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"This volume examines failed attempts at modernizing the communist economy by means of optimal planning. It traces the rise and fall of the concept in Eastern Europe and China, explaining why the mission of optimization was doomed to fail and why it may nevertheless be relaunched today"-- Provided by publisher

• Introduction: A puzzle
• Perestroika
• Release
• Revolutions
• Separatism
• Crossroads
• Leviathan
• Standoff
• Devolution
• Consensus
• Conspiracy
• Junta
• Demise
• Cacophony
• Independence
• Liquidation
• Conclusion

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise "A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart."-Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times "[A] masterly analysis."-Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
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• Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Why bother with the writings on a defunct economy by authors now at best retired? PART ONE. SOVIETOLOGY AND THE SOVIET MILITARY POWER
• Chapter 1. The origin and structure of Sovietology 1.1 The Cold War roots 1.2 Cradle-to-grave national security funding 1.3 The industrial organization of Sovietology 1.3.1 Structure and conduct 1.3.2 Reliability of results 1.3.3 Status within economics 1.4 Colleagues and competitors 1.4.1 The British, outsiders, political scientists, and others 1.4.2 Academics and government analysts
• Chapter 2. The Politburo's Holy of Holies 2.1 A pillar of the system's original design 2.2 A wartime-size peacetime military sector 2.2.1 Official Soviet data 2.2.2 Western estimates 2.2.3 Trying to make sense of it all 2.3 The defense industry 2.3.1 A sector apart 2.3.2 The most favored sector 2.3.3 The most successful sector 2.4 Mobilization preparations 2.5 Importance and impact PART II. SOVIET MILITARY POWER IN THE SOVIETOLOGICAL MIRROR
• Chapter 3. The Missing Sector 3.1 How to document an absence 3.2 Textbooks 3.2.1 Which sectors merited a chapter 3.2.2 Applying a finer comb: index entries 3.3 Research volumes 3.4 Publications on the military sector proper 3.4.1 Journal articles 3.4.2 Books 3.5 The user side 3.5.1 Comparative economic systems textbooks 3.5.2 Introductory economics textbooks 3.6 Summary
• Chapter 4. Civilianizing the objectives of the planners 4.1 Objectives and behavior in economics 4.2 Who exactly were the planners? 4.3 The Soviet account of the rulers' objectives 4.3.1 The validity of self-proclaimed objectives 4.3.2 Constitutions and planning manuals 4.3.3 Can they be believed? 4.4 The Sovietological account of planners' objectives 4.4.1 Sources: fragmentation in action 4.4.2 Sovietology's standard view 4.5 Making sense of multiple objectives 4.6 Problems with the standard view of the rulers' objectives 4.7 Patterns that seem to suggest production for its own sake 4.8 Bringing the Soviet rulers back into the fold of rational actors
• Chapter 5. Civilianizing Industrialization 5.1 The standard account of industrialization 5.2 Stalin's account of industrialization 5.2.1 Objectives of industrialization 5.2.2 The role of heavy industry 5.3 How the standard account developed 5.4 Problems with the standard account 5.5 The banality of military industrialization 5.6 The real industrialization debate 5.7 Taking socialism too seriously 5.8 Summary PART III. WHY GOVERNMENT MONEY COULD NOT BUY ECONOMISTS' LOVE
• Chapter 6. The Secrecy Hypothesis 6.1 The shape of the constraint 6.1.1 Secrecy in Soviet society 6.1.2 Economic information: civilian and military sectors 6.1.3 Breaches in the wall 6.2 The constraint was not binding 6.2.1 Concern about secrecy and the recognition of gaps in knowledge 6.2.2 The use of roundabout means to overcome secrecy 6.2.3 Response to the writings on the military sector 6.3 Direct test of the secrecy hypothesis 6.3.1 Sovietologists vs the New York Times 6.3.2 What an interested scholar found in Soviet publications 6.4 Conclusion
• Chapter 7. Beating Soviet Swords into Sovietological Ploughshares 7.1 The norms of the economics profession 7.1.1 How scholars choose research topics 7.1.2 How Sovietology fit in 7.1.3 Military topics out of favor with economists 7.1.4 Dressing military buildup in fashionable civvies 7.2 Looking for the essence of socialism 7.3 Politics 7.3.1 The politics and economics of science 7.3.2 Can Sovietologists inform us of each other's bias? 7.3.3 Proliferation of digressions 7.3.4 Interpretation: exculpatory incantations 7.4 Persistence of civilianization and Soviet economic history
• Chapter 8. Civilianization elsewhere 8.1 Writings on German economy in the 1930s 8.1.1 Hitler's military economy 8.1.2 Rearmament in the economics journals of the time 8.1.3 Why economists neglected rearmament 8.2 (No) violence in primitive societies 8.3 The marginalization of military history Conclusion Appendices Appendix 1.1 Alternative estimates of the number of Sovietologists Appendix 3.1 How the literature was surveyed for
• chapter 3 Appendix 3.2 Counting index entries in books Appendix 3.3. Books on the Soviet military sector (chronological order) Appendix 3.4. Books on particular sectors of the Soviet economy other than external and agriculture published before 1975 (chronological order) Appendix 3.5 Books on Soviet agriculture (chronological order) Appendix 3.6 Books on Soviet foreign economic relations (chronological order) Appendix 4.1 How the literature was surveyed for
• chapter 4 Appendix 8.1. How literature was surveyed for section 8.1 BIBLIOGRAPHY.
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Scholars attribute the collapse of the Soviet Union in part to the militarization of its economy. But during the Cold War, economic studies of the USSR largely neglected the military sector of the Soviet economy-its dominant and most successful part. This is all the more puzzling in that academic study of the Soviet economy in the US was specifically created to help fight the Cold War. If the rival superpower maintained the peacetime war economy, why did experts fail to tell us when it mattered? Vladimir Kontorovich shows how Western economists came up with strained non-military interpretations of several important aspects of the Soviet economy which the Soviets themselves acknowledged to have military significance. Such "civilianization" suggests that the neglect of the military sector was not forced on scholars of the Soviet economy by secrecy; it was their choice. The explanation of this choice in Reluctant Cold Warriors raises many questions about the internal workings of economic Sovietology and its intellectual and political background. Are peripheral academic fields mimicking the agenda of the discipline's mainstream more likely to produce faulty scholarship? Did the search for the essence of socialism distract researchers from the actual Soviet economy? Were economic Sovietologists under political pressure, and if so, in what direction? This book answers these questions in a way that has broad relevance for national security uses of social science today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Map
• Prologue: Mr. Wolfe's horrifying discovery
• 1921
• 1922
• 1923
• A note on sources
• Select bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index

"The harrowing, little-known story of the ARA, an American effort to save the newly-formed Soviet Union from a disastrous famine"-- Provided by publisher

• 1. Resources, competition and the layers of the state
• Part 1. Lucrative Products and the Pursuit of Profit: 2. Grain, agricultural reclamation and a new perspective on production ; 3. Gold, oil, and the allure of foreign capital ; 4. Furs, pelts, wool and the power of global markets
• Part 2. Industrial Minerals and the Transformation of Xinjiang: 5. Industrial raw materials and the formation of informal empire ; 6. Oil, tungsten, beryllium and the resonances of Soviet planning ; 7. Petroleum and lithium and the foundations of Chinese state power ; 8. The enduring power of layers.

China's westernmost province of Xinjiang has experienced escalating violence, cycles of interethnic strife, and state repression since the 1990s. Searching for the roots of these growing tensions, most of the research on the region has tended to zero in on ethnic clashes and political disputes. In Natural Resources and the New Frontier, historian Judd Kinzley takes a different approach-one that works from the ground up to explore the infrastructural and material basis for state power in the region and how it helped create and shape these tensions. As Kinzley argues, Xinjiang's role in producing various natural resources for regional powers served as an important, but largely overlooked factor in fueling unrest. He carefully traces the buildup to this unstable situation over the course of the twentieth century by focusing on shifts in mining and industrial production policies that were undertaken by Chinese, Soviet, and provincial officials. Through his detailed archival work, Kinzley offers a new way of viewing Xinjiang that will shape the conversation about this important region. Moreover, his detailed analysis offers a new way of viewing borders as sites of "layered" state formation that will serve as a model for understanding the development of other Chinese peripheries and, more generally, the development of frontier zones across the Global South.
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Consumption in Russia and the former USSR has been lately studied as regards the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet period. The history of Soviet consumption and the Soviet variety of consumerism in the 1950s-1990s has hardly been studied at all. This book concentrates on the late Soviet period but it also considers pre-WWII and even pre-revolutionary times.The book consists of articles, which survey the longue duree of Russian and Soviet consumer attitudes, Soviet ideology of consumption as indicated in texts concerning fashion, the world of Soviet fashion planning and the survival strategies of the Soviet consumer complaining against sub-standard goods and services in a command economy. There's also a case study concerning the uses of concepts with anti-consumerist content. Contributors include: Lena Bogdanova, Olga Gurova, Timo Vihavainen and Larissa Zakharova.
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• Asian pivot: the roots of Soviet economic reform
• Take off or leap forward?: Soviet assessments of China after Mao
• Gorbachev's gamble: interest group politics and perestroika
• Soviet industry, Sichuan style: Gorbachev's enterprise reforms
• A Soviet Shenzhen?: copying China's special economic zones
• Of subsidies and sovkhozes: restructuring Soviet agriculture
• Fiscal crisis, the Tiananmen option, and the dissolution of the USSR
• Conclusion: paths not taken?

The economic system forged by Stalin had many faults-the abuse of workers and the waste of resources on a massive scale among them. But for half a century the Soviet economy was stable. Why, then, did it suddenly collapse in the late 1980s, only a few years after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that although Gorbachev and his allies sought to learn from China's economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping, their efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism proved much less successful. Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China-and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse-was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was riven by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, found himself unable to outmanoeuvre the interest groups that were threatened by economic reform. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of how Soviet policymakers might have prevented economic collapse.
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• The "tribute" of the peasantry in times of food availability decline
• Protecting the cities, fighting for survival of the regime
• Hierarchies of hunger and peasant-state relations (1949-1958)
• Preventing urban famine by starving the countryside (1959-1962)
• The burden of empire: the crisis of "Indigenization" in Ukraine and Tibet
• "Eating mice for the liberation of Tibet": hunger in official Chinese history
• "Genocide against the nation": the counter-narratives of Tibetan and Ukrainian nationalism
• Epilogue : lessons learned--how the Soviet Union and China escaped famine
• Conclusion : hunger and socialism.

