Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 1730 Great Dream (First update, please subscribe)
"Kosygin..."

Late at night, staring out the window and looking at the night sky illuminated by neon lights, Li Yian's brows were furrowed and his expression was a little complicated.

Three days ago, Kosygin visited SEA. Li Yian attached great importance to his visit, and the reason was very simple.

Kosygin was one of the "three leaders" of the Soviet Union. After Khrushchev stepped down, Kosygin, who was known as an "economic expert" and a "pragmatist", was elected Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers. When he took office, he made reversing the economic situation a top priority. On the one hand, he actively started to implement a new economic system, and on the other hand, he adjusted the economy.

Although his implementation of the new economic system brought good development momentum to the Soviet economy, it was soon swallowed up by the old steel model system and disappeared without a trace.

To a certain extent, Kosygin's reforms were the only "panacea" that could save the Soviet Union. The reason was that after the failure of his reforms, the old model that had remained unchanged for decades eventually dragged down the entire Soviet Union.

But will his reforms succeed?

If his reforms were successful, could they have prolonged the life of the Soviet Union?

Li Yian was really curious. Or to a certain extent, he had some expectations, because he knew very well that no matter how you evaluated the Soviet Union, its existence had indeed promoted the progress of mankind.

Especially for the Western world, they had to engage in an arms race with the Soviet Union while at the same time they had to surpass the Soviet Union in various aspects such as social welfare.

In contrast, the Soviet Union was also using the same competition to prove to the Western world, or to the whole world, that the Soviet Union represented the real future.

Ordinary people are the ones who benefit the most from this kind of competition. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and when the Western world's greatest enemy disappeared from this world, ordinary people... are just ordinary people.

There is no value in united front work. Although they will use welfare to buy off the people, in their eyes, the people are just a group of people who can be fooled.

Just like in order to please the so-called white left, they spend a lot of money on aid and even bring those so-called friendly and caring refugees into their country.

If they really care about the interests of their people, how could they sacrifice the interests of their people to do these things?

The fact is, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western world no longer cares about the feelings of ordinary people. All they care about is the votes of those who shout the loudest, such as white leftists and so-called minority groups.

Why would we care about those people? Because although there are not many of them, they are very eager to show off. They are very good at expressing themselves in public and performing some kind of performance to show their influence. Because of this, the whole society even thinks that they are very influential.

Like the Pride parade, if they were really proud, would they need to prove it with a parade?

But because they express themselves in this way, they appear proud. If you disagree, then you are conservative and backward.

You see, they are so good at speaking.

The etiquette of the silent majority is ignored, neglected and sacrificed in this process.

Most people are the silent majority. By the time they realize their voices are being ignored, it is too late to regret.

But under the pressure of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, those politicians did not dare to be so unscrupulous, because they knew very well that if they were so unscrupulous, what awaited them would be destruction.

The Soviet Union is like the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of countries all over the world, reminding the world that you cannot make mistakes, because if you do, you will lose everything and be replaced!
And this is precisely the meaning of the Soviet Union's existence.

And Kosygin was the only hope for the survival of the Soviet Union.

Another reason for hoping that he would live longer is that as long as the Soviet Union exists, the United States will not regard SEA as an enemy.

Even if SEA surpasses the United States economically, the United States will choose to be patient because the Soviet Union is really deadly.

And SEAs just want money.

When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits. If you want to be the fisherman, the snipe and the clam must continue to fight. Only when they continue to fight will there be room for the development of SEAs.

"Kosygin."

Muttering the name, Li Yian walked to the desk and looked at the documents on the table. These were documents sent by Hydra, and the contents were all about Kosygin's reforms in recent years.

"...In reality in the Soviet Union, distribution according to profit took place..."

This seemingly simple sentence actually contains the core content of Kosygin's reform.

A few years ago, Professor Yevsii Lieberman of Kharkiv University proposed that when evaluating the performance of an enterprise, one should not only look at the total output, but also the profit, so as to balance the supply and demand. The growth of labor productivity depends on material incentives, not the role model of advanced elements as traditionally believed.

This seemingly superficial truth was already heretical in the Soviet Union.

But in any case, Lieberman's suggestions became the core of Kosygin's reforms, and with Kosygin's strong support, the Soviet Union began the "Kosygin-Lieberman Reforms."

Although many people accused this reform of being un-Soviet and a disguise of capitalism, it gave the Soviet economy a shot in the arm.

But how long can this shot of adrenaline last?

In fact, deep down in his heart, Li Yian hopes that they can all succeed in their reforms.

“I hope they can continue with the reforms!”

Flipping through the report on the table, Li Yian's brows were sometimes furrowed and sometimes relaxed. Overall, Kosygin's reforms were very effective. Although some problems were exposed, they were still progressing in an orderly manner as a whole.

Suddenly, a page caught his attention:
"...In 1960, Viktor Glushkov, a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, expressed the idea of ​​using a national automation system to fully computerize economic processes. The basis of this system is to create a unified network of computer centers throughout the Soviet Union... Put all the data into a supercomputer, and it will calculate everything for us... After calculating everything, a powerful supercomputer will tell everyone - starting with the specific job - what to do and how much to produce...

