Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921-1929 / Edition 1

by Alan M. Ball

Overview

In 1921 Lenin surprised foreign observers and many in his own Party, by calling for the legalization of private trade and manufacturing. Within a matter of months, this New Economic Policy (NEP) spawned many thousands of private entrepreneurs, dubbed Nepmen. After delineating this political background, Alan Ball turns his attention to the Nepmen themselves, examining where they came from, how they fared in competition with the socialist sector of the economy, their importance in the Soviet economy, and the consequences of their "liquidation" at the end of the 1920s.

Alan Ball's history of this experiment with capitalism is strikingly relevant to current efforts toward economic reform in the USSR.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520071742
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	09/18/1990
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	243
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alan M. Ball is Associate Professor of History at Marquette University.

Table of Contents

	List of Tables	vii
	Preface to the Paperback Edition	ix
	Preface	xv
	A Note on Conventions	xix
	Terms and Abbreviations	xxi
	Introduction: The War Communism Prelude	1
Part I
1.	Building Communism with Bourgeois Hands	15
2.	NEP's Second Wind	38
3.	The Bubble Bursts	56
Part II
4.	"Ordinary Buying and Selling"	85
5.	Supplying the Nepmen	109
6.	At the Foot of the Commanding Heights	127
7.	Secondary Endeavors	146
	An Epilogue and an Assessment	161
	Notes	173
	Select Bibliography	209
	Index	217