Russian and Soviet economic history

Abstract

T he later Brezhnev years were a time of 'stagnation' in all aspects of Soviet life. Historical scholarship was no exception. The i980s, and indeed the I970s, were far from a golden age. Until the very end of the i980s, there was an absence of genuine debate among historians. Research and writing which had begun to blossom under the Khrushchev thaw went into decline. Fewer works of synthesis appeared, fewer documents were prepared for publication. In particular the political rejection of Khrushchev meant that the Khrushchev years themselves were the subject of virtually no historical writing of any quality.' Further, economic history has lacked the corporate identity which it has in Britain and the United States. There is no Russian equivalent of this journal or of the Journal of Economic History. There is no professional organization for economic historians. The discipline has had no separate identity within the network of historical research institutes under the main Soviet research organization, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. A report to a meeting in the Academy's Division of History in January i988 spoke of a serious failure to train economic historians.2 With the coming of Gorbachev and glasnost' the situation in history began to change radically, albeit with some delay.3 So radically, indeed, that in May i988 all school examinations in Soviet history were cancelled.4 To cope with the urgent need for material which incorporates the new perspectives on Soviet history, in i990 one of the two main history journals carried a series of articles which were abridged chapters of a forthcoming text on the history of Soviet society, between I9I7 and I945.5 No journal is likely ever again to carry articles by leading historians with titles such as 'The January (i987) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the