An authoritative study of food politics in the socialist regimes of China and the Soviet Union During the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union. In this rigorous and thoughtful study, Felix Wemheuer analyzes the historical and political roots of these socialist-era famines, in which overambitious industrial programs endorsed by Stalin and Mao Zedong created greater disasters than those suffered under prerevolutionary regimes. Focusing on famine as a political tool, Wemheuer systematically exposes how conflicts about food among peasants, urban populations, and the socialist state resulted in the starvation death of millions. A major contribution to Chinese and Soviet history, this provocative analysis examines the long-term effects of the great famines on the relationship between the state and its citizens and argues that the lessons governments learned from the catastrophes enabled them to overcome famine in their later decades of rule.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. How the West became Rich: Stylized Facts and Literature Review
• 2. Why Did the West Become Rich First? Why Are Some Developing Countries Catching Up But Others Are Not?
• 3. Chinese and Russian Economies Under Central Planning: Why the Difference in Outcomes?
• 4. Chinese and Russian Economies Since Reforms: Transformational Recession in Russia and Acceleration of Growth in China
• 5. Growth Miracles and Failures: Lessons for Development Economics
• Conclusions.
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The rise of the West is often attributed the presence of certain features in Western countries from the 16th century that were absent in more traditional societies: the abolition of serfdom and Protestant ethics, the protection of property rights, and free universities. The problem with this reasoning is that, before the 16th century, there were many countries with social structures that possessed these same features that didn't experience rapid productivity growth. This book offers a new interpretation of the 'Great Divergence' and 'Great Convergence' stories. It explores how Western countries grew rich and why parts of the developing world (South and East Asia and the Middle East) did not catch up with the West from 1500 to 1950 but began to narrow the gap after 1950. It also examines why others (Latin America, South Africa, and Russia) were more successful at catching up from 1500 to 1950, but then experienced a slowdown in economic growth compared to other developing countries. Mixed Fortunes offers a novel interpretation of the rise of the West and of the subsequent development of 'the rest' and China and Russia, important examples of two groups of developing countries, are examined in greater detail.
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• Preface
• Chapter 1. Turning Points of Russia's Reforms: Generation Changes and Shifting Trajectories
• Chapter 2. The Point of Departure: Late-Soviet Negative Consensus
• Chapter 3. Perestroika: From Revival to Collapse
• Chapter 4. Post-Soviet Challenges: Difficult Choices During the "Triple Transition"
• Chapter 5. The Roaring Nineties
• Chapter 6. Unfree Market Economy under Autocracy Bibliography.
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Reexamining Economic and Political Reforms in Russia, 1985-2000: Generations, Ideas, and Changes analyzes the impact of generational changes and ideational changes on major political and economic reforms conducted in Russia during the late twentieth century. This book examines how the policy agenda was shaped by the ideas of the generations' representatives for the "sixtiers" and "seventiers." Representatives of the generation of "sixtiers" conducted reforms from 1985 to 1991 and invested major efforts in political liberalization but did not pay enough attention to economic reforms. On the other hand, the reformers from the generation of "seventiers, " who were in charge of policy making from 1991 to 1998, were genuinely oriented toward market building but rather insensitive to the democratization of the political regime. This book explores how these differences in ideational agendas produced inconsistent and controversial outcomes from both stages of reforms.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction Part I: The Heritage 1. Capitalism, Civil Society and Development in Russia (to 1917 and from 1989) 2. State and Development in the Soviet period 3. Moving East and South: Empire and After
• Part II: Development and Struggle 4. Political Mobilization From War Communism to Coloured Revolution 5. Local Government Decentralization: Civil Society Development in the Urals and Siberia 6. Development Challenges in an Insecure Neighbourhood: Tajikistan 7. Beyond Alienation: Social Movements and Protest in Russia in the 2000s
• Part III: The International Context 8. NGOs Challenging Political and Economic Power 9. Russia as a BRIC
• Postscript.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Unique and insightful, this book takes a look at Russia's development through the Tsarist and Soviet periods. Rather than make the more familiar comparisons between Russia and the West, Russia and Development focuses on political and social mobilization in adjacent Central Asia. It examines the role of local government and civil society in development, as well as popular responses to the policies of Putin and Medvedev aimed at modernizing Russia and forging a new Eurasia alliance in Russia's 'development neighbourhood'. The book uses local sources and case studies to pose important questions about the role of empire, revolution, nationalism and democratization in the twenty-first century. With unique insider knowledge, Charles Buxton ultimately places Russia's current development model in an international context, where Russia is increasingly becoming a competitor to Western-led development practices. Essential reading for anyone interested in the region or development thought and practice.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

For close to sixty years Afghanistan was one of the largest recipients of foreign development aid and yet it remains one of the poorest countries on the planet. The Soviet Union pro- vided Afghanistan with large-scale economic and technical assistance for nearly twenty-five years before invading in 1979 and then in- creased the volume of assistance even further during the 1980s in an effort to prop up the government and undermine the anti-Soviet insurgency. None of this aid made any lasting difference to Afghan poverty. As in so many other countries, foreign aid did not promote economic growth. Using unexplored Russian sources, this book describes and analyses the economic and technical assistance programs run by the Soviet Union from the mid-1950s through to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and places them in the context of both Soviet-era development theories and more recent ideas about the role of institutions in fostering economic growth. In some respects Soviet development theorists were actually ahead of their contemporary Western counterparts in realising the centrality of institution-building, but they proved unable to translate their theories into practical solutions. The reasons why their assistance programs failed so completely in Afghanistan remain compellingly relevant today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. Between Failure and Success: The Economics and Politics of Consumption under Brezhnev
• 2. Redefining the Norms of Socialist Consumption
• 3. Shopping as a Way of Life: The Experiences and Values of Soviet Consumers
• 4. Structures of Consumption: Class and Generation
• 5. From 'Modest' to 'Modish': New Attitudes to Clothes and Fashion
• 6. Closing the Door on Socialism: Furniture and the Domestic Interior
• 7. Household Technology in the Brezhnev-era Home Conclusion.
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After decades of turmoil and trauma, the Brezhnev era brought stability and an unprecedented rise in living standards to the Soviet Union, enabling ordinary people to enjoy modern consumer goods on an entirely new scale. This book analyses the politics and economics of the state's efforts to improve living standards, and shows how mass consumption was often used as an instrument of legitimacy, ideology and modernization. However, the resulting consumer revolution brought its own problems for the socialist regime. Rising well-being and the resulting ethos of consumption altered citizens' relationship with the state and had profound consequences for the communist project. The book uses a wealth of sources to explore the challenge that consumer modernity was posing to Soviet 'mature socialism' between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. It combines analysis of economic policy and public debates on consumerism with the stories of ordinary people and their attitudes to fashion, Western goods and the home. The book contests the notion that Soviet consumers were merely passive, abused, eternally queuing victims and that the Brezhnev era was a period of 'stagnation', arguing instead that personal consumption provided the incentive and the space for individuals to connect and interact with society and the regime even before perestroika. This book offers a lively account of Soviet society and everyday life during a period which is rapidly becoming a new frontier of historical research.
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• Foreword Geoffrey Swain Preface Introduction
• Part 1: In a Search for a More Efficient Economic Administration 1. 1953-1956: Exploring the Horizons for Administrative Reorganization 2. XX Congress - December 1956 CC CPSU Plenum: The Height of Expectations 3. The Sovnarkhoz Reform
• Part 2: Decentralization of Decision-making: Hopes and Disillusionment 4. Setting New Elements 5. First Disillusionment: Plan for 1958 6. Republican Budgetary Rights 7. Decentralizing the Supply System: Losing Control over Resources 8. Gosplan of Ukraine: Setting its Authority in the Republic
• Part 3: Recentralizing Economic Administration 9. The Turning Point 10. November 1962 CC CPSU Plenum: Giving up on the Reform? 11. Recentralization in Ukraine 12. Epilogue 13. Conclusion.
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The Sovnarkhoz Reform of 1957 was designed by Khrushchev to improve efficiency in the Soviet economic system by decentralising economic decision making from all-Union branch ministries in Moscow to the governments of the individual republics and regional economic councils. Based on extensive original research, including unpublished archival material, this book examines the reform, discussing the motivations for it, which included Khrushchev's attempt to strengthen his own power base. The book explores how the process of reform was implemented, especially its impact on the republics, and analyses why the reform, which was reversed in 1959, failed. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about the workings, and the shortcomings, of the Soviet economic system at its height.
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• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction 2. The Consolidation of Gorbachev's Political Power - a Springboard for Reform? Iain Elliot 3. Industrial Planning - Forwards or Sideways? David A. Dyker 4. Agriculture the Permanent Crisis David A. Dyker 5. Gorbachev and the World - the Economic Side Alan H. Smith 6. Gorbachev and the World - the Political Side Zdenek Kavan 7. Conclusions David A. Dyker.
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Gorbachev's accession to General Secretary promised great changes to the Soviet Union and its relationship with the rest of the world. This book, first published in 1987, discusses the problems faced by Gorbachev when he entered office and how he planned to tackle them. Gorbachev was a figure of genuine debate in the mid-1980s, raising doubts from Western specialists regarding his radicalism and ability to reform the Soviet economic system in particular. Here, Dyker and his colleagues assess the changes Gorbachev had already made to consolidate his power base, alongside those that he was proposing to make to agriculture, industry and foreign relations at the time of publication. The book speculates about how Gorbachev might implement his proposed political and economic reforms, what opposition he might encounter and how successful he would be. A fascinating insight into Soviet economic and political policy in the years leading up to the Union's collapse, this work will be of particular importance to students and academics researching the personality of Gorbachev and the political and economic history of the Soviet Union.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Historical Background
• The Soviet Period and Gorbachev's Perestroika
• The Transition Back to Capitalism
• Putin and the New Russia
• Russia and the Outside World
• Russia and the 'Near Abroad'
• Innovation, the Knowledge Economy and the Russian S&T Complex
• What Does It All Mean for Outsiders?.
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This book addresses one of the fundamental problems in Russian society, and in Russia's relations with the rest of the world. Why do Russians tend to react differently from `us' in given diplomatic or business situations? Why do they find the notion of a contract difficult to grasp? Why do they seem hostile to the principle of the level playing field? How do they see Russia's position within the globalised economy? In order to probe these issues, the author begins with a historical analysis, looking at the pattern of political and economic development since Tsarist times, always asking the questions: What is unique to Russia in all this, and which unique features tend to recur in different periods? In seeking to illuminate the interface between Russia and the world, the author also examines Russia's attitude to itself, and to its own resources - natural and human - to land as an agricultural resource, and later oil and gas; and to people - as cheap labour and as highly trained scientific personnel. This book is firmly based on scholarly sources, in English, French and Russian, but aims to go beyond the academic audience to address the concerns of people encountering Russians and Russian organizations in their everyday lives.
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• Russia's plea for help
• American relief arrives
• Enlisting Russia's help
• Railroads delay relief
• Saving a nation.

When a devastating famine descended on Soviet Russia in 1921, Americans responded with a massive two-year relief campaign, championed by a new Secretary of Commerce, 'The Great Humanitarian' Herbert Hoover, an operation hailed for its efficiency, grit, and generosity.

• The real benefits of competition
• The dynamics of unemployment and efficiency
• The holistic target : the value of profit and loss for the firm
• The rat race : the value of profit and loss for the economy
• Middlemen, trade, and the market system
• The high price of price control
• The root of all prosperity : money and the danger of centralized monetary policy
• Regulation and the institutions of a dynamic economy
• Democracy and freedom
• Corporate capitalism or the free market.

• Contents: Part I: Introduction
• 1. Markets vs. Hierarchies
• 2. Theoretical Background Part II: The Pre-Revolutionary Period
• 3. Dominant Role of the State in Governing Economic and Political Affairs
• 4. Social Norms
• 5. Status of Merchants Part III: The Soviet Period: 1917-1985
• 6. The Dominant Role of the Soviet State in Governing Economic and Political Affairs
• 7. Social Networks and Cultural Atavism Part IV: Perestroika and the Post-Soviet Era
• 8. The Political Economy of the Russian State: Elite Networks
• 9. Social Networks and Economic Efficiency: Everyday Networks
• 10. Networks and Post-Soviet Culture Conclusion: The Reality of Russian Political Economy Appendix A: War Statistics Appendix B: Distribution of Serfs Around Moscow Bibliography.
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Ekaterina Brancato illustrates from a transaction cost perspective how hierarchies influenced the structure of markets and behaviour of individual businesses and cartels in pre-revolutionary, Soviet and present-day Russia. She exposes the devastating effects of self-interested decision making of the government officials on economic growth, and highlights the inefficiencies of the legal system in Russia. Rent-seeking under autocratic and pseudo-democratic conditions is also explored.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• PART I: ORIGINS OF THE CRISIS Tracing the Roots of the Filed 1946 Harvest PART II: SOCIETAL IMPACT AND OFFICIAL POLICIES Exploring the Causes of Child Mortality Food Shortages and Ration Reforms in the Towns and Cities: Moscow and Beyond None Dare Call It Resistance?: Coping, Opposition, and the Soviet State PART III: THE CRISIS IN BROADER PERSPECTIVE The Famine, the Dawn of the Cold War, and the Politics of Food The Soviet Famine of 1946-47 in the Context of Russian History Placing the Famine of 1946-47 in Global Context.
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This book deals with the long overlooked and understudied Soviet famine of 1946-47, which came on the heels of World War II and at the dawn of the Cold War and killed as many as two million people.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Topic and Method
• 1. A Land of Cities
• 2. The Thirteenth-Century Decline
• 3. Moscow and Novgorod
• 4. The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century
• 5. The "English Tsar"
• 6. Empire of the Periphery
• 7. Peter the Great
• 8. The Eighteenth-Century Expansion
• 9. The Granary of Europe
• 10. The Crimean War and the World System
• 11. The Age of Reforms
• 12. The Flourishing of Russian Capitalism
• 13. The Revolutionary Explosion
• 14. The Soviet World
• 15. After
• 1991: The Peripheral Capitalism of the Restoration Epoch Notes Index.
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Leading writer Boris Kagarlitsky offers an ambitious account of 1000 years of Russian history. Encompassing all key periods in Russia's dramatic development, the book covers everything from early settlers, through medieval decline, Ivan the Terrible - the 'English Tsar', Peter the Great, the Crimean War and the rise of capitalism, the revolution, the Soviet period, finally ending with the return of capitalism after 1991. Setting Russia within the context of the 'World System', as outlined by Wallerstein, this is a major work of historical Marxist theory that is set to become a future classic.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface Acknowledgments List of abbreviations
• 1. The evolution of America's Cold War planning
• 2. America and the European trade embargo
• 3. Expansion of the trade war under the impact of the Korean War
• 4. The firming of Cold War tensions and the effects of the trade war
• 5. America faces European demands for changes to CoCom
• 6. American flexibility in conducting economic warfare
• 7. US handling of the European's trade expansion
• 8. Dealing with European dissent
• 9. The Johnson Years of innovation
• 10. The Johnson-Nixon era in trade controls
• 11. The Nixon administration and the openings to the East
• 12. Nixon and high technology trade control
• 13. Relaxation of restrictions on communist trading
• 14. Conclusion Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Discussing a rarely researched aspect of the Cold War, this volume uses new material to examine how the United States trade embargo on the Soviet Union and communist China severed relationships with Europe, particularly focusing on Great Britain.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Discussing a rarely researched aspect of the Cold War, this volume uses new material to examine how the United States trade embargo on the Soviet Union and communist China severed relationships with Europe, particularly focusing on Great Britain. In the late 1940s, the US government stopped nearly all exports to the entire Sino-Soviet bloc in the belief that it would hinder the expansion of Soviet and Chinese military potential. To continue receiving the US Marshall Aid, European countries had to impose similar bans, but were reluctant because their trade links with the USSR and its satellite countries had existed for centuries. The US thereafter negotiated with Europe about what to include or exclude from the list of authorised goods, severely straining diplomatic relations. "Economic Statecraft during the Cold War" details these negotiations, casting new light on the ambivalent US-UK relationship and providing insights into the changing emphasis between the Republican and Democrat administrations on the key question of trade embargo, by explaining how the firm consistency in the application of the US policy over the succeeding decades of the Cold War was maintained. This book will be of much interest to all students and scholars of Cold War history, intelligence studies and international history in general.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Figures.List of Tables.Preface.Acknowledgments.Acronyms.Part I: Foundations
• .1. Muscovy and the West
• .2. Economic Fundamentals.Part II: Soviet Communism: Lenin and Stalin
• .3. War Communism: 1917-1921
• .4. NEP: 1921-1929
• .5. Command Communism: 1929-1953
• .6. Terror, Homicides, and Forced Labor: 1929-1953
• .7. Economic Performance: 1929-1953.Part III: Soviet Communism: Hope and Disenchantment
• .8. Reform Communism: 1953-1991
• .9. Structural Militarization
• .10. Delusions of Adequacy.Part IV: Russia
• .11. Post-Communism
• .12. Prospects.Notes.Glossary.Bibliography.Index.
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The epic tale of the Soviet Union's quest to construct a socialist economy was, until recently, the principal motif of textbooks on the Russian economy. Rosefielde's new text offers a more sober recounting of the Bolshevik saga, stripped bare of socialist romanticism, focused equally on the micro- and macoeconomics of administrative command planning, and Russia's post-Communist market system. Understanding the Soviet economic system and the causes of its failure are central to any student's study of Russia's struggle towards a market economy and its prospects for the future. New textbook, offering a more sober recounting of the Bolshevik saga, stripped bare of socialist romanticism.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Over the past few years, many of the former Communist-rule countries of Central and Eastern Europe have taken a steady path toward becoming more or less normal capitalist countries - with Poland and Hungary cases in point. Russia, on the other hand, has experienced extreme difficulties in its attempted transition to capitalism and democracy. The pursuit of Western-endorsed policies of privatization, liberalization, and fiscal austerity have brought Russia growing crime and corruption, a distorted economy, and a trend toward authoritarian government. In their 1996 book for Routledge - "Revolution from Above" - David Kotz and Fred Weir shed light on the underlying reasons for the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union and the severe economic and political problems of the immediate post-Soviet period in Russia. In this new book, the authors bring the story up to date, showing how continuing misguided policies have entrenched a group of super-rich oligarchs, in alliance with an all-powerful presidency, while further undermining Russia's economic potential. New topics include the origins of the oligarchs, the deep penetration of crime and corruption in Russian society, the financial crisis that almost destroyed the regime, the mixed blessing of an oil-dependent economy, the atrophy of democracy in the Yeltsin years, and the recentralization of political power in the Kremlin under President Putin.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The diary which begins in the days before Childs enters Soviet Russia in 1921 and ends rather abruptly in August 1923, about six months before he left, is a detailed in depth view of Childs's Russian experience. There is first an account of the inner working of the American Relief Administration (ARA) at all levels from Moscow to the workers in the kitchens that fed the starving children and later adults. It also gives a vivid picture of the grisly famine conditions, not only in Kazan, but in the countryside as well, since Childs was early involved in field work establishing orphanages, and kitchens to feed the starving. In this capacity, he had to deal with local governments, now in the control of the Communist Party, and his narration of his experiences gives probably one of the first insights into the workings of the Party, in local governments. Yet the journal also gives an account of the lives of those enemies of the Soviets that did not get out, the bourgeois and aristocratic elements, who were hostile to the new system. Frequently these citizens, who were educated and had often learned English, came to work for the ARA, and Childs witnessed their sad lives and the suspicion they experienced from the Soviet government. The diary also gives a firsthand view of the early days of Lenin's famous New Economic Policy (NEP), which was really partial return to old capitalism. This move on the part of the Soviet government was designed to jump-start the prostrate economy, and Childs a self-proclaimed socialist, curiously found this turnabout fascinating and became an ardent proponent of it.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Reform maximalists
• Boris Yeltsin : the wrecking ball
• Anatoly Chubais : the neo-bolshevik privatizer
• Yegor Gaidar : the shock therapist
• Boris Nemtsov : the political activist
• Mikhail Kasyanov : the pro-market prime minister
• Strobe Talbott : Bill Clintons Russia hand
• Reform gradualists
• Grigory Yavlinsky : the permanent oppositionist
• Sergei Rogov : in search of checks and balances, at home and abroad
• Nodari Simonia : the pro-Putin vote
• George Soros : the active philanthropist
• Five policy perspectives
• Sergei Dubinin : monopoly sector reform in progress
• Oleg Vyugin : monetary policy in action
• Boris Jordan : media man and investor
• Anatoly Vishnevsky : demographic dilemmas
• Jack Matlock, Jr. : the road ahead
• The role of history
• Martin Malia : history lessons
• Richard Pipes : the past in the present.

