The Russian and Soviet economies in two world wars: a comparative view 1

F Russia the two great wars of the twentieth century had strongly contrasting outcomes. In World War i, imperial Russia suffered military defeat at German hands. Lack of military success undermined the legitimacy of the old regime, already weakened by the effects of defeat and revolutionary upheaval 10 years earlier. Mounting shortages at the front and in the rear strengthened popular belief in the incompetence of the tsarist government. In February 1917, the old regime collapsed. The new Soviet regime, which came to power in October of that year, suffered further humiliation at German hands in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The disaster was subsequently mitigated by factors which had less to do with Soviet military or economic revival than with Germany's defeat on the western front and, in the Russian civil war, the comparative weakness of the Soviet regime's other enemies.^ The contrast with World War 11 could not be sharper. Then, despite initial defeats and cruel hardships, the political system remained intact. In 1941-5 the USSR emerged as a world power, having destroyed German military capability on the eastern front, able in consequence to project Soviet military power into the heart of Europe despite economic exhaustion and demographic catastrophe.^ How much of this contrast was due to the Soviet economic achievement? The question can be considered in two parts. First, how much of superior