[PEN-L:436] Re: Kagarlitsky responds to Hiatt

[Dennis R Redmond <dredmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, Robert Naiman crossposted:

> America, Please Leave Us Alone To Solve Our Problems
>
> by Boris Kagarlitsky, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for
> Comparative Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
>
> Does he really think that Russia was a Third World country? Soviet industry
> was certainly inefficient and badly needed technological modernization.
> However, with all the problems it had Russia managed to export the products
> of its manufacturing. Only after the "reformers" came to power did Russia
> become totally dependent on the export of raw materials.

Boris the K. usually has some cool things to say, but I'm not sure if this
will really fly. Russia exported lots of goods to Eastern Europe during
the Soviet era, but was already running huge trade deficits with those
countries (mostly because it didn't charge world prices for its oil); what
exports did make it onto world markets were mostly military equipment and
semiprocessed materials, not South Korean-style consumer goods. The Soviet
Union sold a hell of a lot of oil and gas on world markets, but that's all
it was able to sell.

Still, it's a good sign that Belarus is getting its act together. Looks
like the Visegrad export boom is finally kicking into gear; if the EU ever
decided to really lower interest rates and install some serious
infrastructure in the East, the Russian economy could take off like a
rocket.

-- Dennis