I'm writting an essay about USSR history (specifically about perestroika), and I need to write about the USSR's economic system before the reforms.
I've already read The Soviet century (Moshe Lewin) and The age of extremes (Eric Hobsbawm) and both of them agreed that USSR wasn't exactly communist, but noone of them were clearly (for me) at giving characteristics about USSR's economic system.
My problem is that I know the characteristics (planificated economy, abolition of private property, autarchy, etc) but I don't find any author who supports this.
Does anyone know any source about USSR economy?
Thanks
This is a great work by the economist Maurice Dobb and goes over the period of the beginning of USSR to the 1960s. It doesnt go into the 1970s or 1980s because it was printed in 1966.
https://ia801908.us.archive.org/4/items/DobbSovEconDev/DobbSovEconDev.pdf
Firstly, I'd recommend What Is To Be Done by Lenin as well as Capital (along with another book helping interpret the odd and formally worded book) and the Communist Manifesto to get an idea of what his vision was and understand what Leninism and Leninist terms such as vanguardism mean.
I would personally suggest [Alienation and the Soviet Economy] (https://www.amazon.com/Alienation-Soviet-Economy-Collapse-Socialist/dp/0945999631)
To understand the economy of the USSR, you have to also understand the economy of other socialist states, especially the market-socialist Yugoslavia as well as what ideology they even adhered to. Leninism is an authoritarian form of Marxism, with the government acting as a Vanguard Party to ensure the rights of workers and the progress of communism. A lot of Leninists believe once this society is achieved, the government is then obsolete. Marxists believe in a unified, world revolution, which is about what Trotsky's intents were. Lenin believed the government was needed to push socialism in their specific country.
A strong, central economy where money, property, and classism didn't disappear but in fact flourished. Stalin knew the country would have to change from a backwards and rural farming country to industrial almost overnight- enter 5 Year Plan. By 1990, the GDP of the USSR was around 2 trillion.