Stalin, Siberia and the Crisis of the New Economic Policy

by James Hughes

Overview

This book makes an important contribution to the current re-evaluation of the origins of Stalinism. Hitherto, Western scholars have focused on leading personalities to analyze the crisis of the New Economic Policy. Dr. James Hughes, however, examines the processes at work under the NEP from the regional perspective of Siberia. He looks at party-peasant relations, the kulak question, Stalin's patron-client network in the provinces, the regional impact of the grain crisis of 1927-28 and the use of emergency measures to overcome it. He concludes that Stalin's experience of conditions that were unique to Siberia accelerated his negative reappraisal of the NEP and initiated the descent into the cataclysm of his "revolution from above" in late 1929.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521545693
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/03/2004
Series:	Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies , #81
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables; Preface; Note on transliteration and dates; Weights and measures; Map of Siberia in 1928; Introduction; 1. The Siberian peasant utopia; 2. The party and the peasantry; 3. Who was the Siberian kulak?; 4. The crisis of NEP; 5. The end of NEP; 6. The emergency measures; 7. The 'Irkutsk affair'; Conclusion; Appendix; Glossary; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...Hughes has provided the best discussion of the grain procurement crisis and campaign available in English....this book is an extremely valuable contribution to our understanding of the political, social and economic underpinnings of the NEP crisis, as well as a landmark in Soviet regional history in the West." Lynne Viola, Russian Review

From the Publisher