Table Of ContentA Biobibliographical Dictionary of
Russian and Soviet Economics
Despite the restrictions on their work and actions, the economists of the Soviet
period produced a great deal of bold and important work. With the erosion of the
old Stalinist controls, economists in the Soviet Union themselves became very
interested in the history of their profession, not least in order to find authentic
voices that might offer reinforcement or counterpoint to the policy analyses and
recommendations with which policy makers in the transition countries are today
being bombarded. Some of this story is well known—the great industrialization
debate as analyzed by Alexander Erlich, the independent invention by Kantorov-
ich of linear programming, the work of Chaianov and others of the peasant
school. However, for a surprisingly large number of economists, no coherent
record exists of their careers, the interest and significance of their economic
thought, or their impact on Soviet economic thought or policy.
This major new reference work pulls together many years of research in order
to present a biobibliographic dictionary of Russian and Soviet economists.
Through exploring this rich tradition of economic thought, we can go some way
in understanding the role of economists in the functioning of the Soviet system,
as well as bringing previously forgotten work to light, raising new questions, and
providing a memorial to those who suffered as a result of the system. This
hugely detailed and important new volume takes into account all the nuances of
the story of Russian and Soviet economic thought, such as regional issues, the
reform and transition to a market economy, and the economic output of non-
economists.
Featuring nearly 500 entries, and including a detailed contextual introduction,
this landmark volume will be a vitally important reference work for all those
with an interest in the history of economic thought, the history of economics,
and Russian and Soviet history more generally.
Robert W. Campbell is Distinguished Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at
Indiana University, USA. His specialty is analysis of the former centrally
planned economies and the problems of transforming them into market econo-
mies. His publications include 18 books and monographs and more than 40 art-
icles and chapters in books.
A Biobibliographical
Dictionary of Russian and
Soviet Economics
Robert W. Campbell
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Robert W. Campbell
The right of Robert W. Campbell to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Campbell, Robert Wellington.
A biobibliographical dictionary of Russian and Soviet economics/Robert
W. Campbell.
p. cm.
1. Economics–Soviet Union–Dictionaries. 2. Economics–Russia–
Dictionaries. I. Title.
HB113.A2C36 2012
016.3300947–dc23
2011052707
ISBN: 978-0-415-51946-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-11131-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of acronyms and terms vi
Notes viii
Introduction 1
Entries 12
Select bibliography 457
Index 461
Acronyms and terms
Aspirantura (Program of study for a kandidat degree—the student is an
aspirant)
BSE Bol’shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia (The Great Soviet
Encyclopedia)
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
Doktorantura (Status of study for a doctoral degree—not always a formal
program)
GKNT (State Committee for Science and Technology)
IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Lax-
enburg, Austria
IMEMO Institute of World Economy and International Relations
ITL ispravitel’no-trudovoi lager (Corrective Labor Camp)
Kafedra (Chair or department of a teaching institution)
Khozraschet (Financial independence and accountability of a firm)
Komandirovka (business trip)
Komsomol (Youth branch of the Communist Party)
KPSS (Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Often referred to by
its English initials—CPSU)
MGU Moscow State University
MSE Malaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia (The Small Soviet
Encyclopedia)
NEP New Economic Policy
NES New Economic School
NII Nauchno- issledovatel’skii institut (Scientific Research Insti-
tute)
Privat-d otsent (A recognized but unsalaried teacher at a university)
Rabfak Rabochii fakul’tet (School for preparing workers to enter
higher education)
RANION Rossiiskaia assosiatsiia nauchnykh institutov obshchestven-
nykh nauk (Russian Association of Scientific Institutes for
Research in the Social Sciences)
RF Russian Federation
RSFSR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Acronyms and terms vii
Rukovoditel’ (Supervisor of a graduate student)
SEV Sovet ekonomicheskoi vzaimopomoshchi (Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance—also referred to as
COMECON)
SOPS Sovet po izucheniiu prozivoditel’nykh sil (Council for the
Study of Productive Forces)
Sovmestitel’stvo (Having a secondary teaching position beyond one’s main
appointment)
Tekhnikum (A technically oriented secondary school)
Tipovaia metodika (Model method for using the coefficient of relative effec-
tiveness)
TsEMI Tsentral’nyi Ekonomiko-m atematicheskii Institut (Central
Economics-M athematics Institute)
TsIK Tsentral’nyi ispolnitel’nyi komitet (Central Executive Com-
mittee)
TSUNKhU Tsentral’noe Upravlenie Narodnokhoziastvennogo Ucheta
(Central Administration of National Economic Account-
ing. Referred to at other times as TsSU—Central Statistical
Administration)
VAK Vysshaia Attestatsionnaia Komissiia (The Higher Attesta-
tion Committee)
VASkhNiL Vsesoiuznaia Akademiia Sel’skokhoziaistvennykh Nauk
imeni Lenina (All Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences
named for Lenin)
VSNKh Vysshii sovet narodnogo khoziaistva (Supreme Council of
the National Economy)
VUZ Vysshee uchebnoe zavedenie (Higher Educational Institu-
tion)
Zhdanovshchina (A hard line ideological policy in the late 1940s named for
Andrei Zhdanov, who carried it out)
ZZ Zamykaiushchie zatraty (literally closing cost, i.e., cost of
the last intramarginal unit)
Notes
Dates. Tsarist Russia used the Julian calendar (12 days behind the Gregorian
calendar in the nineteenth century, 13 days behind after 1900). The Soviet gov-
ernment shifted to the Gregorian calendar on February 1, 1918. For people born
before February 1, 1918, Soviet sources usually cite the date of birth in Gregor-
ian style. But when a source gives a date of birth in old style I use that date with
new style in parentheses.
