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The DniproHES hydro-electric power plant, one of the symbols of Soviet economic power, was completed in 1932 | |
Currency | Rouble (SUR)[1] |
---|---|
1 January–31 December (calendar year)[1] | |
Trade organisations | Comecon, ESCAP and others[1] |
Statistics | |
GDP | $820 billion in 1977 (nominal; 2nd) $1.21 trillion in 1980 (nominal; 2nd) $1.57 trillion in 1982 (nominal; 2nd) $2.20 trillion in 1985 (nominal; 2nd) $2.66 trillion in 1990 (PPP; 2nd)[unreliable source?][2] |
GDP rank | 2nd [2][3] |
GDP growth | 4.7% (in 1977) 4.2% ( in 1980) 3.8% (in 1982) 3.5% (in 1985) 0.9% (in 1990) |
GDP per capita | $6,577 in 1977 (nominal) $7,568 in 1980 (nominal) $7,943 in 1982 (nominal) $8,896 in 1985 (nominal) $9,931 in 1991 (GNP; 28th)[4] |
GDP by sector | Agriculture: (20%) Industry: (80%) (1988 est.)[1] |
14% (43rd) (in 1991) 3.9% (in 1984) [5] | |
Population below poverty line | 1-3% of population (1980 est.) 12% of population (1991 est.) |
0.290 (1980 est.) 0.275 (1989 est.)[6] | |
Labour force | 152.3 million (3rd) (1989 est.)[7] |
Labour force by occupation | 80% in industry and other non-agricultural sectors; 20% in agriculture (1989 est.)[1] |
Unemployment | 1–2% (1990 est.)[1] |
Main industries | Petroleum, steel, motor vehicles, aerospace, machinery, telecommunications, chemicals, heavy industries, electronics, food processing, lumber, mining and defense (1989 est.)[1] |
External | |
Exports | $124.7 billion (9th) (1989 est.)[8] |
Export goods | Petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, metals, wood, machinery, agricultural products and a wide variety of manufactured goods (1989 est.)[1] |
Main export partners | Eastern Bloc 49%, European Community 14%, Cuba 5%, United States, Afghanistan (1988 est.)[1] |
Imports | $114.7 billion (10th) (1989 est.)[9] |
Import goods | Grain and other agricultural products, machinery and equipment, steel products (including large-diameter pipe), consumer manufactures[1] |
Main import partners | Eastern Bloc 54%, European Community 11%, Cuba, China, United States (1988 est.)[1] |
Gross external debt | $55 billion (11th) (1989 est.)[10] $27.3 billion (1988 est.)[11] |
Public finances | |
Revenues | $422 billion (5th) (1990 est.)[12] |
Expenses | $510 billion (1989 est.)[1] $53 million (2nd; capital expenditures) (1991 est.)[13] |
Economic aid | $147.6 billion (1954–1988)[1] |
All values, unless otherwise stated, are in US dollars. |
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was characterized by state control of investment, prices, a dependence on natural resources, lack of consumer goods, little foreign trade, public ownership of industrial assets, macroeconomic stability, low unemployment and high job security.[14]
Beginning in 1930, the course of the economy of the Soviet Union was guided by a series of five-year plans. By the 1950s, the Soviet Union had rapidly evolved from a mainly agrarian society into a major industrial power.[15] Its transformative capacity meant communism consistently appealed to the intellectuals of developing countries in Asia.[16] In fact, Soviet economic authors like Lev Gatovsky (who participated in the elaboration of the first and second five-year plans) frequently used their economic analysis of this period to praise the effectiveness of the October Revolution. The impressive growth rates during the first three five-year plans (1928–1940) are particularly notable given that this period is nearly congruent with the Great Depression.[17] During this period, the Soviet Union saw rapid industrial growth while other regions were suffering from crisis.[18] The White House National Security Council of the United States described the continuing growth as a "proven ability to carry backward countries speedily through the crisis of modernization and industrialization", and the impoverished base upon which the five-year plans sought to build meant that at the commencement of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 the country was still poor.[19][20]
Even so, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy in the world from the end of World War II until the mid-1980s. A major strength of the Soviet economy was its enormous supply of oil and gas, which became much more valuable as exports after the world price of oil skyrocketed in the 1970s. As Daniel Yergin notes, the Soviet economy in its final decades was "heavily dependent on vast natural resources–oil and gas in particular". World oil prices collapsed in 1986, putting heavy pressure on the economy.[21] After Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and came to power in 1985, he began a process of economic liberalization by dismantling the command economy and moving towards a mixed economy modeled after Lenin's New Economic Policy. At its dissolution at the end of 1991, the Soviet Union began a Russian Federation with a growing pile of $66 billion in external debt and with barely a few billion dollars in net gold and foreign exchange reserves.[22]
The complex demands of the modern economy somewhat constrained the central planners. Data fiddling became common practice among the bureaucracy by reporting fulfilled targets and quotas, thus entrenching the crisis. From the Stalin-era to the early Brezhnev-era, the Soviet economy grew slower than Japan and faster than the United States. GDP levels in 1950 (in billion 1990 dollars) were 510 (100%) in the Soviet Union, 161 (100%) in Japan and 1,456 (100%) in the United States. By 1965, the corresponding values were 1,011 (198%), 587 (365%) and 2,607 (179%).[23] The Soviet Union maintained itself as the world's second largest economy in both nominal and purchasing power parity values throughout the Cold War, until 1990 when Japan's economy exceeded $3 trillion in nominal value.[24]
The Soviet Union's relatively medium consumer sector accounted for just 60% of the country's GDP in 1990 while the industrial and agricultural sectors contributed 22% and 20% respectively in 1991. Agriculture was the predominant occupation in the Soviet Union before the massive industrialization under Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin. The service sector was of low importance in the Soviet Union, with the majority of the labor force employed in the industrial sector. The labor force totaled 152.3 million people. Though its GDP crossed $1 trillion in the 1970s and $2 trillion in the 1980s, the effects of central planning were progressively distorted due to the growth of the black market informal second economy in the Soviet Union.[25]
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