems so low that I'm surprised the government didn't simply ...
- 17.3k
24
votes
5
answers
9k
views
Was public transportation free in the Soviet Union?
Was public transportation free in the Soviet Union? I'm interested in the metros and buses. If not, what did they cost?
I'm most interested in the period around the late 1950's, early 1960's, but it ...
- 17.3k
11
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Was electricity free in the Soviet Union?
Did people receive free electricity in their homes in the Soviet Union? If so, how was it rationed out? Were there any quotas on how much you could use?
- 17.3k
6
votes
1
answer
297
views
Where can I get information used to make Soviet economic plans?
One kind of information used by Gosplan to create plans was a list of commodities and relationships between them, i.e. what things were required to produce other things.
I managed to find higher ...
- 163
14
votes
1
answer
727
views
What was the Nove / Millar debate, how is it important to the historiography of the Soviet Union?
The Nove / Millar debate was a debate amongst economic historians in the 1970s, where the Western understanding of Soviet economic development in the 1920 and 1930s was seriously revised. In ...
- 14.5k
4
votes
2
answers
444
views
Was COMECON involved in economic imperialism and if so, to what extent?
Disclaimer: I am not 100% sure if it was COMECON, it might be another Soviet apparatus.
I recall reading about how the Soviet Union forced her Eastern European satellites into very lucrative and ...
- 7,312
12
votes
6
answers
12k
views
Why did the Soviet Union's economy grow fast in the 1950's-1960's?
Communist economic systems self-implode. Today it has been recognized that Communism is bad for economic progress. There is no dispute that Communism makes countries poor based on what has happened in ...
- 4,546
1
vote
3
answers
2k
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Was the N.E.P. of Russia successful in terms of economics?
The Soviet's New Economic Plan was indeed a successful plan in establishing a comparatively strong postwar economy for the Soviet Union, but there were many imperfections: food prices fluctuated ...
- 207
6
votes
1
answer
331
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How easy one could start an artel in USSR after WW2 1945-1956?
During 1956-1960 all artels (cooperative enterprises) were nationalized in USSR. It was a large amount of artels.
How easy was it to organize an artel before that, in the post-war period of 1945-...
user904