DOI: 10.32609/j.ruje.12.171595

Authors: Aleksandr A. Fokin, Nikita Y. Pivovarov, David Brandenberger

Abstract: This article reinterprets the Third Program of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) in 1961 as a rational, auditable social contract for the Soviet one-party state rather than a utopian manifesto. Reconstructing its Stalin-era prehistory—from drafts by Dmitry Manuilsky, Mark Mitin, Pavel Yudin, and Andrei Zhdanov between 1938 and 1947 to those generated under Nikita Khrushchev between 1958 and 1961—we show how successive elites translated ideological rivalry with the West into a ledger of quantifiable welfare obligations (expressed in per capita food, housing, goods, and the duration of the working day). The program’s distinctive function took shape within the traditional context of foundational Soviet documents: constitutions which codified the status quo and party programs that projected a development path for 20–30 years into the future. Under Khrushchev, academic economists “scientized” this practice, elevating consumption indicators and “scientifically grounded norms” to the core of a national strategy for the USSR: “communism in the main” by 1980. Conceptually, the program operated as an authoritarian commitment to build a socialist welfare state—a self-binding social contract that stabilized the post-Stalin transition but also generated path dependence, constraining later reform efforts. Empirically, we document the program’s internal tensions (communal services vs. individual household needs; socialist ethics vs. personal ownership) and its comparative ambitions (to catch up and overtake the United States in per capita welfare). The result is a reframing of Soviet modernity as a project in which technocratic calculation, welfare egalitarianism, and Cold War benchmarking were fused into a pragmatic, auditable program of one-party rule.

HTML

XML

PDF

DOI: 10.32609/j.ruje.7.57963

Authors: Denis V. Melnik

Abstract: The paper provides an interpretation of Lenin’s earliest contributions (made in 1893–1899) to the study of economic development. In the 1890s, Lenin joined young Marxist intellectuals in their fight against the Narodnik economists, who represented the approach prevalent among the Russian radical intelligentsia in the 1870s–1880s. That was the fight over the right to control the Marxist narrative in Russia. Lenin elaborated his theoretical interpretation of Marxism as applied to the contentious issues of Russia’s economic development. The paper outlines the context of Lenin’s activity in the 1890s. It suggests that the main theoretical challenge to “orthodox Marxist” intellectuals in applying Marx’s theory to Russia stemmed not from their designated opponents, but from Marx himself, who presented two divergent scenarios — the dynamic and the breakdown — for capitalist development. Lenin provided an analytical substantiation for the dynamic one but eventually allowed for consideration of structural heterogeneity in the development process. This resulted in the notion of unevenness, on which he would rely upon later, in his studies of imperialism. The paper also briefly considers the place of Lenin’s early development studies in his legacy.

HTML

XML

PDF

DOI: 10.3897/j.ruje.4.26002

Authors: Vladimir Avtonomov, Natalia Makasheva

Abstract: Dissemination and adoption of Western economic ideas in Russia have never been a simple process, always bearing marks of the socio-political and ideological circumstances of the country and inner processes in economics, as well as marks of the national intellectual tradition in general. It is not surprising that the history of Austrian economics in Russia was akin to a long road with many windings and turns. We can distinguish three different periods, or waves, each of them rather complex: from the 1890s until the late 1920s (introduction and, to a certain degree, adoption and criticism), from the beginning of the 1930s until the mid-1980s (hostile attitude and ignorance), and from the mid-1980s onwards (rediscovery, dissemination, and adoption).

HTML

XML

PDF