Research Catalog

Title

The reluctant retreat : the Soviet and East German departure from central planning / Phillip J. Bryson.

Author

Bryson, Phillip J.

Publication

Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, VT, USA : Dartmouth, [1995], ©1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xviii, 410 pages; 23 cm

Summary

• The Reluctant Retreat asks why the economic system of East European socialism failed. It reviews the nature of the central planning system, focusing on the institutions of the most avid planning regimes, the USSR and East Germany. As it investigates their attempts to escape from the inefficiencies of central planning, it also looks at life under those regimes in social terms.
• The history of socialism's attempts to decentralize began with the reforms in the mid-sixties. The book traces the frustrated efforts of the party to maintain economic power and control while decentralizing enough to encourage individual enterprises to accept more responsibility and achieve greater efficiency and quality in their production efforts.
• The economic decline of President Gorbachev in the Soviet Union and General Secretary Erich Honecker in East Germany is discussed, and the final chapters review the problems of transforming these planning systems to market economies.

Subject

• Central planning > Soviet Union
• Central planning > Germany (East)
• Free enterprise > Soviet Union
• Free enterprise > Germany (East)
• Perestroĭka
• Soviet Union > Economic policy
• Germany (East) > Economic policy

Contents

Pt. I. Central Economic Planning and Early Soviet Reform Efforts. 1. The Nature and Deficiencies of Soviet-Type Planning. 2. The Process of Soviet Reform. 3. The Early Gorbachev Years: Genesis of Perestroika. 4. Gorbachev's Perestroika -- Pt. 2. Planning and Organizational Refinements in the GDR: An Alternative to Reform? 5. East German Traditional Centralism. 6. Combine Formation: Alternative to Reform? -- Pt. 3. Soviet and East German Planning Systems: Some Comparative Considerations. 7. Plan Perfecting: Comparisons of Soviet and East German Experience. 8. Socialist Material Life: East German Social Welfare Policies. 9. Socialist Material Life: Soviet Consumption and Social Welfare Policies -- Pt. 4. The Current Struggle to Eschew Central Planning. 10. Decline and Fall of the Honecker Economy. 11. The Transformation of the East German Economy. 12. Perestroika, Phase III. 13. The Decline of Soviet Planning: Transformation Efforts from 1990.

ISBN

1855215233

LCCN

94046889

OCLC

• 31754843
• ocm31754843

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries