ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Russian economy and oil industry during the Soviet period, which lasted from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 until the collapse and break-up of the USSR at the end of 1991. It focuses on the planned economy of 1928–1986 rather than on the period leading up to 1928, a time of civil war and a mixed economy, or on the years after 1986, when the centrally planned economy began to be dismantled. In the period up until the outbreak of the Second World War, the Soviet planned economic system brought about rapid industrialisation – the country's industrial labour force tripled, 8,000 new large enterprises were built, and whole new branches of industry emerged. Oil production grew exponentially during the Soviet period from under 10 million tons in 1917 to a peak of over 600 million tons in the mid-1980s. Joseph Berliner found that the principal managerial incentive in Soviet industry was the bonus.
