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Looking back from the perspective of the mid-1990s, it is hard to believe that Soviet power for so long presented a threat and a challenge to the capitalist system. This book examines the assumptions of Soviet post-war economic theory and policy, traces the Soviets'analysis of Western economic development from the post-war period through to the easing of international relations, and explains why the Soviets themselves believed they were going to outperform the West.

What are the chief challenges posed to contemporary democracy by modern technology, and how can democratic theory best respond to, or at least reflect on, those challenges? Inhabiting the kind of technologically advanced era in which we live, what sources are available within political theory for theoretical insight concerning the problem of democratic engagement with technology? The purpose of this volume is to canvas a broad range of theorists and theoretical traditions in order to address these questions, including Hegel and Marx, Rousseau and John Dewey, Heidegger and Simone Weil, Habermas and Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt and Hans Jonas. Commentaries on all these important thinkers -- focused on the issue of contemporary technology as posing unique social and political challenges for democratic political life -- yields rich and ambitious resources for theoretical reflection.

Underlying current controversies about environmental regulation are shared concerns, divided interests and different ways of thinking about the earth and our proper relationship to it. This book brings together writings on nature and environment that illuminate thought and action in this realm.

This text offers an authoritative historiography of German socialist theorist Karl Kautsky and his impact on debates about the Russian Revolution and the contemporary left. Known as the “Pope of Marxism,” Douglas Greene examines the totality of Kautsky's political career and dissects the fundamental opportunism and passive radicalism that defined his Marxism. He later examines the most substantive Marxist critics of Kautsky, namely Rosa Luxemburg, V. I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, while offering a critical assessment of the work produced by scholars and activists, Lars Lih, Eric Blanc, and Mike Mcnair, seeking to revive Kautsky. The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky is an important addition to scholarship on the subject and a valuable resource for those interested in the Russian Revolution, German politics, socialism, Marxism, and contemporary left-wing debates.

The Soviet Economy on the Brink of Reform (1988) is a collection of essays in honour of Alec Nove and covers such topics as Leon Trotsky, Navrozov, Soviet Investment criteria, Soviet Agricultural, and economic politics under Andropov and Chernenko.

The book presents a high-impact re-reading of core topics in the Marx and Marxist debates including: value theory, the commodity nature of money, complex or skilled labour, the determination of the value of labour-power and the nature of extraordinary surplus-value. Drawing on this literature, the book provides original and innovative insights into key controversies in contemporary capitalism such as the increasingly intellectual character of commodity-producing labour, the emergence of global value chains, the relevance of ground-rent bearing commodities, and the specific, uneven developmental dynamics of'resource-rich'countries in the global process of capital accumulation.Contributing to the renewed vitality of critical studies of the economic works of Karl Marx, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary debates within Marxism, as well as readers of political economy, economics, development studies and economic sociology.

This book renews the Marxian theory of the general equivalent by highlighting the contradiction between the social functions of money (unit of account, means of circulation) and its private functions (store of value, accumulation).It draws a clear distinction between the monetary base and the commodity base of money and thus avoids the confusion between money and credit on the one hand, and money and capital on the other, which are found in other heterodox monetary theories. It accounts for the new forms of monetary constraints weighing on the banking systems under and inconvertible fiat money standard, the class relationships underlying the interventions of monetary authorities and governments, and presents a definition of the state which emphasises its mode of intervention on the collective and social conditions of capitalisms which are money and labour power. The emphasis on the contradiction between these two types of monetary functions gives a more fundamental account of the conflict between the international role and the national origin of the dollar than the Triffin dilemma, which has been constantly overcome or deferred by the US since 1960. The author explains this evolution by demonstrating how, from the 1950s onwards, the dollar began a process of acquiring relative autonomy from the US economy. By focusing on the role and international functions of the dollar, he offers a fresh look at the 2008 crisis and its consequences for the international monetary system, but also for a possible post-capitalist financial system – which post-revolutionary Russia experimented with in the form of the NEP, and whose contemporary implementation is foreshadowed by the rise of digital central bank currencies.The book thereby provides a necessary update to the tools and concepts inherited from Marx for analysing and understanding money, capital and the state.

