Gorbachev on Lenin and NEP

[Joe R. Golowka]

> -This is a somewhat naive view of NEP. From what I know, NEP
> -was doomed as strategy for socialist development as early as
> -1928. It failed to promote industrial development, while cities
> -where threatened by famine since the peasants wher refusing
> -to sell their production due to the relative decline of agricultural
> -goods prices (the so called scissor crisis).

They could have just raised grain prices.


> So there is no point
> -in saying USSR would be better had NEP policies been kept
> -after 1928. Instead I would believe the situation would evolve
> -(1) to capitalist restoration or (2) to a huge economic crisis
> -(not discarding a combination of 1 and 2).

(1) had already happened by 1928 (and was solidified by the five year plans) and (2) eventually
happened anyway.  Other alternatives to Stalin's policies within a bolshevik framework include the
models applied in Tito's Yugoslavia and Mao's China.