Sympathy for Russia as a Way to Get Ahead of Time

Affiliation: Ural Institute of Institute of management – branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Address: Russian Federation, Yekaterinburg

Journal name

Novaia i noveishaia istoriia

Edition

Issue 2

Pages

19-28

Abstract

The article is devoted to the contribution made by the monographs of the American historian Robert Tucker and the British historian Robert Davis to the study of the problems of Soviet history, first of all, to the study of the complex interplay of the implementation of the industrial project (the first five-year plan), the formation of the command-administrative system, the process of militarization of the Soviet economy. The key to the success of historians has become a painstaking study of historical documents, free from ideological canons; study of the evolution of the views of the participants in the events as a complex and changeable process that depends on many factors.

The merit of R. Tucker's research is to reveal the degree, scale, and duality of the political maneuvering of J. Stalin and his inner circle in the early 1930s. Awareness of the harmfulness of the socio-economic course during the first five-year plan led the Soviet leadership to the conviction of the need for a more rational policy. J. Stalin's response was a political maneuver: by agreeing to temporary stabilization in the economy, the Secretary General simultaneously resorted to counter-measures ‒ a general party “purge”.

Davis was able to show the characteristics of the complex of stabilization measures, called “mini-reforms”. The Soviet economic system that emerged as a result of the “mini-reforms” of 1931-1933 embodied features that were absent in the “command-and-control” model. Money played a significant, albeit subordinate, role in Soviet state socialism, and “economic accounting” was set as an auxiliary goal.

The “mini-reforms” of the early 1930s reflected J. Stalin's understanding of the essence of the crisis and the ways out of it and were limited, delayed and inconsistent. The regime's ability to survive was directly dependent on the fate of industrialization in the USSR.

Keywords

Tucker, Davis, Russia, USSR, Stalin, industrialization, planning, five-year plan, industry, mythology

Received

08.02.2021

Publication date

21.04.2021

Number of characters

27032

Cite

GOST	Feldman M. Sympathy for Russia as a Way to Get Ahead of Time // Novaia i noveishaia istoriia – 2021. – Issue 2 C. 19-28 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://nni.jes.su/S013038640014265-9-1 (circulation date: 25.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013038640014265-9
MLA	Feldman, Mikhail "Sympathy for Russia as a Way to Get Ahead of Time." Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 2 (2021):19-28. DOI: 10.31857/S013038640014265-9
APA	Feldman M. (2021). Sympathy for Russia as a Way to Get Ahead of Time. Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (2), pp.19-28 DOI: 10.31857/S013038640014265-9

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