It remains one of the greatest experiments in economic and political history. A bloody civil war, the abolition of private property, the creation of a command economy with near full state ownership, price regulation and the elimination of markets.
One hundred years on from the Russian Revolution, three main lessons emerge from the 75-year Great Soviet Experiment. They are not rocket science but worth re-stating. First, industrialisation through terror is inefficient. Second, without terror the command economy eventually flags and goes bankrupt. Third, lack of political competition creates a rigid governance system unable to make necessary reforms.
The first is probably the least obvious. Stalin accomplished industrialisation and eventually led the Soviet Union to victory in the second world war. His method was top-down and, in the words of the writers Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, “brutal but effective”.