This paper describes the main trends of the Russian economy through the Great War (1914 to 1917), Civil War (1918 to 1921), and postwar famine (1921 to 1922) for the general reader. During its Great War mobilization the Russian economy declined, but no more than other continental economies under...

The nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of capitalism; the twentieth century saw the bloodiest wars in history. Is there a connection? The paper reviews the literature and evidence. It considers first whether capitalism has lowered the cost of war; then, whether capitalism has shown a...

The ides of 'primary' (sometimes called 'primitive') socialist accumulation was first developed by Preobrazhensky, the Bolshevik economist and spokesman for the Trotskyist opposition in the USSR in the 1920's. The idea was based on an analogy with Mark's writing on primary capitalist...

Nikolai Alekseevich Voznesky was born on 1 December (19 November in the old style) 1903, the second son of a forman's family. They lived near Chern', a small town of Tula province to the south of Moscow. Leaving full time education at fourteen, Nikolai found his first job in the year of...

The paper tells the story of a pensioner’s fight against a local mafia of Soviet party and government officials and farm managers in a remote rural locality in the 1950s. To Moscow, he was a whistleblower. To the leaders of his local community, he was a troublemaker. Working together, the...

In trying to sort out some of the economic issues raised by Soviet experience before and during the last war, I though that some clarification might be obtained from the Feldman model of expanded reproduction. The Feldman model has often neen used to address the issues of rapid Soviet...

By studying a Soviet R&D failure, the prewar attempt to create a new aeroengine technology based on the steam turbine, we find out more about the motivations, strategies, and payoffs of principals and agents in the Soviet command economy. Alternative approaches to the evaluation of R&D failure...

Military market places display obvious inefficiencies under most arrangements, but the Soviet defense market was unusual for its degree of monopoly, exclusive relationships, intensely scrutinized (in its formative years) by a harsh dictator. This provided the setting for quality versus quantity...

The paper outlines the problem of aviation jet propulsion in the interwar period and World War II and analyses Soviet progress towards a solution using newly available archival documentation. Soviet R&D commitments were influenced by long–term security motivations and the need to invest in...

This chapter introduces the author’s selected papers on the economics of coercion and conflict. It defines coercion and conflict and relates them. In conflict, adversaries make costly investments in the means of coercion. The application of coercion does not remove choice but limits it to...