This book examines the 2008 global economic crisis as a complex social phenomenon or'social hieroglyphic', arguing that the crisis is not fundamentally economic, despite presenting itself as such. Instead, it is considered to be a symptom of a long-standing, multifaceted, and endemic crisis of capitalism which has effectively become permanent, leading contemporary capitalist societies into a state of social regression, manifest in new forms of barbarism. The author offers a qualitative understanding of the economic crisis as the perversion, or inversion, of the capitalistically organized social relations. The genesis of the current crisis is traced back to the unresolved world crisis surrounding the Great Depression in order to map the course and different'inverted forms'of the continuous global crisis of capitalism, and to reveal their inner connections as derivative of the same social constitution. From a historical and interdisciplinary perspective, the book expounds critical social theory, elaborating on the intersection between the early critical theory of the Frankfurt School – mainly Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse – and the'social form'analysis of the Open Marxism school. Global Economic Crisis as Social Hieroglyphic critically addresses the permanent character of the 1920s–1930s crisis and the'crisis theory'debates; the political crisis in Eastern Europe (1953–1968); the crisis of Keynesianism; the crisis of subversive reason; the crisis, negative anthropology and transformations of the bourgeois individual; the state of social regression and the destructive tendencies after the rise of neoliberalism; and finally, the 2008 financial crisis and its ongoing aftermath.

In the past two decades, Marxism has enjoyed a revitalization as a research program and a growth in its audience. This renaissance is connected to the revival of anti-capitalist contestation since the Seattle protests in 1999 and the impact of the global economic and financial crisis in 2007–8. It intersects with the emergence of Post-Marxism since the 1980s represented by thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, Chantal Mouffe, Ranajit Guha and Alain Badiou.This handbook explores the development of Marxism and Post-Marxism, setting them in dialogue against a truly global backdrop. Transcending the disciplinary boundaries between philosophy, economics, politics and history, an international range of expert contributors guide the reader through the main varieties and preoccupations of Marxism and Post-Marxism. Through a series of framing and illustrative essays, readers will explore these traditions, starting from Marx and Engels themselves, through the thinkers of the Second and Third Internationals (Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin and Trotsky, among others), the Tricontinental, and Subaltern and Post-Colonial Studies, to more contemporary figures such as Huey Newton, Fredric Jameson, Judith Butler, Immanuel Wallerstein and Samir Amin.The Routledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism will be of interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, cultural studies and theory, sociology, political economics and several areas of political science, including political theory, Marxism, political ideologies and critical theory.

Given the destruction and suffering caused by more than four years of industrialised warfare and economic hardship, scholars have tended to focus on the nationalism and hatred in the belligerent countries, holding that it led to a fundamental rupture of any sense of European commonality and unity. It is the central aim of this volume to correct this view and to highlight that many observers saw the conflict as a ‘European civil war', and to discuss what this meant for discourses about Europe. Bringing together a remarkable range of compelling and highly original topics, this collection explores notions, images, and ideas of Europe in the midst of catastrophe.

The first decade of Soviet cultural life was marked by a pluralism unmatched in the subsequent history of the USSR. In many fields of art and science, Party and non-Party'proletarian'and'bourgeois'intellectuals worked side by side, vigorously debating questions of substance and method. In this first major study of a Soviet field of social science in the post-Revolution period, Dr. Solomon examines the controversy that divided social scientists studying the economy and society of the Soviet peasant during the 1920s. The intellectual disagreements in post-Revolution Soviet rural studies were exacerbated by social, political, and professional differences among the contending scholars. The infighting between the groups was bitter. Yet in contrast to recent studies of other Soviet professions in the 1920s, the author finds that in rural studies Marxists and non-Marxists had much in common. Her findings suggest that the coexistence of the'old'and the'new'in Soviet rural studies might have lasted for some time had not external political forces intervened in late 1928, acting as a pressure on the field and eventually causing its demise.

This book analyzes the stance of international communism towards nationality, anti-colonialism, and racial equality as defined by the Communist International (Comintern) during the interwar period. Central to the volume is a comparative analysis of the communist parties of three British dominions, South Africa, Canada and Australia, demonstrating how each party attempted to follow Moscow's lead and how each party produced its own attempts to deal with these issues locally, while considering the limits of their own agency within the movement at large.

First published in 1997, this was the first Autonomist Marxist book on the USSR. The various theories of Soviet capitalism are considered more comprehensively than in any previous work, and are shown to be inadequate insofar as they fail to demonstrate satisfactorily the predominance of the category of capital. A powerful new theory is developed which does precisely this, introducing the concepts of bureaucratic forms of both exchange-value and money. This constitutes an important contribution to the overall theoretical critique of capital. Attention is then turned to the class struggle. For the first time, the various'Marxist'theories of the USSR are systematically considered in relation to what they say about the working class and its struggle.

This title was first published in 1985.

As Cyprus experienced British imperial rule between 1878 and 1960, Greek and Turkish nationalism on the island developed at different times and at different speeds. Relations between Turkish Cypriots and the British on the one hand, and Greek Cypriots and the British on the other, were often asymmetrical with the Muslim community undergoing an enormous change in terms of national/ethnic identity and class characteristics. Turkish Cypriot nationalism developed belatedly as a militant nationalist and anti-Enosis movement. This book explores the relationship between the emergence of Turkish national identity and British colonial rule in the 1920s and 1930s.

This book assesses how theorists explained processes of change set in motion by the rise of capitalism. It situates them in the milieu in which they wrote. They were never neutral observers standing outside the conditions they were trying to explain. Their arguments were responses to those circumstances and to the views of others commentators, living and dead. Some repeated earlier views; others built on those perspectives; a few changed the way we think. While surveying earlier writers, the author's primary concerns are theorists who sought to explain industrialization, imperialism, and the consolidation of nation-states after 1840. Marx, Durkheim, and Weber still shape our understandings of the past, present, and future. Patterson focuses on explanations of the unsettled conditions that crystallized in the 1910s and still persist: the rise of socialist states, anti-colonial movements, prolonged economic crises, and almost continuous war. After 1945, theorists in capitalist countries, influenced by Cold War politics, saw social change in terms of economic growth, progress, and modernization; their contemporaries elsewhere wrote about underdevelopment, dependency, or uneven development. In the 1980s, theorists of postmodernity, neoliberalism, globalization, innovations in communications technologies, and post-socialism argued that they rendered earlier accounts insufficient. Others saw them as manifestations of a new imperialism, capitalist accumulation on a global scale, environmental crises, and nationalist populism.

Are policymakers capable of learning about the complex international environment they must deal with when formulating foreign policy? Interest in the phenomenon of'learning'has been growing, driven in part by the advent of Gorbachev, and by prospects for ending the Cold War. In this book, leading scholars explore the theoretical and practical imp

What's the Point of International Relations casts a critical eye on what it is that we think we are doing when we study and teach international relations (IR). It brings together many of IR's leading thinkers to challenge conventional understandings of the discipline's origins, history, and composition. It sees IR as a discipline that has much to learn from others, which has not yet lived up to its ambitions or potential, and where much work remains to be done. At the same time, it finds much that is worth celebrating in the discipline's growing pluralism and views IR as a deeply political, critical, and normative pursuit. The volume is divided into five parts:• What is the point of IR?• The origins of a discipline• Policing the boundaries• Engaging the world• Imagining the futureAlthough each chapter alludes to and/or discusses central aspects of all of these components, each part is designed to capture the central thrust of the concerns of the contributors. Moving beyond western debate, orthodox perspectives, and uncritical histories this volume is essential reading for all scholars and advanced level students concerned with the history, development, and future of international relations.

In the years since Stalin's death, his profound influence upon the historical development of Communism has remained elusive and in need of interpretation. Stalinism, as his system has become known, is a phenomenon which embraced all facets of political and social life. While its effect upon the Soviet Union and other nations today is far less than it was while Stalin lived, it is by no means dead.In this landmark volume some of the world's foremost scholars of the subject, in a concerted group inquiry, present their interpretations of Stalinism and its influence on all areas of comparative Communist studies from history and politics to economics, sociology, and literary scholarship. The studies contained in this volume are an outgrowth of a conference on Stalinism held in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies.In his major contribution to this book, Leszek Kolakowski calls Stalinism'a unified state organism facing atom-like individuals.'This extraordinary volume, augmented by a revealing new introduction by the editor, Robert C. Tucker, can be seen as amplifying that remark nearly a half century after the death of Joseph Stalin himself.Contributors to this work are: Wlodzimierz Brus, Katerina Clark, Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Erlich, Leszek Kolakowski, Moshe Lewin, Robert H. McNeal, Mihailo Markovic, Roy A. Medvedev, T. H. Rigby, Robert Sharlet, and H. Gordon Skilling. Robert C. Tucker's principle work on Stalin has been described by George F. Kennan as'the most significant single contribution made to date, anywhere, to the history of Soviet power.'

