I'm confused; exactly which "consumer branches" do production - I thought that consumers consume?paspartoo wrote:I also saw the same thing and consider it a mistake (or at least an exaggeration). According to ‘Germany: guns, butter and economic miracles’ (chapter 4 of ‘The Economics of World War II’) ‘by late 1940 most of the consumer branches were already devoting between 40 and 50 percent of their output to the military, leaving very little for the civilian population’.
I’m not sure what constituted the ‘civilian’ industry in the SU. Seems like everything they built was supposed to go into war production on a moment’s notice.
The classification by groups doesn't differentiate between "civilian" and "military" use for the production of durable goods, I simply referred to Group I as "war-related industry" for convenience.
How about this then: the Soviets allocated greater manpower than the Germans to the production of durable goods for military and civilian use.
Now, if you want to argue that the Soviets allocated more of their Group I production to civilian consumption than the Germans did, then by all means do so...of course you may have a problem finding evidence for that notion.