Aleksandr Alexandrovich Guzhalovsky,
Doctor of History Sciences, Professor, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Republic of Belarus, е‑mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Deficit and Shadow Economy in Soviet Belarus on the Background of Economic Reforms of the Middle 1950s – Middle 1960s
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-4-4
As a result of Khrushchev rejection of authoritarian rule, the desire for enrichment which had previously been repressively suppressed began to gain strength in the Byelorussian SSR. The growth of wages throughout the country, began to outstrip the growth of its productivity, and the shortage of goods and services became one of the main reasons for the decrease in the effectiveness of the material incentive system. In order to reverse this trend, the authorities made significant efforts to limit the population’s desire for consumption and income growth rates, increase the role of moral incentives for labor, withdrawal of ‘surplus’ money from the population, and persecute ‘unearned income’. These measures were in conflict with the policy aimed at increasing the welfare of the population. One of the consequence of the growing needs of the population, as well as the emergence of the phenomenon of Soviet consumerism in the era of Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’ became the phenomenon of deficit. Periodicals as well as documents from the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus have made it possible to identify groups of consumer goods, food products, as well as types of services, the shortage of which provoced the sharp criticism of consumers. The author also made an attempt to reconstract the development of the black market which was a byproduct of the economic experiments of the Khrushchev's era Soviet leadership. Illegal economic activity was not only a tool of personal enrichment of the first captains of the Soviet Belarus underground economy and numerous ordinary salesmen, but also a form of protest against the existing egalitarian wage system.
Publishing: 28/08/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 25/04/2022
How to cite: Guzhalovsky А.А. Deficit and Shadow Economy in Soviet Belarus on the Background of Economic Reforms of the Middle 1950s – Middle 1960s // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 4 (24), pp. 45–57. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-4-04.pdf]
Links: Issue 4 2022
Keywords: economic reforms; deficit; shadow economy; consumer goods; household service; Byelorussian SSR