The Economic Costs of the GULag Archipelago

Professor Rosefielde makes at least two important points: some official Soviet physical output series really were (and are) exaggerated, and output expansion in the 1930s was not based on a surplus extracted from agriculture. But his valiant efforts lack a sense of proportion, and his exaggerated claims weaken his case.His version of the “standard theory,” for example, appears to confuse intentions with actuality. It seems to me that informed Western consensus about events between 1928 and 1940 runs as follows: Soviet output increases were obtained through very large increments of labor and fixed capital, without much contribution from technological progress.