The first question I asked myself when I started reading the reviewed volume was, naturally, What is Torgsin? The answer is that it is an abbreviation for the Special Bureau for Trade with Foreigners on the Territory of the USSR. In fact, as the author reveals from the first pages: “Torgsin— initially a small bureau and then the All-Union Association for Trade with Foreigners—was a state trade agency with a chain of hard-currency stores, the supplier of food and goods in the country” (p. 1). At the inauguration of the Torgsin stores in 1930, they were accessible only to foreigners temporarily settled in the Soviet Union, but then the Soviet State’s acute need for currency led to the acceptance of Soviet citizens as well so that hard currency and gold could be collected from them.During the last three decades, the author has focused on the economic and social problems faced by the Soviet Union in the interwar period during the Stalinist regime. The first form of this book appeared in 2009 in Russian, followed by a revised one in 2021. This revision was the basis for the current version, also published in 2021, issued by the prestigious Cornell University Press. The monograph proceeds chronologically, but within the four parts, a thematic approach is also present.The basis of the monograph is material from the Soviet archives, which includes documents of a political, economic, and social nature. Thus, the author has the merit of putting into the scientific circuit important original material that is otherwise difficult for foreign historians to access. The main files mentioned are those from the Russian State Archive for Economics, complemented by those studied at the Central Archives of the Federal Security Services, the Central State Archives of Moscow Region, the Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Leningrad Region State Archive in Vyborg, the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the Smolensk Archive. This very impressive list is complemented by research done in the United States at the Hoover Institution & Library Archives and the National Archives in Washington, DC.The importance of the subject is revealed by the author from the introductory pages, which emphasize some elements that resulted from the research work. For example, Torgsin was an important source for financing the Stalinist industrialization plan. The institution brought hard currency to the budget at a time when the gold reserves of tsarist times were depleted and exports did not bring the money needed for Stalin’s projects.The first part, appropriately titled “Small Bureau for Trade Empire,” uses important archival sources to introduce the reader to the subject by presenting the birth and evolution of Torgsin, established on July 18, 1930, by a decree of the People’s Commissariat for Trade. A spectacular evolution from a local office to a union one followed, an important moment being the receipt of the right to operate at the union level on January 4, 1931. The establishment of Torgsin was initially responsible for two commands: it was part of the centralization process driven by Stalin, and it aimed to contribute to the collection of the currency and gold that foreigners in the territory of the Soviet Union possessed. In the beginning, foreigners could buy carpets, fur, antiques, philately, wine, and vodka in Torgsin stores. The opening of the stores to the internal market contributed to the true dimension of Torgsin, which then began to attract the gold that the population had since tsarism, especially against the background of the famine of 1932/1933. This is the moment when the institution passed from the stage of “office” to that of “empire.”The second part, “People’s Treasures,” shows that the famine was the main reason for the success of Torgsin’s operations to collect precious metals from the population. This is the reason the organization even adopted a five-year plan for the period between 1933 and 1937. The third part, “Everyday Life in Torgsin,” contains an excellent analysis that gives the reader an image of the institution as viewed from the inside, with its achievements and failures, along with the policies and portraits of Torgsin leaders. The last part, “Torgsin’s Swan Song,” analyzes the inevitable end of the agency because, as Elena Osokina rightly points, out: “An unloved child of the Soviet government, conceived during the hard-currency panic, Torgsin was doomed” (p. 212). In fact, the decision to close Torgsin was taken at the highest level: by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Elena Osokina’s book has the merit of reconstructing the picture of a totalitarian era, also known after 1945 in the satellite states of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, emphasizing the desire of ordinary Russians to have access—at first, occult—to goods traded by Torgsin. The manner in which a capitalist business can develop and prosper in a Socialist regime is perceived and presented with talent by the author. The pages of economic history are thoughtfully intertwined with those of political history, social history, and everyday life through the inspired exploitation of the archival documents, the testimonies of the time, and the rich historiography of the Stalinist era. I wholeheartedly agree with Elena Osokina’s conclusion: “Torgsin was full of paradoxes. Its entrepreneurial—capitalist, from a Marxist political economy point of view—methods served the victory of socialism. For the sake of gold, Torgsin sacrificed one of the fundamental Marxist principles—the class approach” (p. 228).Also, the contribution of Torgsin—through the revenues brought to the state budget—to the financial support of the industrialization effort of the Soviet Union in the five-year period 1928–1932 must be emphasized. In fact, the author also rightly concludes, “Government documents of the time strongly emphasized Torgsin’s economic as well as political importance. Its success was the key to industrialization and, therefore, to the final victory of the revolution” (p. 228). Thus, the history of Torgsin can be summarized as that of a “necessary evil” if we refer to the Bolshevik ideology—but one that financially supported the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is an excellent story, put on the page by Elena Osokina in a volume that sums up a remarkable amount of research and years spent in the archives. This monograph, published by the prestigious Cornell University Press, covers a subject less treated by historiography, making it all the more worthy to the public and scholars.