This volume is the product of an international conference held in the autumn of 1988, around the time Nikolai Bukharin was officially rehabilitated - a benchmark in the history of glasnost and the process of legitimating perestroika. Conference participants from 19 countries, including the USSR and China, took occasion to reconsider the record and legacy of Bukharin as revolutionary, economist and political theorist. They offer a many-sided but critical re-examination of Bolshevism's'internal alternative'to Stalin and Stalinism.

First Published in 2015. Classic and contemporary Marxist theoretical works on imperialism are systematically summarized and critiqued in this useful survey. Throughout the discussion, attention is focused analyses of the causes of capitalist foreign economic expansion and the impact of that expansion. The study begins with a discussion of Marx's political economy and the work of early theorists of imperialism, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Nikolai Bukharin and Rudolf Hilferding. This analysis then serves as the basis for a critical survey of the major strands of postwar Marxist thought, including the work of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Harry Madgdoff, James O'Connor, Andre Gunder Frank and more, Following the survey ae extended critiques of Baran and Sweezy's theory of monopoly capitalism and Arghiri Emmanuels'theory of unequal exchange.

This book presents a concise and comprehensive overview of the mainstream flows of ideas, politics and itineraries towards modernity in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans over two centuries from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of the Gorbachev administration. Unlike other books on the subject which view modernity based on the idea of Western European supremacy, this book outlines the various different pathways of development, and of growing industrialisation, urbanisation and secularisation which took place across the region. It provides rich insights on the complex networks whereby very varied ideas, aspirations and policies interacted to bring about a varied pattern of progress, and of integration and isolation, with different areas moving in different ways and at different paces. Overall the book presents something very different from the traditional picture of the'two Europes'. Particular examples covered include agrarian reform movements, in various phases, different models of socialism, and different models of socialist reform.

In the last years of the Soviet Union, with remarkable suddenness, it became commonplace to observe that what the country needed was a free market, private property and integration into the global economy. But why (aside from the obvious fact that the alternative was failing) should this consciousness dawn in our day? This book argues that the time has come to reflect on what the epochal events of our era are teaching us about larger questions - the relationship between economy and society, culture and market. Dusan Polorny asks precisely these questions, revisiting the ideas of classic and contemporary philosophers in the light of the failure of the Soviet order and the exigencies of post-Soviet transformation. As Pokorny also points out, integration in a post-industrial global economy entails profound changes in the domain of property rights, a redefinition of the relation between equity and efficiency, and a regrounding of national consciousness. The present volume examines the implications of these demands for the post-Soviet societies; another, on the European and North American experiments in economic integration, is in preparation.

This timely and authoritative set explores three centuries of good times and hard times in major economies throughout the world. More than 400 signed articles cover events from Tulipmania during the 1630s to the U.S. federal stimulus package of 2009, and introduce readers to underlying concepts, recurring themes, major institutions, and notable figures. Written in a clear, accessible style,'Booms and Busts'provides vital insight and perspective for students, teachers, librarians, and the general public - anyone interested in understanding the historical precedents, causes, and effects of the global economic crisis. Special features include a chronology of major booms and busts through history, a glossary of economic terms, a guide to further research, an appendix of primary documents, a topic finder, and a comprehensive index. It features 1,050 pages; three volumes; 8-1/2'X 11'; topic finder; photos; chronology; glossary; primary documents; bibliography; and, index.

