30 Years of Soviet Industrialization

Slightly more than thirty years ago, in October 1928, the first Five-Year Plan was launched. For three decades the resources of a vast country, the energies of a large and talented population, and the capacity of a most elaborate and centralized organization, have been mobilized as no country has been mobilized before, for the attainment of supremacy in the twin fields of industrial power and military might. The avowed goal—to “catch up with and overtake America” in per capita output—is now being daily proclaimed to be within easy reach; but even in the early years of the plan era, when it was only dimly seen, the eyes of the leaders were already fixed upon it.

Clear though the objective has been, it is not easy to measure the distance traversed by the Soviet economy in the three decades. There are, first, the facade of propaganda and the curtain of secrecy to contend with. Although incomparably more statistical information has been published in the last few years than in the preceding twenty (but still less than before that), the data are far from satisfactory for purposes of careful analysis. Important gaps in information remain; much of the data are difficult to interpret for lack of explanation of their derivation; and many statistics are of questionable reliability or are even known seriously to distort what they purport to reflect. The last refers particularly to summary measures of economic growth.

A second difficulty arises from the c...