Over the first half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union's GDP per capita rose from 1,218 U.S. dollars to 2,8334 U.S. dollars. There was a slight decrease between 1913 and 1929 due to the devastation caused by the First World War and Russian Revolution and the transition to a communist government and socialist economic structure. However, GDP per capita grew over the following three intervals, and the Soviet Union's relative isolation in the 1920s and 1930s meant that it was relatively untouched by the Great Depression in the 1930s. At the end of the recovery period after the Second World War, in 1950, GDP per capita had already exceeded pre-war levels by a significant margin, and the Soviet Union emerged as one of the two global superpowers, alongside the United States.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union's GDP per capita rose from roughly one-third of Western Europe's GDP per capita in 1900 to one-half of its rate in 1950. Although it grew gradually between the given intervals, it did drop between 1913 and 1929 due to the devastation caused by the First World War and Russian Revolution. However, this year also marked the beginning of the Great Depression, which caused a significant economic downturn across Western Europe while being relatively unfelt in the Soviet Union.

In each half-decade between the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, there was a consistent decline in the growth rate of the Soviet Union's national income, industrial output, and agricultural production. In the early 1980s, national income and industrial output growth dropped below half of their respective rates in the late 1960s, while agricultural output fell to almost a quarter of its previous level.

This statistic shows the gross domestic product (GDP) in Russia from 1997 to 2023, with projections up until 2029. GDP refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country per year. It is an important indicator of the economic strength of a country. In 2023, the GDP in Russia was around 2.01 trillion U.S. dollars. Russian economy The Russian economy is primarily directed by both the private sector and the state. As a member of the BRIC, Russia is currently experiencing an accelerated growth within the economy with a chance of earning a place in the G7 economies. As of the 1990s, a large amount of the country’s industrial and agricultural sectors were privatized, however energy and military production remained with the state for the most part. As a result, the majority of Russian exports consisted of energy products as well as high-tech military equipment. The effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 took a similar toll on the Russian economy, however only had short term effects. Russia recovered after 2 years and has since experienced exponential economical growth and productivity due to aggressive and prompt actions from the government, providing Russia with one of the most profitable economies in the world. Additionally, unemployment reached an all-decade low from the recent Russian economic boom, which furthermore implies that there is a slight growth in wages, however is also accompanied by a large worker shortage.

Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated to have increased by 3.2 percent in October 2024 compared to the same month of the previous year. In April 2023, the monthly GDP growth was positive for the first time since March 2022. In April 2020, the country’s GDP fell by nearly 10 percent as a result of the crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as well as the oil price crash. Russian economy outlook for 2025 Russia’s annual GDP was projected to increase by 1.35 percent in 2025. The level of prices in the country was expected to continue growing, with the inflation rate forecast at 4.7 percent in that year. Post-pandemic economic recovery in selected countries Countries across the world saw a sharp decrease in GDP in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the European Commission foresaw an increase in all European Union (EU) members' GDP, ranging from the lowest of 1.1 percent in Sweden and Italy to the highest of five percent in Ireland. In Latin America, the most significant increase in GDP was recorded in Peru, at 5.2 percent in 2022.

The projectThe Soviet macroeconomic data was compiled from published and archive materials to investigate relationship between Soviet real and financial economies. The new data revealed that government debt increased to compensate for inefficient use of funds for most of the Soviet period. Given the difficulty in managing fiat money without information and data generated by the market, and the simple Soviet financial structure, the increasing debt suggests that non-performing financial assets accumulated in the household sector, and inefficient real assets built up in the enterprise sector. The empirical analysis using a small time-varying parameter vector autoregression model identified that funds supplied to the economy had contributed at a decreasing rate to economic growth during nearly the entire Soviet period. Funds continued to be used wastefully, non-performing financial assets accumulated, and consequently the value of the ruble was decreasing. In this sense, Soviet monetary management was inefficient.The filesThe data file includes all series used in the study. The description file gives explanations of the series and their sources. It also includes the R and JAGS codes of the Soviet time-varying parameter vector autoregression model.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The project examined the mutual impact of Soviet state economic policy, development and structure in the years 1932-1940. In these years the economy developed rapidly after earlier investment and sacrifices. Growth was harmed by the Stalin terror-repressions of 1936-8, and by the need to increase military expenditure in view of the threat from Nazi Germany and Japan.


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These tables on Soviet economic development in the 1930s are a product of ESRC Grant RES-000-22-1443, Soviet Economic Policy and Development from the XVII to the XVIII Party Congresses, 1934-1939.

