Stalin and Soviet Union

After Stalin came into power in 1926 he adopted the rapid industrialization strategy, which was a central planning economy. His economic strategy was totalitarianism. In 1926-7, investment increased by 32 percent with focus on industrial projects, tax revenue had increase on Kulaks. But grain crisis in 1927-8 forced the Soviet Union to increase use of compulsion to obtain gain. In 1928 1st five year plan emphasised investment in heavy industry. Economic strategy was associated with a totalitarian regime.
The main economic successes of the Soviet Union were – they could produce a standardised product; direct labour to clear task (clear division of responsibilities and duties); in peacetime, the USSR was successful at achieving goals such as providing basics to its people (e.g. housing, education, healthcare); sending the first person into space; wining Olympic medals; and They were influential in post-1945 development debates.
The main economic failures of the USSR were misallocation of scarce resources – wasteful by managers and queues by consumers. Secondly, the USSR failed to respond to consumers’ wants beyond the satisfaction of basic needs. These problems were less apparent to outsiders especially before 1960s. The inherent inefficiency of a command-administered economic system has come to dominate its effectiveness in achieving the priority objectives of the central authorities. Methods and institutions that were effective at an earlier, simpler stage of development no longer generate the desired outcomes. The mobilization of resources and effort that produced collectivization, industrialization, and a sizable chemical industry failed to develop modern computer technology, or modernize consumer goods industries. The administrative superstructure, methods of planning, and plans themselves have become ever less adequate to the needs and flow of economic activity. The natural consequence is an increase in dysfunctional behaviour by subordinators, increasingly obvious microeconomic waste and inefficiency, slowing or declining economic growth and productivity, and ever more frequent failures to achieve proclaimed priorities.
The Soviet Union economy would be better if they undertake another way. If they performed some form of a market-based economic system. This system include: generally free, market determined prices, generally independent firms, motivated by economic considerations; a significant, if not predominant role for state property; industrial regulation in the place of the industrial planning; generally hard currency; and modern financial system, including commercial banking, exchange, and other financial intermediaries.