The Coming Soviet Crash: Gorbachev’s Desperate Pursuit of Credit in Western Financial Markets by Judy Shelton (PDF)

Description

A very cynical examination of the Soviet economy by a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who suggests that glasnost is a con and perestroika a ruse to obtain Western credits that will be invested in an enhanced Soviet military and place Western security at risk. Her proposal offer no port to the Soviets in a storm. (RC) Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Library Journal Shelton, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, opens with an examination of the Soviet budget as reported in that government’s own publications and suggests that the Kremlin’s finances are in much worse shape than is generally thought. She argues further that perestroika cannot save the ailing system without massive infusions of Western capital, technology, and attractive consumer goods to motivate workers–all of which the Soviets are pursuing avidly. Shelton concludes by warning against making capital or resources available to the USSR since any improvement in Soviet economic performance will enhance its military capabilities. A well-written and clear argument. Recommended.- James R. Kuhl man, Univ. of Georgia Lib., AthensCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Making predictions is hard, especially about the future This book was written in 1988, and it correctly predicted what happened in the USSR 3 years later. Spot on! Even though it’s been almost 20 years, I think this book is well worth reading. It sheds light into the current US policy against Russia, and has interesting details about the origins of Soviet-owned banks such as VEB which is still around. I think the author is correct naming all the main causes of the collapse of the USSR. For more information, check out the recent study by Chris Miller, and do not miss Egor Gaidar’s book that contains additional details and a lot of statistics and references.

⭐When I lived in former Soviet Union I saw all of this happening. We did not know any info or reasons for sharp decline of the economy and society in whole

⭐It’s interesting to read this book now that the former USSR no longer exists. Author Judy Shelton wrote the book back in 1989. It is based primarily on Soviet economic data published at the time and her analyses. There is much discussion on Soviet economic problems and the efforts of Soviet leaders to attract western investment to solve them.There is some discussion of the grossly excessive Soviet military expenditures but I don’t think she (or anyone else at the time) realized the true scale of it. It is now known that by the mid-1970s military spending accounted for 20% to 30% of the USSR GDP.I thought that the most interesting chapter was Chapter 10 “Proper Perspective.” It summarizes the USSR problems and what were perceived at the time as attempted Soviet solutions to them. In fact, Shelton was naïve (as were just about everybody else); the Soviet problems were much more severe than she realized and the solutions were impossible to implement.An excellent book written after the collapse of the USSR and based on data that became available from the Russian Federation archives is “The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy” by Miller (2016). It is interesting to read Shelton’s book on her predictions and then follow it up with Miller’s book based on actual history and information.“The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy” discusses a primary reason for the inability of the political leadership to make changes to the economy. For all practical purposes, the bureaucratic and ministerial leadership of the military, the associated military or defense industry, the energy industry, and the agricultural industry (“agro-industrial complex”) ran the Communist Party, not the other way around as you might think. These groups indulged in a complex system of patronage, power, rewards for non-performance, and corruption. They simply had no reason to desire any change in the status quo.Chapters 6 and 7 finally describe the consequences of this system. For example, all those ministries or power-groups previously mentioned successfully extracted enormous subsidies from the central government over the years. Chart 2 in Chapter 7 shows that by 1991, the USSR budget deficit amounted to 30% of GDP. In several cases of specific industries, output was actually decreasing despite massive increases in investment. All this eventually resulted in a combination of inflation and severe shortages. The government planning agencies set prices far below market levels, so enterprises lacked any incentive to produce and sell products. By 1991, the agricultural and food distribution supply chains simply stopped functioning.The final chapter “Conclusion” then summarizes all the problems resulting from the Stalinist economic system and the vast powers of the economic interest groups that successfully resisted any changes.

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