Leading scholars in the field analyse the Soviet economy sector by sector to make available, in textbook form, the results of the latest research on Soviet industrialisation.

THIS is the second volume of an empirical study of the relationship between Western technology and entrepreneurship and the economic growth of the Soviet Union. The continuing transfer of skills and technology to the Soviet Union through the medium of foreign firms and engineers in the period 1930 to 1945 can only be characterized as extraordinary. A thorough and systematic search unearthed only two major items--SK-B synthetic rubber and the Ramzin 'once-through' boiler--and little more than a handful of lesser designs (several aircraft, a machine gun, and a motorless combine) which could accurately be called the result of Soviet technology; the balance was transferred from the West.

This new textbook draws on personal experience and literary sources, including memoirs, as well as available economic data and analyses, to illustrate the reality of everyday life and of economic policy making in the post-war Soviet Union. The author argues that the Soviet economic system was capable of producing economic growth, and did for most of its existence exhibit growth. But it revealed over a time a key weakness compared with capitalism: a systemic inability to cope well with technological change, which doomed the Soviet economy in the long-run. Moreover, 'success' in partially liberalising Soviet society, so that terror receded into the background, reduced the effectiveness of a top-downeconomic system that relied on authority and obedience. Of major interest to courses on the Soviet experience in departments of history, politics and economics

Looking at the entire Stalin era, this book contains chapters on ideology, politics, economic development, social change, nationalities, culture and external relations, and the Great Terror. An updated bibliography including a wealth of recent English-language work on the rule of Stalin is included.

This survey of modern Soviet economic growth is based almost exclusively on Western works and does not include direct references to Soviet scholarly work. It is directed to the general public of economists, and therefore contains a section on sources of economic information about the Soviet Union and several subsections, such as the one describing the basics of the operation of the Soviet system, that are only indirectly related to the main issue. Contents: Introduction; Availability and Reliability of Information; The Growth Record; Structural Changes; The Socialist System and its Growth Strategy; R & D and Technological Change; The R & D Sector; Why did Growth Rates Decline?; Production Function Estimates; Evaluation and Conclusion-or, can The Trend be Reversed? (KR).