A Postwar Perestroika? Toward a History of Private Enterprise in the USSR
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4807240 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julie Hessler (University of Oregon, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 516-542 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Slavic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2500710 |
| OpenAlex | W2327999217 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 25 |
One of the firmest popular conceptions of the Soviet Union in the United States is of a system diat categorically banned private enterprise. Embraced by specialists and the general public alike, this conception reflects the official Soviet stance diat the private sector was eradicated during losif Stalin's "great break" of 1929-30. Indeed, over the course of diose two years, individual peasants were compelled to collectivize, private stores forcibly shut, private manufactures socialized, and even doctors and dentists pressured to cooperate or to close shop. The concept of an interdiction against all private economic activity found support in the words of the dictator-Stalin's assertions that the Soviet Union was a society "without capitalists, small or big," that socialist, not capitalist, property was the "foundation of revolutionary legality," and many other statements of a similar ilk. Stalin proved his commitment to this model by his readiness to resort to coercion against its violators: at his instigation, repressive laws threatened entrepreneurs with five to ten years in prison camp for profitable private business. Such developments appeared as unequivocal as they proved lasting; when commentators discussed perestroika in the late 1980s, the only historical precedent they could identify was Lenin's New Economic Policy six decades before
Communism · Dictator · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Principle of legality · Private sector · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law · Russia and Soviet political economy · Soviet and Russian History
Soviet State and Industrial Cooperation in Second Half of 1945–1947
Private Entrepreneurship in Soviet Handicraft Cooperatives in Second Half of 1940s
Avocat sous Staline
Decolonizing knowledge
An essay on the Jewish ethnic economy
The Soviet Village Revisited
Between Fiscal, Ideological, and Social Dilemmas
The Pavlenko Construction Enterprise. Large-scale Private Entrepreneurialism in Stalin’s USSR
Violence from Below
Postwar Normalisation and its Limits in the USSR
Kyrgyzstan's Dordoi and Kara-Suu Bazaars
Cold War in the Kitchen
The Making of the Soviet System
German Rule in Russia 1941–1945
Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934
Factory and Manager in the USSR
Coloured markets in the Soviet Union
The kolkhoz market
Privilege in the Soviet Union
Smolensk under Soviet Rule
Ierarkhiia potrebleniia
Ko-Ops
German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945
Privilege in the Soviet Union
Soviet Trade and Distribution
The Fate of the New Economic Policy of the Soviet Union
Peasant Metropolis
Magnetic Mountain
Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 1933-1952
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,48 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2026 (26) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |