Russia passed to capitalism with great losses. But this could have been avoided. For example, follow the path of the same China, which has managed to maintain the world's most dynamic economy. Moreover, the USSR also planned to create its own Hong Kong and Shanghai on the territory of the Komi Republic and in other places …
Attempts to get rid of the shackles of the most "economical economy" were undertaken even in the deeply stagnant years of Brezhnev. It is not surprising: no matter how ancient the “mummies”, frozen in the stands of the Mausoleum, were, they understood that the country was heading into the abyss, and tried to somehow prevent a catastrophe.
Rescue of the drowning
Documents show that already in 1978, secret meetings of the Politburo were held under the chairmanship of Leonid Brezhnev, at which various options for bringing the economy out of stagnation were considered. Including the option of creating so-called self-supporting divisions and entire industries that could well become prototypes of modern free economic zones. But then the faction of the old communists, headed by Suslov, won, and all economic transformations were buried in the bud.
The second time they started talking about the creation of free economic zones in 1986-1987. Leading Soviet economists traveled around the world to get acquainted with the experience of economic zones that were already active in many countries of Europe, Asia and America.
The experience gained was summarized; In March 1989, the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR "On the further development of foreign economic activity of state, cooperative and other public enterprises, associations and organizations" was issued.
The program provided for the creation of several such zones at once. The first of them, following the model of American technology parks, was to appear in the city of Vyborg. The next one is in Nakhodka, Primorsky Krai. Further, the idea was put forward to create about forty such zones along the BAM route on the basis of local raw materials. They had to specialize in the extraction of mineral raw materials, the production of fertilizers and other products of the chemical industry.
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But … nothing happened. The government was simply afraid of the introduction in these zones of "alien" capitalist principles - payment according to work, and even in the currency prohibited in the USSR, market relations built on the basis of the interaction of supply and demand. I was frightened first of all because the people working and living there would see something “sweeter than a carrot” and would not want to return to the socialist “paradise”.
Bitter epiphany
And what if such “Soviet Hong Kongs” were created? We can safely assume that then we would not have experienced the economic collapse in the early 1990s. The activities of the zones, in which the active participation of leading foreign companies was supposed, would immediately open our eyes to the situation in which we were.
Namely - the fact that our products are completely uncompetitive in the world market and our labor force does not know how to work according to world standards. And if we felt it on our own "skin", we would hardly have thrust ourselves into wild capitalism, not having a single chance to survive there. And we would have chosen the Chinese version.
Meanwhile, another economic project was considered in the USSR. It consisted in handing over equipment and, most importantly, labor resources in these zones. That is, to send our people there to work, but so that all their earnings go to the state, as was the case with Soviet artists and athletes. Or take for execution individual industrial orders from the world's leading manufacturers.
But both of these ideas were abandoned.
Magazine: Secrets of the USSR No. 5