Much of the discussion of Russia's recent post-Communist history has amounted, both in Russia and the West, to a series of monologues by strong-minded people with starkly divergent views. In contrast, Padma Desai's conversations with influential, intelligent participants and observers provide the reader with a broad, nuanced view of what has and has not happened in the last fourteen years, and why. Conversations from Russia will thus serve as a much-needed reference volume, both for academics who study Russia and for laypeople who only have vague perceptions of what has occurred in Russia since the collapse of Communism. In conversations with important figures like Boris Yeltsin, George Soros, Anatoly Chubais, and Yegar Gaidar, Desai considers questions like why the Soviet Union fell apart under Gorbachev, what went wrong with economic reforms after Gorbachev, whether the privatization of Russian assets could have been managed differently, and what the prospects are for the Russian economy in the near future. Desai, a recognized expert in the field of Soviet studies, ties the interviews together with an introduction, ultimately reaching her own judgment on each issue considered in the conversations. This book will appeal to researchers and students in developmental economics, political economy, and Soviet studies, and educated laypeople interested in Russia.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Modernisation in Russian History
• Modernisation Strategies and Outcomes in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
• The Bolshevik Modernisation Project
• Modernisation and the Changing Social Structure of State Socialism
• The 'Modernisation' of the Soviet Economy in the Inter-War Years
• Modernisation in Soviet Agriculture
• Soviet Economic Modernisation and Transferring Technologies from the West
• Changing the Rules of the Economic Game in Post-Soviet Russia
• The Impact of Modernisation on Soviet Women
• The Modernisation of Leadership: From Gorbachev to Putin
• Montage Culture: The Semiotics of Post-Revolutionary Russian Culture
• The Modernisation of Russian Health Care: Challenges, Policy, Constraints
• Khrushchev and the Path to Modernisation Through Education
• In Celebration of Monumentalism: Transport Modernisation in Russia
• Modernisation of Russia's Last Frontier: The Arctic and the Northern Sea Route from the 1930s to the 1990s
• Modernising Public Administration in Russia
• The Internet as an Agent of Socio-Economic Modernisation of the Russian Federation.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Modernisation has been a constant theme in Russian history, at least since Peter the Great launched a series of initiatives aimed at closing the economic, technical and cultural gap between Russia and the more 'advanced' countries of Europe. All of the leaders of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia have been intensely aware of this gap, and have pursued a number of strategies, some more successful than others, in order to modernise the country. But it would be wrong to view modernisation as a unilinear process which was the exclusive preserve of the state. Modernisation has had profound effects on Russian society, and the attitudes of different social groups have been crucial to the success and failure of modernisation. This volume examines the broad theme of modernisation in late imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia both through general overviews of particular topics, and specific case studies of modernisation projects and their impact. Modernisation is seen not just as an economic policy, but as a cultural and social phenomenon reflected through such diverse themes as ideology, welfare, education, gender relations, transport, political reform, and the Internet. The result is the most up to date and comprehensive survey of modernisation in Russia available, which highlights both one of the perennial problems and the challenges and prospects for contemporary Russia.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Dedication Contents List of tables and maps Preface Introduction
• 1. The front line, 1914-1916
• 2. `Educated society' and the Russian elite
• 3. Narod: plebeian society during the war
• 4. Tsarist authority in question, 1915-1916
• 5. Mobilising industry: Russia's war economy at full stretch
• 6. Paying for the war, Russian style
• 7. Feeding Russia: food supply as Achilles' heel
• 8. Economic nationalism and the mobilisation of ethnicity in the 'great patriotic war'
• 9. Hierarchy subverted: the February Revolution and the Provisional Government
• 10. Economic meltdown and revolutionary objectives: from European war to Civil War, 1917-1918
• 11. Russia's First World War: an overview.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The story of Russia's First World War remains largely unknown, neglected by historians who have been more interested in the grand drama that unfolded in 1917. In Russia's First World War: A Social and Economic History Peter Gatrell shows that war is itself `revolutionary' - rupturing established social and economic ties, but also creating new social and economic relationships, affiliations, practices and opportunities. Russia's First World War brings together the findings of Russian and non-Russian historians, and draws upon fresh research. It turns the spotlight on what Churchill called the `unknown war', providing an authoritative account that finally does justice to the impact of war on Russia's home front.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In this book, the author highlights various symbols from Russian history that typify the identity confusion of Russia. He takes the reader on a journey of more than a century, from the period preceding the communist seizure of power, through the various stages of communist power, to the ultimate collapse of the communist system, and the attempts by Yeltsin and Putin to deal with its appalling legacy. Many of the problems of post-communist Russiaincluding the heated debates about the best way forward, which eventually resulted in virtual stalemate and stalled reforms, and the various ramifications of the near-absence of the bourgeoisie, including the rise of corruption, of the so-called oligarchs, and of nomenklatura privatizationcan ultimately be traced back to the seriously distorting effects of the logic of communist economics in Russia. But misguided Western advisers must also share part of the blame for the problems the Russian economy has experienced in recent years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• Part I. The Dilemma of Economic Isolation: 1. The myth of Trotskyism
• 2. Isolation and the mobilization of labour
• 3. Integrationism and the New Economic Policy
• Part II. The Politics of Economic Isolation: 4. The search for a new faith
• 5. Socialism in One Country
• 6. Trotsky's alternative
• 7. Trotsky's attack on socialism in a 'separate'
• 8. Integrationism in defeat and exile
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

