(Putin Art) Russian economy

[Jules Levin]

On 9/2/2013 3:27 PM, Alina Israeli wrote:
> Yes, it was. However, there are several problems with this concept:
>
> 1. The whole country was working for the Military-Industrial Complex. 
> The word was already coined by Eisenhower, we just did not know it in 
> the Soviet Union. Everybody and his brother was working in the 
> so-called почтовый ящик. Not the blue box that collects mail, but an 
> organization whose name is secret. It helps GDP, no question about it.

Back in the 80's there was an American statistician whose name escapes 
me who devised an ingenious method for getting at the truth of Soviet 
production.  He assumed that at least some of the official statistics 
were more or less accurate, and he decided to look at the numbers for 
rolling stock and tonnage shipped.  He assumed that in principle, all 
e.g. steel production had to move away from the factories, and using 
this method he lowered the official figures of steel and other heavy 
industrial production significantly.  He published a book that predicted 
the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.
An emigre I talked to in Los Angeles said he thought there was a steady 
worsening of food production from 1918.  He gave examples of food he 
remembered getting in a provincial restaurant in 1945 (!!) that hadn't 
been on menus for decades, I think he said oysters...  Hard to believe, 
but who knows???  It was a strange country.
Jules Levin




>
> 2. The statistics were collected and delivered by Soviets, and it was 
> in their interest to look good. BTW, the honest statistics in the 
> Soviet Union were usually classified.
>
> 3. The calculation of GDP was obviously done in rubles and converted 
> into dollars based on the official exchange rate 
> <http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A0#.D0.92.D0.92.D0.9F> 1ruble 
> = $ 0.59. The black market rate in the 70's was 3 rubles = $1.
>
> At the same time there were shortages, shortages of food and all kinds 
> of goods, even in big cities. Provinces suffered a lot more. Empty 
> shelves there was a norm. In mid-seventies we were not hungry in 
> Leningrad, there was enough food, we just did not know what we were 
> going to find in the store, but there was always something. One could 
> not plan a meal, certainly not a fancy meal, but one did not go 
> hungry. In 1979 the situation in Moscow was already such that American 
> embassy was providing one meal a day to all American students in Moscow.
>
>
> On Sep 2, 2013, at 5:32 PM, Robert Orr wrote:
>
>> Ø Russia never was "second economy in the world”
>> Not even from the immediate post-war period until the  late(ish) 1970’s?
>> In any case, its image as such lingered on far after it ceased to be 
>> true.
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>
> Alina Israeli
> Associate Professor of Russian
> WLC, American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
> Washington DC 20016
> (202) 885-2387 fax (202) 885-1076
> aisrael at american.edu <mailto:aisrael at american.edu>
>
>
>
>
>
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