The Debit and ¿redit ¿f War, or How Stalin Made a Trillion Dollars. The Unknown Economic History of the USSR before, during and after World War II (1940-1953) (ePub)

The key events in the economic history of the USSR from the 1940s to the beginning of the 1950s continue to be a great mystery, and many of Joseph Stalin's intentions and real actions are subject to numerous interpretations or have not been seriously examined at all. Considering the summary of historical judgments received over past decades, which has served as the basis for various viewpoints on the causes of the German aggression in June 1941 and the economic conditions of the Russian victory, it can be determined that many of them either contain too many understatements or contradict each other.
In this chaos of information, it has been impossible to easily find convincing answers to the three closely intertwined questions of this academic monograph:
1) Was Stalin economically interested in starting a world war and a Great Patriotic War?
2) Is it possible to consider the Stalinist administrative-command system to be economically successful?
3) How great was the real damage to the Soviet national economy because of the war and did the USSR receive economic benefit from it?
Analysis of several thousand official documents found in three Russian federal archives over the course of three years, most of which had not been studied by anyone before the author of this monograph, aim to give the reader comprehensive answers to these questions.
True history needs to be separated from propagandist falsifications, which can and must be rewritten. Until now, quite a lot of Soviet propagandist clichés have not been doubted in the scientific literature. This has mainly happened due to one reason: the Soviet version of history with all its "scientific facts" and "scientific doctrines" for a long time had no alternatives due to researchers' lack of access to reliable sources containing historical facts that sharply contrasted with the propaganda. The situation changed completely a few years ago when the bulk of the economic documentation of the Soviet period was declassified. Historical science now has a much greater opportunity to write an objective economic history of the USSR before, during and after World War II. A careful examination of the newly accessible archive documents suggests that many of the so-called "generally accepted facts" on the key economic issues of the 1930s and 1950s have no plausible basis. Many of them are illogical or unsubstantiated. Sometimes they are absurd and do not withstand elementary verification when compared to the recently declassified sources.
Because of the practice carried out by the Soviet authorities to "sift out" (or, in other words, destroy) archive files, the archives contain fewer alternative materials than I would like. However, even a relatively small amount of available information that contradicts the official version of the events, in combination with other historical sources, is representative. In some cases, this tangible evidence convincingly refutes many of the previous pseudo-scientific ideas about Soviet history. It provides an excellent opportunity to unravel the sticky web of lies that Stalin's era is still entangled in. And the most valuable thing is that in most cases these sources provide a comprehensive and accurate picture that enables us to reconstruct the real historical events.