A highly original and controversial examination of events in Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1927 in which Professor Day challenges both the standard Trotskyite and Stalinist interpretations of the period. At the same time he rejects the traditional emphasis on Trotsky's concept of Permanent Revolution and argues that a Marxist theorist is essential. Professor Day concentrates upon the economic implications of revolutionary Russia's isolation from Europe. How to build socialism - in a backward, war-ravaged society, without aid from the West: this problem lay behind many of the most important political conflicts of Soviet Russia's formative years.
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• 1. The jockey or the horse?
• 2. Collectivization, accumulation, and power
• 3. The principles of governance
• 4. Investment, wages, and fairness
• 5. Visions and control figures
• 6. Planners versus producers
• 7. Creating Soviet industry
• 8. Operational planning
• 9. Ruble control: money, prices, and budgets
• 10. The destruction of the Soviet administrative command economy.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book uses the formerly secret Soviet state and Communist Party archives to describe the creation and operations of the Soviet administrative command system. It concludes that the system failed not because of the 'jockey'(i.e. Stalin and later leaders) but because of the 'horse' (the economic system). Although Stalin was the system's prime architect, the system was managed by thousands of 'Stalins' in a nested dictatorship. The core values of the Bolshevik Party dictated the choice of the administrative command system, and the system dictated the political victory of a Stalin-like figure. This study pinpoints the reasons for the failure of the system - poor planning, unreliable supplies, the preferential treatment of indigenous enterprises, the lack of knowledge of planners, etc. - but also focuses on the basic principal-agent conflict between planners and producers, which created a sixty-year reform stalemate.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. The jockey or the horse?
• 2. Collectivization, accumulation, and power
• 3. The principles of governance
• 4. Investment, wages, and fairness
• 5. Visions and control figures
• 6. Planners versus producers
• 7. Creating Soviet industry
• 8. Operational planning
• 9. Ruble control: money, prices, and budgets
• 10. The destruction of the Soviet administrative command economy.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book uses the formerly secret Soviet state and Communist Party archives to describe the creation and operations of the Soviet administrative command system. It concludes that the system failed not because of the 'jockey'(i.e. Stalin and later leaders) but because of the 'horse' (the economic system). Although Stalin was the system's prime architect, the system was managed by thousands of 'Stalins' in a nested dictatorship. The core values of the Bolshevik Party dictated the choice of the administrative command system, and the system dictated the political victory of a Stalin-like figure. This study pinpoints the reasons for the failure of the system - poor planning, unreliable supplies, the preferential treatment of indigenous enterprises, the lack of knowledge of planners, etc. - but also focuses on the basic principal-agent conflict between planners and producers, which created a sixty-year reform stalemate.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiii Chapter One Soviet Development in World-Historical Perspective 1 Part One The Economy before Stalin 19 Chapter Two Economic Growth before 1917 21 Chapter Three The Development Problem in the 1920s 47 Chapter Four NEP Agriculture and Economic Development 65 Part Two Stalin's Industrial Revolution 89 Chapter Five Planning, Collectivization, and Rapid Growth 91 Chapter Six The Population History of the USSR 111 Chapter Seven The Standard of Living 132 Chapter Eight The Causes of Rapid Industrialization 153 Chapter Nine Preobrazhensky in Action 172 Part Three After Stalin 187 Chapter Ten The Soviet Climacteric 189 Appendix A Soviet National Income 212 Appendix B The Simulation Model of the Soviet Economy 223 Appendix C Data Sources 238 Appendix D The Demographic Databases and Simulation Model Used in
• Chapter 6 249 Notes 253 Bibliography 271 Index 295.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

To say that history's greatest economic experiment - Soviet communism - was also its greatest economic failure is to say what many consider obvious. Here, in a startling reinterpretation, Robert Allen argues that the USSR was one of the most successful developing economies of the twentieth century. He reaches this provocative conclusion by recalculating national consumption and using economic, demographic, and computer simulation models to address the "what if" questions central to Soviet history. Moreover, by comparing Soviet performance not only with advanced but with less developed countries, he provides a meaningful context for its evaluation. Although the Russian economy began to develop in the late nineteenth century based on wheat exports, modern economic growth proved elusive.But growth was rapid from 1928 to the 1970s - due to successful Five Year Plans. Notwithstanding the horrors of Stalinism, the building of heavy industry accelerated growth during the 1930s and raised living standards, especially for the many peasants who moved to cities. A sudden drop in fertility due to the education of women and their employment outside the home also facilitated growth. While highlighting the previously underemphasized achievements of Soviet planning, "Farm to Factory" also shows, through methodical analysis set in fluid prose, that Stalin's worst excesses - such as the bloody collectivization of agriculture - did little to spur growth. Economic development stagnated after 1970, as vital resources were diverted to the military and as a Soviet leadership lacking in original thought pursued wasteful investments.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