These tables are not intended to be comprehensive, but to supplement easily-available figures with data from the Russian archives and from published sources which are not easily accessible to the historian who does not know the Russian language.

The Second World War's Eastern Front, the largest theater of war in history, was largely dominated by the conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. The two countries had agreed upon an unexpected peace pact in 1939, with the joint invasion and partition of Poland, but this peace was broken in June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. Germany's economic and technological superiority, alongside its Blitzkrieg military strategy, allowed it to gain the upper hand in the early stages of the conflict. Within six months the Germans had pushed the frontlines back to Moscow, and almost 40 percent of the Soviet population now lived in occupied territory. German gains at the expense of the Soviets was reflected in the changing balance of their economies - Germany's GDP grew each year until 1944, whereas the Soviet GDP fell by one third between 1940 and 1942.

Russia demonstrated the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Eurasia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 2024, at approximately 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars. To compare, Kazakhstan's GDP was measured at around 293 billion U.S. dollars in the same year. Tajikistan had the lowest GDP in Eurasia, at 13 billion U.S. dollars. Commonwealth of Independent States The CIS is an organization of post-Soviet states founded after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. Its official members are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Energy in the CIS Several countries in the CIS are among the leading energy producers and exporters, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. In 2023, the CIS countries exported around 8.9 million barrels of oil daily. The region's overall primary energy consumption exceeded 40 exajoules in 2023, which was close to the figure recorded for the Middle East.

The nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of Russia generally increased year-on-year, with a slight decrease in 2020. In 2023, the value of the nominal GDP increased again, up to 172.15 trillion Russian rubles.

Throughout the Second World War, the United States consistently had the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world. Additionally, U.S. GDP grew significantly throughout the war, whereas the economies of Europe and Japan saw relatively little growth, and were often in decline. The impact of key events in the war is also reflected in the trends shown here - the economic declines of France and the Soviet Union coincide with the years of German invasion, while the economies of the three Axis countries experienced their largest declines in the final year of the war.

The benchmark interest rate in Russia was last recorded at 21 percent. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Russia Interest Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union generally operated with a positive trade balance and current account. During these decades, the USSR was the most powerful economy in the communist sphere, exporting approximately 600 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods, almost one hundred billion more than all Europe's other COMECON members combined. The majority of the Soviet Union's trade was within the COMECON sphere. However, external influences, particularly conflict in the Middle East and its effect on oil prices, did impact the USSR economically.

Between the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the end of the Great Depression in the late 1930s, the Soviet Union saw the largest growth in its gross domestic product, growing by more than 70 percent between 1929 and 1937/8. The Great Depression began in 1929 in the United States, following the stock market crash in late October. The inter-connectedness of the global economy, particularly between North America and Europe, then came to the fore as the collapse of the U.S. economy exposed the instabilities of other industrialized countries. In contrast, the economic isolation of the Soviet Union and its detachment from the capitalist system meant that it was relatively shielded from these events. 1929-1932 The Soviet Union was one of just three countries listed that experienced GDP growth during the first three years of the Great Depression, with Bulgaria and Denmark being the other two. Bulgaria experienced the largest GDP growth over these three years, increasing by 27 percent, although it was also the only country to experience a decline in growth over the second period. The majority of other European countries saw their GDP growth fall in the depression's early years. However, none experienced the same level of decline as the United States, which dropped by 28 percent. 1932-1938 In the remaining years before the Second World War, all of the listed countries saw their GDP grow significantly, particularly Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Coincidentally, these were the three most powerful nations during the Second World War. This recovery was primarily driven by industrialization, and, again, the U.S., USSR, and Germany all experienced the highest level of industrial growth between 1932 and 1938.

In terms of Soviet economic success in the mid-twentieth century, industrialization was generally the area that saw the most progress in terms of Stalin's five-year plans' targets. By 1940, almost 40 percent of the Soviet workforce was employed in the industrial and manufacturing sector, however, much of this progress was at the expense of the agricultural sector (the largest employment sector before the 1930s), which suffered as a result of this rapid, often mismanaged, transition.

Additionally, during this period, socialist policy focused on increasing the quality of life of Soviet citizens, and therefore placed a much stronger emphasis on tertiary sectors, including education and healthcare.

