Belarusian Industry under Reform and Stagnation (1953–1985)

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Sasim (2009), “Belarusian Industry under Reform and Stagnation (1953–1985)” – Minsk: Ekoperspektiva, – 243 pp.

The review was prepared by Tatsiana Chyzhova, a researcher at the Political Sphere Institute for Political Studies.

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It is no secret that in recent decades the study of economic history and the history of the Soviet period in Belarus has been in obvious stagnation. It is therefore all the more gratifying to see works that, to one degree or another, attempt to fill gaps in domestic historiography on the basis of contemporary research.

M.A. Sasim’s book examines the tendencies and specific features of industrial development in the Belarusian SSR in the second half of the twentieth century. The structure of the book consists of two parts: the first is devoted to reforms in Belarusian industry in the post-Stalin period, in particular the economic reform of 1965; in the second part the author attempts to survey the evolution of the organisation of production from 1953 to 1985.

It is immediately noticeable that the author is more interested in the social aspect of reforms than in the actual development of industry. In the author’s interpretation, industrial reforms appear more as an appendage to the general democratisation of public life in the USSR than as a process with its own logic.

A reader unfamiliar with the basic principles of the functioning of the Soviet economy during Stalinism will have to seriously improve their historical knowledge in this field by relying on other sources: the author says decisively nothing about the state of affairs at the beginning of the reforms, limiting himself to commonplaces about bureaucracy, “inefficiency”, excessive centralisation and the need to reform the economy.

To some extent these gaps are filled in the third chapter of the first part, when the so-called “Kosygin” reform of 1965 is considered, and its main directions, planned and real results are outlined quite clearly. Here too, however, the main attention is paid to social issues and the growth of quality of life. The methods of socialist labour incentives, the rising level of education among the workforce, and a whole set of socio-economic contradictions are discussed in considerable detail. Yet the influence of objective material factors on the formation and development of Belarusian industry — for example, the volumes of republican and union investments or the pace of urbanisation in the republic — remains outside the narrative.

The author then proceeds along the same path, assessing the socialist economy from the standpoint of the contemporary market economy and predictably arriving at the conclusion that the entire Soviet social order had to be changed: “The reform of 1965 left unchanged the deep relations of production — property relations. This became the reason why it was doomed to failure from the very beginning. It contained incompatible principles: the expansion of enterprise rights and the strengthening of centralisation. Although enterprises formally became more independent, they did not have the right to set prices for their own products. The same happened with their right to dispose independently of labour power, to hire the necessary workers, and to dismiss redundant or poorly performing people. Here enterprise managers encountered serious resistance from trade unions and the party apparatus, which feared provoking even the smallest manifestations of dissatisfaction among workers” (p. 100).

Unfortunately, the book never shows the regularities of the emergence, functioning and evolution of specifically Belarusian Soviet industry: the authenticity of the Soviet economic model is largely lost among numerous statements about the need for reforms and attempts to evaluate them. Ultimately, had the form of ownership not remained unchanged in 1965, this book would have been half as long, because what would have begun further on would have been a different industry, a different Belarus and an entirely different history.