The collapse of the Soviet Union: no one knew the numbers
A system built on lies eventually lies to its top leadership, at which point even those who are in charge are left blind to the facts
A fascinating bit from Chris Miller’s book on the collapse of the USSR.
The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy:
Mikhail Gorvachev and the Collapse of the USSR
By Chris Miller ©2016
Page 1
“Not happening! You’re asking too much. The budget is off limits to you.” So spoke USSR General Secretary Yuri Andropov in 1982, when Mikhail Gorbachev asked to see the Soviet budget. Gorbachev was astounded that even an official such as himself - a Politburo member, one of the top dozen political figures in the entire country - was not allowed to see the country’s consolidated figure for revenue and expenditure. Only after becoming general secretary himself in 1985 did Gorbachev finally gain access to the Soviet budget. He discovered, he later wrote, that it was “full of holes.”
The dire state of Soviet data presents a serious impediment to understanding the country’s economy. The issue is no longer that the data are secret, but that they were widely fudged, making macro-level statistics unreliable. During the Cold War, America’s Central Intelligence Agency produced detailed estimates of the USSR’s GDP, inflation, wages, and the like. American spies knew that published Soviet statistics were untrustworthy, but they presumed that someone inside the Kremlin was keeping a “real” set of accounting books with accurate numbers. As it turned out, they weren’t - and the CIA’s estimates remain an important source for understanding the Soviet economy.