Transnational Turn in Soviet Economic History

By Chris Miller, Assistant Professor of International History at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University

This review examines four new works that explore how economic ideas crossed the borders of the Soviet Union. Historians are increasingly realizing that Soviet economists participated in substantial exchanges of ideas with experts from other countries, and that these exchanges shaped Soviet intellectual and political history. Via formal and informal exchanges, new ideas from other countries played a major role in Soviet thinking. Soviet economists used foreign ideas to legitimize and mobilize support for new policies that they were advocating. From planning to taxation, from enterprise reform to economic development, people in the Soviet Union—and not only economists—were regular participants in a broader economic conversation that included economic experts from the West, from other socialist countries, and from the Third World.

Access the full article here. This piece was republished from The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review.