…The plan has been approved and is being piloted, connecting 340 companies to 70 data nodes for digital management. As of last year, the number of companies has increased to 580. The results of the pilot are extremely effective. The results show that last year alone, these companies saved more than 7000 million rubles on raw material expenses, and the optimization of import and export trade has enabled these companies to increase their revenue by more than 2000 million rubles. ”

Looking at the Soviet version of the "Internet" application, which should be said to be an application that integrates the Internet with its economy, this is very unique. Li Yian was slightly stunned, and then said to himself:
“It’s really very Soviet!”

Looking at the Soviet version of the Internet mentioned in the report, Glushkov proposed OGAS, which has a three-level network structure: a network center in Moscow, about 200 intermediate centers in other major cities, and about 20000 terminals in important economic sectors. These computers use existing telephone facilities for real-time communication, and the terminals can also communicate with each other.

In another world, Glushkov's "national automated system" was rejected by the military because the military was unwilling to share information with civilian economic planners, but now things have changed. In the past decade, with the launch of SEA Internet, from the initial "academic network" to the current Internet, and the follow-up of the United States and European countries.

The Soviet Union also joined this track, the National Automated System, abbreviated as OGAS; this was a Soviet national network project, not only nationwide, but also involving other Eastern European countries.

The emergence of optical fiber and electronic computers fundamentally changed everything, turning the original idea into reality.

"With supercomputers, what direction will their economic system develop in?"

Li Yian couldn't help but feel a little excited. He not only expected that Kosygin's reforms could continue to be implemented, he even expected that the emergence of supercomputers could fundamentally change the Soviet Union.

Even change the whole world!

What will the world of the future look like?

While Li Yian was looking at the Soviet Union with great anticipation and curiosity, looking forward to his future, on the other side, Kosygin and his team still had not decided whether to introduce SEA's automobile production equipment.

"…What is certain is that SEA does have the best automobile manufacturing plant in the world. Industrial robots are widely used in their factories, and the machine tools are also the most advanced CNC machine tools in the world. Even steel plates are cut with automated laser cutting machines. Workers only need to input data to complete the cutting of steel plates, but…"

In the conference room, the expert accompanying the delegation said:

"We must note that many of their machines and equipment are subject to the Batumi embargo. In this case, will they transfer these equipment to us? If not, is it necessary for us to introduce their technology?"

The problems pointed out by experts are indeed very realistic. Even if they use US dollars and gold to purchase machinery and equipment from Western countries, they must take into account the existence of the Batumi Agreement.

Since the United States established the Batumi Agreement, it has been difficult for the Soviet Union to obtain relevant technology and equipment from Western countries, and even if it did, they were all relatively backward technologies.

"So I think we should import car factories from Italy, not only because Italy is closer to us, but also because their machines are relatively backward and more suitable for us to copy."

If such words were spoken out, it would definitely shock everyone, because - the reason for refusing to introduce it is because the other party's technology is too advanced.

This is precisely the most pragmatic side of Soviet engineers. They did not blindly pursue advancement, but made corresponding suggestions based on their own country's industrial base.

After listening to the engineers' suggestions, Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, just nodded silently and said:

"I know what everyone is worried about. When I visited their automobile manufacturing plant before, I was really shocked when I saw the industrial robots they used, and I was worried that they would take away the jobs of ordinary workers. But——"

There was a brief pause, then Kosygin continued.

"We must see that industrial robots will become indispensable machinery and equipment in industrial production, and we are also conducting research in this area. If there is an opportunity, being able to obtain more advanced industrial robots from here will definitely help our research.

So I think we should negotiate with them to introduce their equipment. What do you think? "

He asked, looking at the Minister of Automobile Industry Kosygin who was standing beside him.

"I think so too. Their industrial robot technology is very advanced. If we can import the corresponding machinery and equipment and copy them from the Soviet Union, it will not only make up for our backwardness in industrial robots, but also these equipment can be used in the defense industry."

This is a typical Soviet way of thinking. When they introduce each kind of machinery and equipment, they will consider whether this equipment can be used in the military industry in the future.

"In that case, let's negotiate with them."

After thinking for a while, Kosygin continued.

"When negotiating with them, we must adhere to one principle. In addition to automobile technology, we must also ask them to transfer the production and manufacturing of some mechanical equipment, especially those that are indispensable in automobile production but that we cannot manufacture."

Although the Soviet Union's heavy industry seemed very developed, in fact they were not able to produce all the machinery and equipment. For example, after the last automobile manufacturing plant was introduced, they had specifically borrowed the production technology and processes of the new automobile manufacturing plant to improve the original automobile manufacturing plant. However, during the expansion and improvement process, they found that there were many new machine tools that they could not manufacture and produce.

Although those factories have expanded to a certain extent during the renovation and expansion process, the shortcomings in their equipment have resulted in relatively limited capacity increases.

That is why they decided to introduce a new automobile manufacturing plant.

"So which company should we negotiate with? BMW, Wuling or Volkswagen?"

"Let's focus the negotiations on Wuling and Volkswagen. After all, what we need are cars for ordinary people, not luxury cars."

Kosygin thought for a moment and said:
“That’s what we’re fighting for – to make life better for ordinary people.”

When Kosygin said this, he spoke from the bottom of his heart, because he truly had this ideal, or this desire, just like the reforms he carried out, which were to bring new vitality to the Soviet Union's ossified economy.

It is also to make the lives of ordinary people better.

Making ordinary people's lives better is exactly the dream he pursues.

(End of this chapter)