Academic degrees and ranks. The standard system in higher education was as
a first step a five year “specialist” degree, which usually involved a diploma
project. The next higher degree was the candidate (kandidat) of sciences degree,
via a formal program of kandidatura at an educational or research institution,
involving relatively little formal course work and a dissertation. Soviet sources
frequently refer to the kandidat degree as equivalent to a western doctoral degree
but that is an exaggeration. The highest degree was the doctor of economic sci-
ences, undergirded at times by a formal doktorantura program, but basically
premised on a body of research work. The two higher degrees required the
approval of the Vysshaia attestatsionnaia komissia (VAK). These academic
degrees were paralleled by a system of academic ranks—the lower positions had
varied names, but the rank of dotsent (usually translated as associate professor)
generally required a kandidat degree, and the rank of professor a doctoral degree.
In research organizations there was a variety of ranks and positions, the main
ones being junior (mladshii) and senior (starshii) scientific worker (nauchnyi
sotrudnik). At the apex of the system were corresponding member and full
member of the various Academies of Science. New members in both categories
were nominally elected by the members of the academy, but with strong political
input from the Communist Party.
Research institutes. The heart of the economics research establishment is the
system of academies of science, at the USSR and republican levels. These acade-
mies contain one or more economics research institutes. Each has its Institute of
Economics and the USSR academy has in addition a long list of specialized insti-
tutes in economics. Among the latter at the USSR level significant for their role in
the history of Soviet economics are Tsentral’nyi Ekonomiko- matematicheskii
Notes ix
Institut (TsEMI), and the subset of research institutes focused on the outside world
and its various regions—notable among them IMEMO and the Institute of the USA
and Canada.
The most prestigious academic research institute is the Institute of Economics
of the ANSSSR, formed in 1930 by the merger of two predecessor institutes of
economics—one in the Communist Academy and another in RANION—and
their transfer to the Academy of Sciences. The publication of the Institute in the
thirties was Problemy ekonomiki, which began in 1929, but was closed down in
1941, and replaced in 1948 by Voprosy ekonomiki.
There are also branch research institutes in economics, generally focused on
branch issues, but some with general import for economics, such as the research
institute of Gosplan, TsSU, or the Ministry of Finance.
Historically important were the Communist Academy and The Institute of
Red Professors. These institutions were established during the New Economic
Policy (NEP) as Marxist rivals to the Academy of Sciences and the holdover
universities. The latter was established in 1921 as a graduate school to produce a
new generation of scholars in a Marxian framework. It included an economics
division. In the reversion to dependence on a “bolshevized” university and
research system in the late twenties they lost their importance, and were closed
down in 1936 and 1938 respectively.
There is large network of institutions of higher education teaching economics
at the graduate and undergraduate level. Moscow State University sits atop the
hierarchy of universities, as a place for the best students. Its faculty of econom-
ics has hundreds of staff members. The Plekhanov Institute was founded in 1907
as the Moscow Commercial Institute (see entry on A. A. Chuprov for a descrip-
tion), and has gone through several name changes. In 2010 it became the Ple-
khanov Russian Economic University. It is a huge institution, producing
specialists and general economists. The main organizational units of a higher
educational institution were the fakul’tet (faculty) and within it the kafedra
(department).
Several new teaching institutions are of special importance. The New Eco-
nomic School (NES), founded in 1992, is a partner program between western
sponsors and TsEMI. The NES teaches a modern economics curriculum at the
MA level, in English, using western textbooks and staffed by mostly by profes-
sors from abroad and newly returned graduates with western PhDs. There are
similar institutions in Ukraine (The Kiev School of Economics—from 1996) and
in Georgia (The International School of Economics, Tbilisi—from 2006). There
are also numerous indigenous institutions dedicated to teaching the new econom-
ics. The National Research University/Higher School of Economics, founded in
1992, seeks to teach a new curriculum compatible with the transition to a market
economy. Another is the European University of St Petersburg.
