World War I and the Origins of Soviet Economic Planning
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This is an interesting article
Abstract: “The planned economy was a defining element of the Bolshevik dictatorship. In contrast to scholars who have located its intellectual roots in the classic texts of nineteenth-century Marxism, this essay situates the origins of economic planning in World War I. The text analyses the link between war and planning in Russian and German thought. In doing so, we argue that the Bolsheviks’ positive assessment of the techniques of wartime mobilisation, influenced by the work of German economist Rudolf Hilferding, was foundational to their vision of organising the economy through the state.”
There are some interesting points about the extent to which WWI did change capitalist economies, which in turn served as an inspiration for the Bolsheviks (who in turn, inspired the Nazis) in terms of economic organisation.
A short take is that it is important to work out before the revolution what it actually entails, and the Bolshevik experiment at least provides some evidence of what can and cannot be done.
Also, interesting, is the discussion of the term ‘state capitalism’ to describe these war economies.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1942/russian-economy/ch01.htm
The Five Years plan of the soviet economy
The above official table reveals that, instead of being in the position of one of the most economically advanced countries, Russia is still a backward country industrially. It is interesting to note that for the period 1929–40, when, in Russia, Group B industries (means of consumption) fell from 55.6 per cent to 39 per cent of total production, while Group A industries (means of production) increased from 44.4 per cent of total production to 61 per cent, Japan’s heavy industry likewise increased from 33.7 per cent of total production in 1929 to 61.8 per cent in 1939, while light industry declined from 55 per cent to 38.2 per cent of the total economy. The fact that is of utmost importance is that, despite the comparative backwardness of both Russia and Japan, both countries reflect the high organic composition of capital characteristic of all important industrially developed countries. The Russian rulers were neither blind to this development nor undecided about which road they would follow in order to expand their industries.
the State Planning Commission:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1946/statecap.htmThe case of Germany was different in some way state capitalism provided high level of industrialization
Lenin never disguised the fact that his model was the German war economy only to be controlled a supposedly “proletarian state” (ie a state controlled by the self-appointed “vanguard” of the working class) instead of by the Junker-capitalist state. It led him to insert yet another stage before communism — state capitalism.
Here’s two passages from The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, written in September 1917, ie before the Bolshevik coup.
“The dialectics of history is such that the war, by extraordinarily expediting the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism, has thereby extraordinarily advanced mankind towards socialism. Imperialist war is the eve of socialist revolution! And this not only because the horrors of the war give rise to proletarian revolt—no revolt can bring about socialism unless the economic conditions for socialism are ripe—but because state-monopoly capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no intermediate rungs.”
“…socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm#v25zz99h-360
Apparently some Leninists groups have removed that page from the collected works of Lenin, as well, they do not want to recognize that Lenin adopted some of the conceptions of Nikolai Bukharin
It’s interesting, digging around, to find out about how Britain implemented rationing in WW1.
Firstly, as with Covid, they really didn’t want to do it, and at first try for voluntary co-operation, followed by decentralised efforts by local authorities (there was, apparently, a massive ding dong in the Ministry of Food, over centralized v. decentralized approaches).
When they did bring it in (January 1918) it seems to have been fairly simple to implement, and just required executive fiat (I wonder if they were using the Defence of the Realm Act – there was no primary legislation).
Also, what I didn’t know about was the huge public kitchens (and how they were integrated into the process of rationing, apparently one in Hammersmith could feed 50K people per day).
Finally, apparently, the long queues were a motivating factor, as they were seen as breeding grounds of dissent and possible Bolsheviks. Labour ministers said that Unions would refuse individual rationing, but actually union members were at the forefront of pushing for rationing, to guarantee they got their share.
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