Price Scissors
가위차
The Price Scissors was the gap between industrial and agricultural prices in the 1923 Soviet economy, named by Trotsky after the diverging blades of a scissors graph. By October 1923 industrial prices hit 276% of the 1913 level while farm prices stayed at 89%; peasants, unable to buy manufactured goods with their earnings, sold only enough grain to pay taxes. The state cut staff, controlled wages, and expanded consumer cooperatives, bringing the industrial index down to 131 by April 1924. The crisis was resolved, but the deeper question (how to fund industrialization without private accumulation) remained.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Wikipedia: 1923 peak prices (276% industrial, 89% agricultural), Trotsky coining the term, government response, April 1924 resolution (92/131)
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia: term origin with Trotsky, price indices, peasant response, crisis resolution
- soviethistory.msu.edu Lewis Siegelbaum, Seventeen Moments in Soviet History (MSU): smychka context, syndicate monopoly role, government countermeasures
- ponjatija.ru Орлов А.С. и др., Исторический словарь (2012): expression introduced by Trotsky, sales crisis, contribution to abandonment of NEP