Word: khrushchevism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Sensible pragmatism or rank heresy? Khrushchev himself provided the reformers with a text, if not an answer, late in 1962, when the debate was beginning to gather momentum. He reminded the Central Committee of "Lenin's directive that we be able, if necessary, to learn from the capitalists, to adopt whatever they have that is sensible and advantageous...
Eighteen months later, it had plainly become "necessary." Moving the debate off the pages of Pravda and into the industrial arena, Khrushchev gave the reformers a place to test their theories. Two clothing factories-Moscow's Bolshevichka and Gorky's Mayak-were cut loose to negotiate prices and sell their suits and dresses directly to 22 retail stores. The stores told the two factories what kinds of goods the consumers wanted, and the factories were judged by the profits made on what goods were actually sold...
Hydra-Foiled. In his pursuit of "Goulash Communism," Khrushchev tried to cope with it, and with all his economy's mounting problems, by replanning the planners. No fewer than six times in ten years, he scrambled the organization table, veering from decentralization back to recentralization in the vain hope of finding the magic mix for what he called "better utilization of the country's industrial potential." It eluded him each time-and his constant shufflings left the Russian economy at the mercy of the monster planning Hydra, with its multiple overlapping bureaus on the national, regional and local...
...Ceiling. The tonnage norms particularly piqued Khrushchev's peasant common sense. Machine builders used eight-inch plates when four-inch plates would easily have done the job. "We make the heaviest machines in the world," sighed Nikita. His choice complaint, however, had to do with a Moscow chandelier factory: the more tons of chandeliers the plant produced, the more workers earned in bonuses. The chandeliers grew heavier and heavier, until they started pulling ceilings down. They fulfilled the plan, admitted Khrushchev angrily, "but who needs this plan? To whom does it give light...
...Vasily Nemchinov, a mathematical eminence grise regarded as the dean of Soviet economists. He saw in Liberman a potential stalking horse for all the reformers, invited him to Moscow. When in 1962 the economy's growing malaise could no longer be ignored by the Kremlin, Nemchinov persuaded Khrushchev to give Liberman's theories a showcase in Pravda. On Sept. 9, 1962, Liberman's "The Plan, Profits and Bonuses" was published, and the great debate began...