This volume is the first detailed study of the emergence of regular and frequent heads of government meetings (summits), covering the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.Summit meetings of heads of government have become'banal'in today's world. Yet they are a relatively recent practice that took off only in the mid-1970s. The aim of the book is to explore the origins of this new feature of global governance in its historical context. Why did heads of Western governments decide to regularly meet up in the European Council and the G7? What were they aiming at? How were these meetings run and what consequences did they have? How did other actors of international relations – states as well as non-state and/or transnational actors - react to this transformation? Based on newly released archival material, International Summitry and Global Governance investigates the rise of regular international summitry and its impact on international relations. The volume brings together the best specialists of this new field of historical enquiry in order to explore those features of global governance in their historical context, and open up an interdisciplinary dialogue with social scientists who have studied summits from their own disciplinary perspectives.This book will be of much interest to students of international history, Cold War studies, global governance, foreign policy and IR in general.

Despite the restrictions on their work and actions, the economists of the Soviet period produced a great deal of bold and important work. With the erosion of the old Stalinist controls, economists in the Soviet Union themselves became very interested in the history of their profession, not least in order to find authentic voices that might offer reinforcement or counterpoint to the policy analyses and recommendations with which policy makers in the transition countries are today being bombarded. This major new reference work pulls together many years of research in order to present a bio-bibliographic dictionary of Russian and Soviet economists, many of whom have previously had no coherent record compiled of their careers, achievements and wider significance. Through exploring this rich tradition of economic thought, we can go some way in understanding the role of economists in the functioning of the Soviet system, as well as bringing previously forgotten work to light, raising new questions, and providing a memorial to those who suffered as a result of the system. This hugely detailed and important new volume takes into account all the nuances of the story of Russian and Soviet economic thought, such as regional issues, the reform and transition to a market economy, and the economic output of non-economists. Featuring nearly 500 entries, and including a detailed contextual introduction, this landmark volume will be a vitally important reference work for all those with an interest in the history of economic thought, the history of economics and Russian and Soviet history more generally.

This book analyses the contribution of Eugen (Jenő) Varga (1879-1964) on Marxist-Leninist economic theory as well as the influence he exercised on Stalin's foreign policy and through the Comintern on the international communist movement. During the Hungarian Councils'Republic of 1919 Varga was one of those chiefly responsible for transforming the economy into one big industrial and agrarian firm under state authority. After the fall of the revolutionary regime that year, Varga joined the Hungarian Communist Party, soon after which, he would become one of the Comintern's leading economists, predicting the inevitable crisis of the capitalist system. Varga became the Soviet Union's official propagandist. As an economic specialist he would advise the Soviet government on German reparation payments and, unlike Stalin, believed that the capitalist state would be able to plan post-war economic recovery, which contradicted Stalin's foreign policy strategy and led to his disgrace. Thus by the beginning of the Cold War in 1947, Varga was discredited, but allowed to keep a minor academic position. After Stalin's death in 1953 he reappeared as a well-respected economist whose political influence had nonetheless waned.In this study Mommen reveals how Stalin's view on international capitalism and inter-imperialist rivalries was profoundly influenced by debates in the Comintern and by Varga's concept of the general crisis of capitalism. Though Stalin appreciated Varga's cleverness, he never trusted him when making his strategic foreign policy decisions. This was clearly demonstrated in August 1939 with Stalin's pact with Hitler, and in 1947, with his refusal to participate in Marshall's European Recovery Plan.This book should be of interest to a wide variety of students and researchers, including those concentrating on the history of economic thought, Soviet studies, international relations, and European and Cold War history.

Discussing the major theories of political leadership with a focus on contemporary challenges that political leaders face worldwide, this research companion provides a comprehensive and up-to-date resource for an international readership. The editors combine empirical and normative approaches to emphasize the centrality of political culture, as well as the limits of culture and the universal demands of innovative adaptation. The volume examines: ¢

Covering topical issues concerning the nature of the Israeli state, this engaging work presents essays that combine a variety of comparative schemes, both internal to Jewish civilization and extending throughout the world, such as: modern Jewish society, politics and culture historical consciousness in the twentieth century colonialism, anti-colonialism and postcolonial state-building. With its open-ended, comparative approach, Israel in History provides a useful means of correcting the biases found in so much scholarship on Israel, be it sympathetic or hostile. This book will appeal to scholars and students with research interests in many fields, including Israeli Studies, Middle East Studies, and Jewish Studies.

