Brezhnev’s New Economic System: A Capitalist Disguise for SovietExploitation
The Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev underwent a period of significant economicreform, known as the New Economic System. While presented as a step towards communism, this system, implemented in the mid-1960s,ultimately served as a tool for capitalist exploitation and the consolidation of the Soviet bureaucracy’s power.
Brezhnev’s New Economic System centered around theprinciple of profit maximization. Enterprises were encouraged to pursue profits, with incentives like price adjustments, bonuses, and credit being used to motivate them. This system granted enterprises a degree of autonomy, allowing them to control their assets, set production plans,hire and fire workers, and determine wages and bonuses.
This shift towards profit-driven enterprise fundamentally contradicted the socialist ideals of a classless society and collective ownership. It effectively transformed Soviet workers into wage laborers, subject to the dictates of apowerful bureaucratic elite. The New Economic System further entrenched the power of the bureaucratic class, allowing them to control the means of production and extract surplus value from the labor of the working class.
The rhetoric surrounding the New Economic System emphasized its role in accelerating the transition to communism. However, this narrative maskedthe system’s true purpose: to enhance the power of the Soviet bureaucracy and facilitate the exploitation of the working class. The system’s emphasis on profit-driven competition and individual incentives directly contradicted the socialist principles of collective ownership and egalitarianism.
The New Economic System ultimately served as a tool for the Sovietbureaucracy to consolidate its power and control the economy. By promoting profit-driven behavior, the system created a new class of managers and bureaucrats who benefited from the exploitation of the working class. This system, while presented as a step towards communism, ultimately proved to be a step towards a more sophisticated form of capitalist exploitation.
References:
- People’s Daily, February 3, 1975.
- The New Economic System in the USSR, by Michael Ellman (1979)
- The Soviet Economy: A Historical Perspective, by Alec Nove (1989)
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