The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management

by Peter Rutland

Overview

Peter Rutland analyzes the role played by regional and local organs of the Soviet Communist Party in economic management from 1970 to 1989. Using a range of Soviet political and economic journals, newspapers and academic publications, he examines Communist Party economic interventions in construction, energy, transport, consumer goods, and agriculture. He convincingly argues that party interventions hindered rather than assisted the search for efficiency in the Soviet economy and represent a major obstacle to the current economic reform movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521121309
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2009
Series:	Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies , #88
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables; Preface; Glossary of Russian terms and abbreviations; Introduction: the party in the post-totalitarian system; 1. The party and the economy: structures and principles; 2. Party interventions in industry; 3. Interventions in industry: case studies; 4. The party as regional coordinator; 5. Regional coordination: case studies; 6. The party as fireman: party interventions in the transport and energy sectors; 7. The role of the party in agriculture; 8. Non-party control organs; 9. The principles underlying the party's work with cadres; 10. The obkom elite in the 1980s; 11. Party and economy under Perestroika; Conclusion; Appendices; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...valuable background reading for students and scholars trying to understand the economic reform process taking place today in Russia and the other former republics." J. L. Twigg, Choice

"This volume provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas of economic management in the post-stalinist Soviet Union. Using a wide range of Soviet academic and mass-media sources, Rutland's analyses offer a comprehensive examination of the Communist Party's intervention into all realms of Soviet economic life....This volume will be especially useful to Soviet and post-Soviet studies specialists, as well as social scientists interested in the evolution of the stalinist system. Students and others with an interest in the late Soviet experience will also benefit from the analyses presented here. All will find convincing Rutland's assertion that the economic decline of the USSR's final decades was firmly rooted in the Soviet system of political management of the country's economic life." John P. Willerton, Slavic Review

"Sovietologists and post-Sovietologists should find much of value in this monograph. Rutland has probably written one of the final Sovietological studies of party-management relations, synthesizing the major findings from the existing literature...Rutland has established a solid base on which future historians and social scientists can build..." Philip G. Roeder, American Political Science Review

"...an authoritative, deeply researched study of the role of regional Communist party officials in the Soviet economy from 1975 to 1990....This important book highlights some of the intractable problems of the Brezhnev system to which scholars should have devoted more attention, and is essential reading for both specialists and graduate students." Linda J. Cook, Journal of Politics

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