Russia's Last Capitalists

by Ball, Alan M.

• ISBN13: 9780520071742
• ISBN10: 0520071743
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

In 1921 Lenin surprised foreign observers and many in his own Party, by calling for the legalization of private trade and manufacturing. Within a matter of months, this New Economic Policy (NEP) spawned many thousands of private entrepreneurs, dubbed Nepmen. After delineating this political background, Alan Ball turns his attention to the Nepmen themselves, examining where they came from, how they fared in competition with the socialist sector of the economy, their importance in the Soviet economy, and the consequences of their "liquidation" at the end of the 1920s. Alan Ball's history of this experiment with capitalism is strikingly relevant to current efforts toward economic reform in the USSR.

Author Biography

Alan M. Ball is Associate Professor of History at Marquette University

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. vii
Preface to the Paperback Edition	p. ix
Preface	p. xv
A Note on Conventions	p. xix
Terms and Abbreviations	p. xxi
Introduction: The War Communism Prelude	p. 1
Building Communism with Bourgeois Hands	p. 15
NEP's Second Wind	p. 38
The Bubble Bursts	p. 56
"Ordinary Buying and Selling"	p. 85
Supplying the Nepmen	p. 109
At the Foot of the Commanding Heights	p. 127
Secondary Endeavors	p. 146
An Epilogue and an Assessment	p. 161
Notes	p. 173
Select Bibliography	p. 209
Index	p. 217
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