Modernising Lenin's Russia: Economic Reconstruction, Foreign Trade and the Railways (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Series Number 105)

In this book Anthony Heywood reassesses Bolshevik attitudes toward economic modernization and foreign economic relations during the early Soviet period. Based on hitherto unused Russian and Western archives, the book examines an extraordinary decision made in March 1920 to import vast quantities of railway equipment in order to achieve rapid economic modernization. This is the first detailed case study of the government's import policy, and provides readers with a new perspective on Soviet economic development, revealing the scale of Bolshevik business dealings with the capitalist West immediately after the Revolution. In this book Anthony Heywood reassesses Bolshevik attitudes towards economic modernisation and foreign economic relations during the early Soviet period. Based on hitherto unused Russian and Western archives, he examines an extraordinary decision made in March 1920 to import vast quantities of railway equipment. The book argues that under War Communism and the NEP railway modernisation was vital to a strategy of rapid economic modernisation, and provides the first detailed case study of the government's import policy. Following the histories of the principal contracts, it analyses Soviet foreign trade as a means to tackle domestic economic challenges. This book provides readers with a new perspective on Soviet economic development, and reveals the scale of Bolshevik business dealings with the capitalist West immediately after the Revolution. In this book Anthony Heywood reassesses Bolshevik attitudes towards economic modernization and foreign economic relations during the early Soviet period. Based on hitherto unused Russian and Western archives, he examines an extraordinary decision made in March 1920 to import vast quantities of railway equipment. The book argues that under War Communism and the NEP railway modernization was vital to a strategy of rapid economic modernization, and provides the first detailed case study of the government's import policy. Following the histories of the principal contracts, it analyses Soviet foreign trade as a means to tackle domestic economic challenges. This book provides readers with a new perspective on Soviet economic development, and reveals the scale of Bolshevik business dealings with the capitalist West immediately after the Revolution. In This Book Anthony Heywood Reassesses Bolshevik Attitudes Towards Economic Modernisation And Foreign Economic Relations During The Early Soviet Period. Drawing On Hitherto Unused Russian And Western Archives, He Argues That Railway Modernisation Was Vital To A Strategy Of Rapid Economic Modernisation, And That Vast Quantities Of Railway Equipment Were Ordered Abroad To Hasten This Process.--jacket. Pt. I. Towards Economic Reconstruction, 1917-1920 The Birth Of The Railway Imports Policy. 1. Prologue. 2. The Revolutionary Railway Vision -- Pt. Ii. Trade And Isolation, 1920-1921 Implementing The Railway Imports Policy. 3. Krasin's First Results. 4. Approaches To Britain And Germany. 5. Second Thoughts -- Pt. Iii. Retreat, 1921-1924. 6. The New Order. 7. Denouement. Anthony Heywood. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Much of the explanation for the railway imports policy of 1920-4 must be sought in the Bolshevik leadership's economic strategy and assessment of the international situation in the winter of 1919-20.