R. W. Davies

The profound economic crisis of 1931-33 undermined the process of industrialisation and the stability of the regime. In spite of feverish efforts to achieve the over ambitious first five-year plan, the great industrial projects lagged far behind schedule. These were years of inflation, economic disorder and of terrible famine in 1933. In response to the crisis, policies and systems changed significantly. Greater realism prevailed: more moderate plans, reduced investment, strict monetary controls, and more emphasis on economic incentives and the role of the market. The reforms failed to prevent the terrible famine of 1933, in which millions of peasants died. But the last months of 1933 saw the first signs of an industrial boom, the outcome of the huge investments of previous years. Using the previously secret archives of the Politburo and the Council of People's Commissars, the author shows how during these formative years the economic system acquired the shape which it retained until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 4: Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy, 1931-1933

Robert William Davies

This book provides a comprehensive survey of Soviet economic development from 1917 to 1965 in the context of the pre-revolutionary economy. In these years the Soviet Union negotiated the first stages of modern industrialisation and then, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies, emerged as one of the two world superpowers. This was also the first attempt to construct a planned socialist order. These developments resulted in great economic achievements at great human cost. Using the results of recent Russian and Western research, Professor Davies discusses the inherent faults and strengths of the system, and pays particular attention to the major controversies. Was the Russian Revolution doomed to failure from the outset? Could the mixed economy of the 1920s have led to a democratic socialist economy? What was the influence of Soviet economic development on the rest of the world?

Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev

E. Carr

E.H. Carr is the acknowledged authority on Soviet Russia. In The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin 1917 - 1929 , he provides the student and general reader alike with insights and knowledge of a lifetime's work. This book, now available in a brand new edition, is, without doubt, the standard short history of the Russian Revolution and now contains a new introduction by R.W. Davies.

The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin 1917-1929

During the events described in The Socialist Offensive the collective farms achieved a commanding position in the Soviet countryside. They were planned as giant, fully socialist enterprises, modelled on the state-owned factories, and employing wage labour. By the summer of 1930 the collective-farm compromise had been introduced. Collective farmers were permitted to retain a personal household plot and their own animals; and a free market continued side by side with state planning. This system continued throughout the Stalin period important features of it remain in the Soviet Union today. The emergence of the collective farm in 1929-30, discussed in detail in the present volume, was thus a crucial stage in the formation of the Soviet system.

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 2: Soviet Collective Farm, 1929-1930

Mark Harrison

S. G. Wheatcroft

Leading scholars in the field analyse the Soviet economy sector by sector to make available, in textbook form, the results of the latest research on Soviet industrialisation.

The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945

Russian rethinking of the past has immense political significance. The author of the acclaimed Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution now examines the impact of the collapse of Communism and of the subsequent disillusionment with capitalism on Soviet history. The uses of history after the 1991 coup and in the 1995 and 1996 elections are considered in detail. Part two evaluates the unfinished revolution which has partly opened the archives, while part three offers reflections on the future of the Soviet past.

Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era

By the summer of 1929 Soviet industrialisation was well under way, but agriculture was in a profound crisis: in 1928 and 1929 grain to feed the towns was wrested from the peasants by force, and the twenty-five million individual peasant households lost the stimulus to extend or even to maintain their production. In the autumn of 1929 the Soviet Politburo, led by Stalin, launched its desperate effort to win the battle for agriculture by forcible collectivisation and by large-scale mechanisation. Simultaneously hundreds of thousands of kulaks (richer peasants) and recalcitrant peasants were expelled from their villages. This book tells the story of these events, as momentous in their impact on Russian history at the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, and of the temporary retreat from collectivisation in the spring of 1930 in the face of peasant resistance. The crisis in the Communist Party which resulted from this upheaval, in the months preceding the XVI party congress in June 1930, is described in detail for the first time.

The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-30

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 1: Socialist Offensive

Oleg Khlevniuk

Stephen G. Wheatcroft

This book concludes The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia, an authoritative account of the Soviet Union’s industrial transformation between 1929 and 1939. The volume before this one covered the ‘good years’ (in economic terms) of 1934 to 1936. The present volume has a darker tone: beginning from the Great Terror, it ends with the Hitler-Stalin pact and the outbreak of World War II in Europe. During that time, Soviet society was repeatedly mobilised against internal and external enemies, and the economy provided one of the main arenas for the struggle. This was expressed in waves of repression, intensive rearmament, the increased regimentation of the workforce and the widespread use of forced labour.

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 7: The Soviet Economy and the Approach of War, 1937–1939

In 1929-30, the 'spinal year' of the first five-year plan, a vast investment programme began the transformation of the Soviet Union from a peasant country into a great industrial power. This book, the third part of The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia, re-examines the breakdown of the mixed economy. In those days of heroism and enthusiasm, hunger and repression, crucial Soviet economic and political institutions were established, and are only now being effectively challenged by Gorbachev's revolution. While complementing the previous two volumes of this author's work, the book is designed to be read independently. It sheds new light on a dramatic moment in Soviet history and in the formation of the Soviet system.

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 3: The Soviet Economy in Turmoil 1929-1930

An examination of the Soviet agricultural crisis of 1931-1933 which culminated in the major famine of 1933. Making extensive use of Russian and Ukrainian central and local archives, the book reaches new conclusions on how far this famine was 'organized' or 'artificial', and compares it with other famines in Russia and elsewhere.

R. W. Davies

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