The Gosplan was a group of people during the reign of Stalin who set wages and prices to improve the economy.
1 answer
A national central committee would oversee the operation of various major aspects of the economy such as agriculture, industry, finance, etc. according to a national plan called Gosplan. After that committee, other subcommittees make decisions within those areas on regional and local levels.
4 answers
Typically, a person who knows the answer will answer a question put to him and being in a centrally planned economy has nothing to do with it.
If the question intends to ask "Who makes the decisions of how much to produce in a centrally planned economy?" the answer to that would be, generally speaking, the government, and specifically it would be an economics ministry of the state. In the Soviet Union, for example, there was the State Planning Committee, popularly known as Gosplan, that made key decisions in terms of how much to produce in all major industries.
1 answer
Even though the great terror was officially created to boost the economy by getting rid of 'wreckers.' However the end result was far from this. The oppression led to economic chaos. As a result of the fear brought on by the terror, members of the communist party felt compelled to lie and exaggerate economic facts. This was done as an illusion that the government was meeting its targets, and the truth was continuously distorted. Furthermore, purges within the gosplan led to the elimination of many of Russia's best economic planners and many competent managers. Coal production, which had virtually doubled form 1928-1932 and doubled, again, between 1932-196 barely grew from the beginning of the oppression until 1940. There was a huge fall in Russia's economic growth as a direct result of the fact that the great terror had swiped away managers, technicians, statisticians and planners, which meant there weren't enough trained workers.
4 answers
One reason why Russia was unprepared for war was the internal espionage. Although Russia had a huge advantage over other foreign powers due to its extensive network of spies, much of its information was never analysed, as Stalin refused to trust his intelligence service. Another reason for this was because during much of the 1930's, Russia's intelligence resources were focused on the hunt for Trotsky, which left little ability to monitor foreign enemies.
Military preparation also lacked efficiency in preparing for war. Between 1937 and 1938, the Red Army had been purged extensively, trying to ensure that all of its members were loyal to Stalin's regime. For example, from Feb 1937 to Nov 1938, Stalin authorised the execution of almost 39,000 army officers and 3,000 naval officers. This meant that the Russian army was significantly low on numbers and level of experience and skill.
Besides the lack of military preparation, economic preparation was also ineffective. Stalin's purges led to chaos in major government departments, additionally, the third five year plan was never completed or even published. There was no agreement to the budget of military spending, and seventeen different government departments argued with Gosplan over the amount of money to be allocated to war production.
3 answers
Stalin realised that if Russia was to become a key player in the global market, the country needed to industrialise rapidly and increase production. To do this, Stalin introduced the Five-year Plans.
Summary Stalin's chief aim was to expand industrial production. For this, he developed three Five-year Plans between 1928 and 1938. Gosplan, the state planning agency, drew up targets for production for each factory. The first two plans concentrated on improving heavy industry - coal, oil, steel and electricity.
Some keen young Communists, called Pioneers, went into barren areas and set up new towns and industries from nothing. There were champion workers called Stakhanovites, named after a coal miner who broke the record for the amount of coal dug up in a single shift. Education schemes were introduced to train skilled, literate workers.
The Soviet Union also gave opportunities to women - crèches were set up so they could also work. Women became doctors and scientists, as well as canal diggers and steel workers.
At the same time, many of the workers were slave workers and kulaks from the gulaf Strikers were shot, and wreckers (slow workers) could be executed or imprisoned. Thousands died from accidents, starvation or cold. Housing and wages were terrible, and no consumer goods were produced for people.
But the improvements in production between 1928 and 1937 were phenomenal:
1 answer
Socialism (or Communism) would be a world-wide society in which the means of production are held in common. It would be charcterised by free access to all goods and services, and therefore by an absence of those defining featues of capitalist society, such as money, wages, and profits. Governments, as such, would not exist. Hence, production would be organised along democratic lines by genuine co-operatives, with everyone working within a given productive unit doing so on a purely voluntary basis, and having a say in it's operation. Wider society, again via democratic means, would exercise control over many of the parameters of production. For example, if a productive unit needed to expand, planning permission would probably need to be sought from the local community. Depending on the issue in question, resolution of differences might be constitutionally deemed to be appropriately undertaken at a particular level: World, regional or local (or something in between). Co-ordinating agencies, once again answerable to democratic bodies, would have an important liaison role; for example in organising the transfer of raw materials or finished products from one part of the world to another. Without the vagaries of a market system, however, it is likely that a lot of this would proceed on a fairly routine manner. Sophisticated stock control measures could automatically flag up shortages, and set in train processes to correct the deficit. Given that such wasteful features of capitalist production - such as the boom-slump cycle, built-in obsolescence, the vast amount of essentially unproductive economic activity (eg in the financial sector), the wastefulness in having numerous firms compete against each other etc - would not exist, the business of regulating production would be greatly simplified in the absence of the cash nexus. It goes without saying that Socialism (or Communism) have never been tried out anywhere. For more on this subject, go to http://andycox1953.webs.com/
6 answers
The economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR) was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning. The economy was characterised by state control of investment, public ownership of industrial assets, and during the last 20 years of its existence, pervasive corruption and socioeconomic stagnation. SinceMikhail Gorbachev came to power, continuing economic liberalisation moved the economy towards a market-oriented socialist economy. All of these factors contributed to the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The stagnation which would consume the last years of the Soviet Union was caused by poor governance under Leonid Brezhnev and inefficiencies within the planned economy. When the stagnation began is a matter of debate, but is normally placed either in the 1960s or early 1970s.
From 1928 to 1991 the entire course of the economy was guided by a series of Five-Year Plans. Within 40 years, the nation evolved from a mainly agrarian society and became one of the world's three top manufacturers of a large number of capital goods, heavy industrial products and weaponry. However, the USSR lagged far behind in the output oflight industrial production and consumer durables, mostly because of inability of Gosplan to predict the demand for such products. The complex demands of the modern economy and inflexible administration overwhelmed and constrained the central planners. Corruption and data fiddling became common practice among bureaucracy to report fulfilled targets and quotas thus entrenching the crisis. At its peak, from Stalin to early Brezhnev, the Soviet economy grew at the same phase as the economies of the United States, Japan and that of the Russian Empire, its predecessor state.[13]
The USSR's small service industry accounted for 0.82% of the country's GDP in 1990 while the industrial and agricultural sector contributed 21.9% and 20% respectively in 1991. Agriculture was the predominant occupation in the USSR before the massiveindustrialization under Joseph Stalin. The service sector was of low importance in the USSR, with the majority of the labor force employed in the industrial sector. The labor force totaled 152.3 million people. Major industrial products include petroleum, steel,motor vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, lumber, mining, defense industry.
1 answer
They help to keep the economy in order.
"In order"implies that the government can make decisions in advance that are superior to those of private sector enrtreprenuers acting independently in a market economy economy on a daily basis.
The "order" that is provided is very likely to be comprised of desires and wishes of the "planners" charged with coming up with the plan rather than the realities of the marketplace. Command economies have failed over and over again.
6 answers
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the pursuit of profit. Variants include laissez-faire capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism.
Socialism is an economic system where the means of production are owned by the community as a whole, aiming to reduce inequality. Variants include democratic socialism, market socialism, and utopian socialism.
2 answers