[sudosysgen]

I don't think we can actually attribute the refusal of markets as a Bolshevik position. Lenin was very favourable to the use of markets, while Stalin later was opposed it to it in no small part because he felt it wasn't developing heavy industry rapidly enough, which turned out to be crucial to winning WW2.

The post-Stalin dogma as well as the calcification of the Soviet economy was an impediment to the trials of such planning, but some Soviet economists like Kantorovich in fact proposed essentially the same system. It was refused for two reasons - large computational cost at a time where computers were quite weak, and cynical Soviet bureaucrats not wanting to lose their power, hence many opposed it. But quite a few were indeed supportive.

Later in the 70s, the Soviets did adopt some market economic implements in the form of cooperatives, so I don't think they were unconditionally opposed to it.

Later, there would be the issue that any planning system would be opposed not only by pro-planning bureaucrats, but also by the rising anti-communist faction of the party.

Interestingly, I think it is Lenin that most acutely understood the difficulty of central planning, hence why he proposed the NEP that Stalin later dismantled.

On the rest however, I think we are both in agreement :)

[vidarh]

I halfway agree with this. NEP certainly shows that Lenin at least in theory was open to it, though NEP was a climb-down. It's of course impossible to see what Lenin would have done if he'd stayed alive, but I guess the closest parallel would be Deng's reforms in China and Đổi Mới in Vietnam, both of which certainly either improved growth or coincided with it (the one caution is that you can see Chinese growth starting before the reforms - China's GDP growth was punctuated through Mao's reign and into Deng's by every political upheaval Mao caused, and as such the period of stability Deng brought clearly is at least part of the reason).

I don't think I'd agree Lenin was all that favourable to markets initially though. It seemed to me to be more of a pragmatic attitude and acceptance that things couldn't continue the way they did prior to NEP, and it being short enough after the civil war created a very convenient way of drawing a line under the old policies as driven by the war.

Stalins role in dismantling it is certainly critical.