Life and survival: sources of working capital of the Soviet and Russian economies

Working capital plays an important role in the economic life of the enterprise in particular and the prosperous development of the state as a whole. At the same time, they themselves have a heterogeneous structure: the ratio of own and borrowed funds in their composition can seriously affect the financial sustainability of economic entities and industries, the possibilities of their modernization and innovative development. The presence of a sufficient number of working capital allows the company to pursue an independent economic policy, while the loss of its own and borrowed working capital is fraught with the most serious consequences.In modern conditions, the slowdown in economic growth, problems in the banking system, inflation, currency fluctuations lead to the fact that most enterprises, especially the manufacturing sector of the economy, have difficulty attracting working capital and managing it.The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure of the sources of the working capital of the economy of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Within the framework of the goal, the article suggests a method for classifying all sources of working capital of the Russian economy into own and borrowed funds in order to conduct a comparative analysis of the structure of sources of circulating assets of the Soviet and Russian economies. When performing the study, the methods of system analysis, classification and generalization, logical and statistical analysis were used.The article convincingly proved that the enterprises of the Russian economy are characterized by massive lack of working capital and a deep deformation of the structure of the sources of their formation. On the contrary, the structure of sources for the formation of working capital of the economy of the Soviet period is more balanced, as evidenced by the financial performance of that period. The absence in the foreseeable future of a comprehensive working capital management program will lead the Russian economy to even deeper degradation.Â