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John Scott. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel. Edited by Stephen Kotkin. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. xxv, 306 pp. $27.50 cloth; $9.95 paper. An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia: the Memoirs of Zara Witkin, 1932-1934. Edited by Michael Gelb. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. 363 pp. $29.95.

John Scott. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel. Edited by Stephen... The authors show that Soviet planning was erratic and "Bacchanalian," with a systemic tendency to under- or overshoot targets on a massive scale. The core o f the b o o k is the presentation o f a linear programming model tracing alternative growth paths from 1929 to 1944. Heroic assumptions have to be made in order to simplify the model (for e x a m p l e , there are only two types o f technology, " o l d " and "new"). The authors are able to show, even using the assumptions and data o f the S o v i e t c e n t r a l p l a n n e r s t h e m s e l v e s , that a slower, less " t a u t " capital a c c u m u l a t i o n path w o u l d have p r o d u c e d faster long term growth. There is not - m u c h novelty in such a finding for a political scientist or a political economist, but economic historians http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Canadian-American Slavic Studies Brill

John Scott. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel. Edited by Stephen Kotkin. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. xxv, 306 pp. $27.50 cloth; $9.95 paper. An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia: the Memoirs of Zara Witkin, 1932-1934. Edited by Michael Gelb. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. 363 pp. $29.95.

Krause, Paul
Canadian-American Slavic Studies , Volume 28 (3): 335 – Jan 1, 1994
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1994 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0090-8290
eISSN
2210-2396
DOI
10.1163/221023994X00756
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The authors show that Soviet planning was erratic and "Bacchanalian," with a systemic tendency to under- or overshoot targets on a massive scale. The core o f the b o o k is the presentation o f a linear programming model tracing alternative growth paths from 1929 to 1944. Heroic assumptions have to be made in order to simplify the model (for e x a m p l e , there are only two types o f technology, " o l d " and "new"). The authors are able to show, even using the assumptions and data o f the S o v i e t c e n t r a l p l a n n e r s t h e m s e l v e s , that a slower, less " t a u t " capital a c c u m u l a t i o n path w o u l d have p r o d u c e d faster long term growth. There is not - m u c h novelty in such a finding for a political scientist or a political economist, but economic historians

Journal

Canadian-American Slavic Studies – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1994

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