The Russian Economy

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. Traditional Soviet and post-Soviet books usually adopt an historical approach, exploiting the dichotomies between socialism and capitalism as a convenient device for highlighting the differences in Soviet and western arrangements. These conventions remain useful, but require refurbishing. Rosefielde's new text offers a more sober recounting of the Bolshevik saga, stripped bare of socialist romanticism, and focused equally on the micro- and macroeconomics of administrative command planning as well as 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.

Steven Rosefielde is Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He is the author of Comparative Economic Systems: Culture, Wealth, and Power in the 21st Century (Blackwell, 2002).