Il Pane Quotidiano. Ideologia e conguintura nella Russia sovietic (1917-1921) by Antonella s> Salomoni (review)

Abstract

566 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 Salomoni, Antonella. InPaneQuotidiano. Ideologia econguintura nellaRussiasovietic (I9I7-I92I). Ricerca. 11Mulino, Bologna, 2001. 324 pp. Tables. Notes. Index. LIT 40,000: ?20.66. THIs book deals with the issue of 'war communism' and the debates that surroundedit. War communism developed a few months after the October revolution and came to an abrupt end with the halting of civil war, the Kronstadtrebellion and the introductionof the New Economic Policy.By this point physicaldestructionand disorganizationwreakedby almostcontinuous war since 19I4 had brought Soviet Russia the most rapid and dramatic decline experienced by any Westerneconomy in history.As a result,in 1922, a year after the CivilWar,fivemillion people starvedto death. War communism involved the virtual disappearance of the conventional economic system. Market relations between town and countryside were replaced by grain requisition;industrialwages were replaced by a rationing system (payment in kind rather than money); and the whole economy was directed by state decisions rather than the standard economic signals. The questionthis book seeksto answeris whetherthis development was due to the circumstances of civil war and economic backwardnessor was the result of ideological considerationsamong the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately,the authorfailsto answerthisquestionbecause she does not follow her own title. She certainly looks at an extraordinary range of ideologies, from the ex-Menshevik Larin (who favoured a deliberate and conscious programme of extinguishing money and capitalist economic categories), through Bukharin, Lenin, the Soviet trade unions, established economists (like Groman and Strumilin)to extreme right-wingopponents of the revolution like Sorokin. The latter thought war communism the resultof Darwinismin reverse -inferior Asiaticelementscoming to theforein Russia! For those who want a broad overview of ideological currents the book is quite useful. However, it fails to deal with 'congiuntura' the actual circumstances in which war communism was introduced. It is all very well talking about whether to maintain a monetary system or not, but when inflation has reached millions of per cent and when there are virtually no goods to be bought with the worthless currency, such discussions appear utterlyabstractand academic. To have answeredthe issue of primacy of ideology or circumstancewould require a close look at timing, structures and political argument. Did the outside world (the war, domestic and internationalfronts)pose demands on the Soviet state's structureswhich were responded to by the policy of war communism and subsequently given an ideological justification? Or was the sequence reversed? There is one place wherewe come close to such a focused approach.This is in the central section where the book picks on the wages question ('the daily bread')element. However, before a conclusion can be drawnwe are off again to look at new setsof ideologiststalkingabout the decline of culture(Spenglerstyle ) or sociology. This uncertain focus means that the book lacks enough economic weight to satisfythe economist, but isjust a bit too focusedto satisfy the historianof ideas. REVIEWS 567 Lack of emphasis on 'congiuntura' leads to a one-sided account which cannot make sense of the ideologies discussed.One solution would have been to study the way that individuals' ideological outlooks changed over the period, but this too is ignored. A further omission is the international perspective.Nothing that took place in the Russian economy or society could be understood in isolation from the revolution's encirclement by hostile capitalistforces and the desperatehope for, and need of, foreign socialistaid. Yet this is what Salomoni does. In the mid-I920s Trotsky(who is overlooked in this book) famously criticized Bukharin for abstracting the Russian revolution from its internationalcontext, pointing out that if you do this 'you could walknakedthroughRed Squareon ChristmasDay'. Another gap is the minimalattentionpaid to thepeasantrywho, as noted in passing, formed 8o per cent of the population. The key political question of government relationswith the various strata poor, middle and rich -was fundamental to any economic policy. Finally, the civil war itself, is barely discussed. War communism came about as the beleaguered Soviet state marshalled its paltry economic forces in a struggleagainst powerful internal and externalenemies. It disappearedshortlyafterthe civilwar ended. Yetthis conjunctionis never explored. Salomini's research is wide-ranging and her objective presentation of the various ideological argumentsimpressive.Therefore, this book can be useful if it is combined with other works that give a sense of...