Soviet Views of the Western Economic Crisis
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207402900408 |
| Author | Michael Kaser |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MICHAEL
KASER
Soviet
views
of
the
western economic
crisis
Eugene
Varga,
then
the
leading
Soviet
specialist
on the
capitalist
economies,
lost
the
directorship
of
the
Institute
of
World
Eco-
nomics
of
the
USSR
Academy
of
Sciences
in
1948
for asserting
that
the
capitalist
economies were
saving themselves
from
collapse
by
the
adaption
of
wartime
planning
to
control
and
management
of
the
postwar
economies.
He
said
at
that
time
that
in
England
there
already
existed
'something
of
a
Gosplan'
and
that
'American
and
Canadian
banks
and
firms
were
able
to
provide
credit
to
Euro-
pean
countries
[and]
the
rate
of
recovery
depended
in the
first
place
on
the
export
of
American
capital
to
Europe."
Varga's
con-
cept
of
convergence
was
supported
by
such
developments
as
a
visit
by
staff
of
the
French
Monnet Plan
to
the
State
Planning
Office
in Prague
for
advice
on
indicative
planning
in
a
mixed
economy
and
the
launching
of
a
Polish
reconstruction
plan
which
was
justly termed
a
'mixture
of
Marx
and
Keynes.'
A
decade
later,
his
standing
re-established
on
a
more
orthodox
interpretation
of
'the
general
crisis
of
capitalism,'
he
advanced
a
firm
prediction
of
the
triumph
of
socialism:
'One
can
predict with
virtual certainty
that
the
twentieth
century
is
the
last
century
of
the existence
of
capitalism.
At
the end
of
this
century
capitalism
generally
will
not
exist
or
will
only
remain
in
insignificant
forms.'
2
Reader
in
Economics,
Oxford University.
i
E.
Varga,
at
a
conference
in
May
1947
to discuss
his
book
Izmeneniya
v
ekonomike
hapitalizma
v
itoge
mirovoi
voyny
(Changes
in
the
Economy
of
Capitalism
as
a
result
of
the
Second
World
War)
(Moscow
1946),
reported
in
Planovoe
khozyaistvo,
no
6,
1948.
2
E.
Varga,
Kapitalizm
dvadtsatogo
veha
(Capitalism
of
the
Twentieth
Century)
(Moscow
ig6i),
p
147.
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