From the late nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, America's experts on Russia watched as Russia and the Soviet Union embarked on a course of rapid industrialization. Captivated by the idea of modernization, diplomats, journalists and scholars across the political spectrum rationalized the enormous human cost of this path to progress. In an examination of this crucial era, David Engerman underscores the key role economic development played in America's understanding of Russia and explores its profound effects on US policy. American intellectuals from George Kennan to Samuel Harper to Calvin Hoover understod Russian events in terms of national character. Many of them used stereotypes of Russian passivity, backwardness and fatalism to explain the need for - and the costs of - Soviet economic development. These costs included devastating famines that left millions starving while the government still exported grain. This book is an example of the new international history that seamlessly blends cultural and intellectual currents with policymaking and foreign relations. It offers valuable insights into the role of cultural differences and the shaping of economic policy for developing nations even today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The starting point: the Stalinist economic system and the aftermath of war
• Khrushchev: hope rewarded, 1953-60
• Khrushchev: things fall apart, 1960-64
• A new start: Brezhnev, 1964-73
• The "Era of Stagnation": 1973-82
• Three funerals and a coronation: November 1982 to March 1985
• Gorbachev and Catastroika
• The end-game, 1989-91
• The Soviet economy in retrospect.

"The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy draws on personal experience and literary sources, including memoirs, as well as available economic data and analyses, to illustrate the reality of everyday life and of economic policy making in the post-war Soviet Union. The author argues that the Soviet economic system was capable of producing economic growth, and for most of its existence it did exhibit growth. But it revealed over time a key weakness compared with capitalism: a systemic inability to cope with technological change, which doomed the Soviet economy in the long-run. Moreover, 'success' in partially liberalising Soviet society, so that terror receded into the background, reduced the effectiveness of a top-down economic system that relied on authority and obedience."--BOOK JACKET.

• Preface
• Part I. The Tsarist Economic Transition: i. State Economy and Society: 1. The socio-economic framework
• 2. The transition issues
• 3. The economic policies
• ii. Sectoral Growth and Change: 4. The problems of agriculture
• 5. The industrial changes
• 6. Domestic and foreign trade
• iii. Social Accounting: 7. Money and banking
• 8. State finance
• 9. Overall view
• Part II. The Soviet Economic Transition: i. State Economy and Society: 10. The socio-economic framework
• 11. The transition issues
• 12. The economic policies
• ii. Sectoral Growth and Change: 13. The problems of agriculture
• 14. The industrial changes
• 15. Domestic and foreign trade
• iii. Social Accounting: 16. Money and banking
• 17. State finance
• 18. Overall view
• Part III. The Post Soviet Economic Transition: i. State Economy and Society: 19. The socio-economic framework
• 20. The transition issues
• 21. The economic policies
• ii. Sectoral Growth and Change: 22. The problems of agriculture
• 23. The industrial changes
• 24. Domestic and foreign trade
• iii. Social Accounting: 25. Money and banking
• 26. State finance
• 27. Overall view
• Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Russia's Economic Transitions examines the three major transformations that the country underwent from the early 1860s to 2000. The first transition, under Tsarism, involved the partial break-up of the feudal framework of land ownership and the move toward capitalist relations. The second, following the Communist revolution of 1917, brought to power a system of state ownership and administration - a sui generis type of war-economy state capitalism - subjecting the economy's development to central commands. The third, started in the early 1990s and still unfolding, is aiming at reshaping the inherited economic fabric on the basis of private ownership. The three transitions originated within different settings, but with a similar primary goal, namely the changing of the economy's ownership pattern in the hopes of providing a better basis for subsequent development. The treatment's originality, impartiality and historical breadth have cogent economic, social and political relevance.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The de-tooling and conversion of the vast Soviet defence industry, following the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, is vital for Russian political, economic and social regeneration and stability, and has huge implications for international relations and the world economy. Tarja Cronberg's original study is based on an empirical examination of all aspects of the Soviet military-technical establishment and is firmly grounded in political and social theory.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Prologue: Future corpses
• pt. 1. The battlefield of famine : Russia's crisis and America's response
• pt. 2. Love and death on the Volga : dramas and distractions at the famine front
• pt. 3. Say it ain't so, comrade : American adventures in the communist utopia
• pt. 4. Masters of efficiency : youthful America confronts eternal Russia
• Epilogue: Since then
• Appendix: Riga agreement.

When famine struck Bolshevik Russia in 1921, the US responded with a two-year relief mission that battled starvation and disease, and saved millions of lives. The tale told here is largely derived from the diaries, memoirs and letters of the American participants.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Prologue : future corpses.
• The battlefield of famine : Russia's crisis and America's response. Going in. Food and weapons. The kingdom of hunger. Making the show a go. The neck of the bottle. Haskell at the bat. Home front Putting the job over. The gift horse
• Love and death on the Volga : dramas and distractions at the famine front. Theaters of action. Funerals. Travelers. Gunmen. Tales of cannibalism. Flight of the flivver. Entertainments. Entr'acte. Backstage Entanglements. Denouement
• Say it ain't so, comrade : American adventures in the communist utopia. Red days in Russia. Comrade Eiduk. Comrade Skvortsov. The professor and the sailor. And the show whirled merrily on. Food as a weapon. Shoot the interpreter. Vodka as a weapon. Machine politics. Playing the game
• Masters of efficiency : youthful America confronts eternal Russia. A taste of power. Conquering new worlds. From the bell tower. Time meant nothing. The business of relief. We are all thieves. The mask of Mammon. Stealing the thunder. Mad monks and holy fools. Dangerous men in Russia. The wind and the sun.

When famine struck Bolshevik Russia in 1921, the US responded with a two-year relief mission that battled starvation and disease, and saved millions of lives. The tale told here is largely derived from the diaries, memoirs and letters of the American participants.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)