In the build up to the Second World War, the United States was the major power with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world. In 1938, the United States also had the highest overall GDP in the world, and by a significant margin, however differences in GDP per person were much smaller. Switzerland In terms of countries that played a notable economic role in the war, the neutral country of Switzerland had the highest GDP per capita in the world. A large part of this was due to the strength of Switzerland's financial system. Most major currencies abandoned the gold standard early in the Great Depression, however the Swiss Franc remained tied to it until late 1936. This meant that it was the most stable, freely convertible currency available as the world recovered from the Depression, and other major powers of the time sold large amounts of gold to Swiss banks in order to trade internationally. Switzerland was eventually surrounded on all sides by Axis territories and lived under the constant threat of invasion in the war's early years, however Swiss strategic military planning and economic leverage made an invasion potentially more expensive than it was worth. Switzerland maintained its neutrality throughout the war, trading with both sides, although its financial involvement in the Holocaust remains a point of controversy. Why look at GDP per capita? While overall GDP is a stronger indicator of a state's ability to fund its war effort, GDP per capita is more useful in giving context to a country's economic power in relation to its size and providing an insight into living standards and wealth distribution across societies. For example, Germany and the USSR had fairly similar GDPs in 1938, whereas Germany's per capita GDP was more than double that of the Soviet Union. Germany was much more industrialized and technologically advanced than the USSR, and its citizens generally had a greater quality of life. However these factors did not guarantee victory - the fact that the Soviet Union could better withstand the war of attrition and call upon its larger population to replenish its forces greatly contributed to its eventual victory over Germany in 1945.

In 1938, the year before the Second World War, the United States had, by far, the largest economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). The five Allied Great Powers that emerged victorious from the war, along with the three Axis Tripartite Pact countries that were ultimately defeated made up the eight largest independent economies in 1938.

When values are converted into 1990 international dollars, the U.S. GDP was over 800 billion dollars in 1938, which was more than double that of the second largest economy, the Soviet Union. Even the combined economies of the UK, its dominions, and colonies had a value of just over 680 billion 1990 dollars, showing that the United States had established itself as the world's leading economy during the interwar period (despite the Great Depression).

Interestingly, the British and Dutch colonies had larger combined GDPs than their respective metropoles, which was a key motivator for the Japanese invasion of these territories in East Asia during the war. Trade with neutral and non-belligerent countries also contributed greatly to the economic development of Allied and Axis powers throughout the war; for example, natural resources from Latin America were essential to the American war effort, while German manufacturing was often dependent on Swedish iron supplies.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union saw a drastic fall in income rates across the region. In 1950, after the economic recovery period that followed the Second World War, income per capita in the Soviet Union was around half of Western Europe's rate. These figures did increase in the subsequent decades, before falling throughout the 1970s and 1980s, yet, in the final years of the communist system in Europe, income per capita was still around half of Western Europe's rate (albeit slightly lower than in1950).

By 2000, however, these figures had dropped below a quarter of Western Europe's income per capita. Most of this downturn occurred before 1996, and the economic situation in Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states began to improve in the final years of the century. It would take another few years before the economic situation of the other former-Soviet states would also begin to stabilize.

In the decade that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communist systems in Eastern Europe, economic conditions across the region generally got worse before they improved. GDP per capita had been declining throughout most of the 1980s but fell dramatically as communism ended. In Central and Eastern Europe, economic recovery began in the early 1990s, whereas this process did not start until 1996 in the former-Soviet states. As a result, GDP per capita in Central and Eastern Europe had almost returned to its 1989 level within a decade, whereas GDP per capita in the former-Soviet states had dropped by 45 percent between 1989 and 1998. This transitionary period in the continent's east did have a knock-on effect on the continent's West. However, growth did continue. Additionally, GDP per capita was 2.2 times larger in the West than in the Soviet Union in 1989, but by 1998 it was 4.6 times larger.

Since 1980, Europe's largest economies have consistently been France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, although the former Soviet Union's economy was the largest in the 1980s, and Russia's economy has been larger than Spain's since 2010. Since Soviet dissolution, Germany has always had the largest economy in Europe, while either France or the UK has had the second largest economy depending on the year. Italy's economy was of a relatively similar size to that of the UK and France until the mid 2000s when it started to diverge, resulting in a difference of approximately 800 billion U.S dollars by 2018. Russia's economy had overtaken both Italy and Spain's in 2012, but has fallen since 2014 due to the drop in international oil prices and the economic sanctions imposed for its annexation of Crimea - economic growth is expected to be comparatively low in Russia in the coming years due to the economic fallout of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.