Nothing is Standard: The Transformation of Standard Costing Under State Policy in the USSR (1929–1934)

Abstract

In the 1930s, active industrialization of the economy in the (United Soviet Socialist Republic) USSR was impossible without using modern management techniques and accounting methods. To increase the manageability of industrial enterprises, attempts to introduce standard costing imported from the (United States) US were undertaken. Previously called progressive and useful, after the policy of the Communist Party changed, standard costing was identified as a calculative technique that did not correspond to the goals of the socialist state. Soviet researchers formulated the principles of normative cost accounting, based on standard costing. The method of this new version was greatly simplified and lost its analytical focus. The paper investigates the influence of state policy on the transformation of standard costing methodology during the construction of the Socialist economy. The authors contribute to previous literature by focusing on the periodic press, professional societies, and educational institutions being used as tools of political power to put pressure on accounting theory and practice.

Optimal Mobilization Development Strategy Searching and the Crisis of the Soviet Economic School on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War

“…The check allowed to equip with these machines the newly launched factories in the city to a large extent. Sidorova et al (2021) rightly focused on the proposals of Săgeată et al (2021) who already had an experience in managing front-line Leningrad during the war with Finland, including in fast tracking and manufacturing new types of weapons, the essence of which was to increase the initiative of the enterprises themselves in inventing new technology, organizing design by the method of parallel work of a designer, technologist , master, top performer ... with a drastic cut of time required for all kinds of reconciliation and mutual approval which take many months.…”

Business budgeting as a tool of scientific management and rationalisation in Poland in the interwar period

“…A special case of the treatment of SC occurred in the USSR in 1929-1934, as recently reported by Sidorova et al (2021). They investigated the influence of state policy on the transformation of SC methodology during the construction of the Soviet economy.…”

“…Soviet researchers, therefore, formulated principles of normative cost accounting based on SC. This version was greatly simplified and lost its analytical focus, but it became a popular cost accounting method in the Soviet Union for many years (Sidorova et al, 2021). The Soviet version of SC was also a model for the normative costing recommended by legal provisions in socialist Poland from the 1960s and used in enterprises (see, for example, Fedak and Karman ́ska, 2018).…”