By developing a long-term supranational perspective, this ambitious, multi-faceted work provides a new understanding of ‘totalitarianism', the troubling common element linking Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism. The book's original analysis of antecedent ideas on the subject sheds light on the common origins and practices of the regimes.Through this fresh appreciation of their initial frame of mind, Roberts demonstrates how the three political experiments yielded unprecedented collective mobilization but also a characteristic combination of radicalization, myth-making, and failure. Providing deep historical analysis, the book proves that'totalitarianism'best characterizes the common features in the originating aspirations, the mode of action and even the outcomes of Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism.By enhancing our knowledge of what ‘totalitarianism'was and where it came from, Roberts affords important lessons about the ongoing challenges, possibilities, and dangers of the modern political experiment.

Applying certain Marxist categories of analysis to the study of American history, the central thesis of this outstanding book is that the main peculiarity of American historical development was the almost direct transition from a colonial to an imperialist economy. Expertly dealing with such topics as:• the American Revolution and the Civil War against the background of the European bourgeois revolutions • the influence of the Western land tenure system on the process of capital accumulation• the passage from plantation slavery to sharecropping in the South and its legacy of racism• the transition to imperialism towards the end of the nineteenth century• the rise of the labour movement and the main American socialist organizations up to the end of the First World War. A valuable resource for postgraduate students and researchers of business studies and American studies, Gaido's text will undoubtedly find a place on the bookshelves of many.

The first part of The Economics of Feasible Socialism demonstrates why Marx's theories provide no guide to the issues that must face economists under any realistically conceivable Socialism. The experience of communist-ruled countries, especially the former Soviet Union, is often negative: economic inefficiency, bureaucracy, despotism. The causes of these defects and possible remedies and reforms are discussed. The problems of transition, in the context of Western industrialized countries and of developing countries, is also examined, with particular attention centred on the errors of economic policy in Chile and China, amongst other countries.

Class Theory and History takes an ambitious and ground-breaking look at the entire history of the Soviet Union and presents a new kind of analysis of the history of the USSR: examining its birth, evolution, and death in class terms. Utilizing the class analytics they have developed over the last three decades, resnick and Wolff formulate the most fully developed economic theory of communism now available, and use that theory to answer the question: did communism ever exist in the USSR and if so, where, why and for how long? Their initial, and controversial, conclusion: Soviet industry never established a communist class structure. This conclusion then leads to the hypothesis that the USSR and provate capitalism in the United States to discuss the future of private capitalism, state capitalism and communism.

Socialism Unbound first appeared in 1990. The Berlin Wall had just fallen and the Soviet Union was in a crisis that soon would turn into its death throes. Mikhail Gorbachev was still in power and, incredibly, it seemed as if his sclerotic communist state might yet make way for a new form of socialism with democratic political foundations. Movements committed to liberal constitutionalism, whose dynamics still remain theoretically undeveloped, were taking to the streets almost everywhere in Eastern Europe. Hopes on the left were high. In the popular imagination, however, the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 seemed to vindicate the policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Laissez-faire became the rallyingcry for most former dissidents and the new party professionals in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, in the West, attempts to temper market excesses were condemned as anachronistic. Left politics suddenly stood discredited. Indeed, soon enough, the attack on'socialism'would turn into an attack on welfare liberalism and the values associated with the 1960s.

Soviet Succession Struggles (1988) is a key study of the history, nature and development of Soviet politics and politicians from the earliest days of Soviet Russia up to the rise of Gorbachev. It examines the power struggles between opposing factions within the Soviet leadership, and identifies two main political standpoints that were always vying for ultimate control of the Communist State.

The inside story of the political collpase of the Soviet Union is far better understood than the course of economic and social disintegration. In order to capture the story, the editors compiled a list of questions which they addressed to former top Soviet officials and economic and other policy advisors (both Soviet and foreign) who were privy not only to data on the functioning of the Soviet economy but also to the internal policy debate during the 1980s. This volume assembles the Informants'analyses of key issues and the turning points, and weaves them into a compelling history of systemic collapse. Among the topics investigated are: economic policies in the 1980s; the standard of living: the reliability of Soviet statistics; Gosplan's projections for the economy to the year 2000; was the arms race starving the civilian economy? the role of ideology in supporting the functioning of an economic system; the party's participating in economic management; the influence of foreign advisors; the struggle over a transition program; the functioning and collapse of the supply system, the CMEA, and the foreign trade system.