This book is the first critical assessment of the likelihood and implications of such a contract. Linda Cook pursues the idea from Brezhnev's day to our own, and considers the constraining effect it may have had on Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet economy.
An analysis of Soviet spatial resource allocation decision making during the period 1955-1980, utilizing a political economy framework to evaluate the "East-West" debate over relative investment shares in the European and Pacific Siberian parts of the USSR. It has case studies and trade details.
This book addresses one of the fundamental problems in Russian society, and in Russia's relations with the rest of the world. Why do Russians tend to react differently from ?us? in given diplomatic or business situations? Why do they find the notion of a contract difficult to grasp? Why do they seem hostile to the principle of the level playing field? How do they see Russia's position within the globalised economy? In order to probe these issues, the author begins with a historical analysis, looking at the pattern of political and economic development since Tsarist times, always asking the questions: What is unique to Russia in all this, and which unique features tend to recur in different periods? In seeking to illuminate the interface between Russia and the world, the author also examines Russia's attitude to itself, and to its own resources ? natural and human ? to land as an agricultural resource, and later oil and gas; and to people ? as cheap labour and as highly trained scientific personnel. This book is firmly based on scholarly sources, in English, French and Russian, but aims to go beyond the academic audience to address the concerns of people encountering Russians and Russian organizations in their everyday lives.
Based on extensive original research, including in unpublished archival material, this book examines the reforms, discussing the motivations for them, which included Khrushchev's attempt to strengthen his own power base, exploring how the process of reform was implemented, especially its impact on the republics, and analysing why the reforms, which were reversed in 1959, failed. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about the workings, and the shortcomings, of the Soviet economic system at its height.
In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union and enjoyed one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever seen, claiming ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires.
Taking a fresh approach to the study of the Soviet Union, this Very Short Introduction blends political history with an investigation into Soviet society and culture from 1917 to 1991. Stephen Lovell examines aspects of patriotism, political violence, poverty, and ideology, and provides answers to some of the big questions about the Soviet experience. Throughout, the book takes a refreshing thematic approach to the Soviet Union and provides an up-to-date consideration of the Soviet Union's impact and what we have learnt since its end.
Russia is a huge storehouse of natural resources, including oil, gas, and other energy sources, which she can trade with the rest of the world for advanced technology and wheat. In this book, leading experts evaluate the Soviet potential in major energy and industrial raw materials, giving special attention to implications for the world economy to the end of the twentieth century. The authors examine the mineral and forest resources that the Soviet Union has developed and may yet develop to provide exports during the 1980s. They discuss the regional dimension of these resources, especially in Siberia and the Soviet Far East; individual mineral raw materials, such as petroleum, natural gas, timber, iron ore, manganese, and gold; and finally the role of raw materials in Soviet foreign trade. The authors, representing the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, are primarily geographers, but they include economists, political scientists, and a geologist. Their work is based on primary sources (for most of these reports, current information is no longer being released to researchers) and on interviews with Soviet officials.
This Handbook is the most comprehensive up-to-date study of the Russian economy available. Russian and western authors analyze the current economic situation, trace the impact of Soviet legacies and of post-Soviet transition policies, examine the main social challenges, and propose directions for reforms.