Post-war economy of the USSR: Recovery factors

As of now, economic history is not able to provide a complete explanation for the success of the post-war Soviet economy. The results of studies by both Soviet and foreign authors show that Soviet economy reached its pre-war level no later than 1948. However, when calculating the losses of fixed assets in the USSR of years during the war and comparing them with the level of capital investments, it becomes clear that the restoration of the USSR economy should have taken place no earlier than 1952. The calculations performed in this article exhibit that internal capital investments were responsible for only 29,4% of the restoration of post-war Soviet economy. The rest was due to external factors, the most important of which were the allies’ assistance during the war, post-war reparations, the transfer of material, and financial and intellectual resources from the occupied territories. There is reason to believe that the resources obtained by the USSR in the war and post-war years guaranteed the country’s economic development up until the mid-60s.