Product Description

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?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297043 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
‘Books in this series are designed to introduce students to key topics, and to set out the arguments and issues in a ‘critical but unpartisan fashion’. R. W. Davies has done this with admirable clarity … As a teaching tool this book will prove invaluable.’ Donal Filtzer, University of East London

‘Davies has provided a valuable addition to a distinguished series and one which will earn the gratitude of students of Soviet economic development.’ Economic History Review

Customer Reviews

Short popular introduction to the history of Soviet industrialization
R.W. Davies, who can probably lay claim to the title of being the single person most knowledgeable about the economic history of the USSR, was asked to write this popular introduction to the topic in the Cambridge series "New Studies in Economic and Social History", intended for a wider public than usual for such monographs. The result is an excellent and readable, while information-dense, overview of about 84 pages of real content.

Davies begins with the Czarist industrialization, putting it in the context of the attempts (earlier by Peter the Great and others) to modernize Russia to maintain its military power on the continental scene. He shows how the state undertook protectionism and investment in railways, as well as inviting much foreign investment, to develop Russia's industry in the period before WWI. He then continues with War Communism and its attempts to win the Civil War and stave off famine, then the NEP and its compromise politics. The main part of the booklet, as one might expect, is taken up however by Stalin's industrialization policies, their methods, and their effects. Afterward there is a short discussion of Khrushchov's reforms, his attempts to develop agriculture more (always the weakest link in the Soviet chain) and the subsequent beginning of the collapse in the 1970s under Brezhnev.

Davies is not just a very competent historian, but also a very even-handed one. He takes the time to explain the controversial issues in Soviet economic history (and there are many), the positions of various players in it, and his own. He himself is neither afraid to criticize the USSR nor afraid to give it the credit that is due. One thing that is unfortunate is that this book was published in 1998, and therefore did not include the major new modelling study of the Soviet industrialization by Robert C. Allen, "Farm to Factory" (Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)), which was published in 2003. Allen's book constitutes a major defense of the Preobrazhensky-Stalin heavy industrialization strategy as against the NEP (and Paul Gregory's capitalist road), and is recommended as a complement to this book.