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Leon Trotsky and the policy of economic isolation

“Leon Trotsky and the politics of economic isolation” ( English by Leon Trotsky and the politics of economic isolation ) is a book by Richard B. Day, a professor at the University of Toronto , published by Cambridge University Press in 1973. The monograph is estimated by experts as an important study of the economic views of Leon Trotsky. In Day's work, the Soviet discussions of the 1920s on the construction of socialism , which have universal significance as a source of theoretical models for the industrialization of developing countries , were considered from the point of view of the economic relations of the RSFSR / USSR with Western countries . The author’s goal was to refute a number of historical myths that have developed around Trotsky’s program for the economic development of Soviet Russia . According to Dey's key thesis, the contradictions between Joseph Stalin and Leo Trotsky were not connected with “ socialism in a single country ” and “ permanent revolution ”: the Bolshevik leaders disagreed on economic isolation and integration - Trotsky believed that the use of Westerners was necessary to build socialism "Technical skills" . Day's work was first translated into Russian 40 years after the release of the first English-language publication - in 2013 .

Leon Trotsky and the policy of economic isolation
English Leon Trotsky and the politics of economic isolation
Day - Leon Trotsky and the politics of economic isolation (2004) .jpg
2004 edition cover
Genrehistory, economics
AuthorRichard B. Day
Original languageEnglish
Date of first publication1973
Publishing houseCambridge University Press
CycleCambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies

Description

A book by a Canadian historian from the University of Toronto , Professor Richard B. Day, was published in 1973 and, by the beginning of the 21st century, remained the main study of the economic views of Leon Trotsky . In Day's work, the Soviet discussions of the 1920s on the construction of socialism were examined in detail from the point of view of the economic relations of the RSFSR / USSR with Western countries [1] [2] . The book is divided into two parts of unequal size: the first (“The Dilemma of Economic Isolation”, three chapters) discusses the early 1920s, discusses the problems of labor mobilization and the evolution of the New Economic Policy ; the second part (“Politics of Economic Isolation”, five chapters) begins with an analysis of the slogan “Socialism in one country”, continues with a review of various alternatives proposed by Trotsky before his removal from power, and ends with a discussion of the integration of the USSR economy into the world economy; at the end, Trotsky’s judgments about the course of the “Soviet experiment” [3] [4] [5] [6] are also reviewed.

Day's scientific work contains a carefully prepared “annotation apparatus” that facilitates its practical use [7] . The book is not addressed to a wide circle of readers, but rather is a highly specialized and comprehensive review of the politics and economics of Bolshevik Russia, interesting mainly to experts in the field of Soviet history and East European relations [8] [9] .

Criticism

Confronting Historical Myths

Professor Miron Hadlin of Ohio State University believed that the main goal of the author in this book (“an extremely interesting study of the political debate among the Communists about the economic policies of the 1920s” [10] ) was to counter a number of historical myths that surrounded Trotsky’s economic development program Soviet countries after the October Revolution . Hadlin believed that Day had succeeded in this task, having done work that revised a number of important interpretations of both the personality of the revolutionary and his economic programs [11] , which were often considered “prophetic” [12] [3] [13] [14 ] ] [15] (see the Deutscher Trilogy ):

 The struggle to build socialism was all the work of Trotsky’s life, but the results of this struggle were more than modest [16] . 

According to the author, after the revolution and until 1925, discarding (as irrelevant to the current situation [17] ) the theory of permanent revolution, Trotsky preferred the economic isolation of Russia - the People's Commissar was afraid of dependence on loans from the capitalist West. Day also managed to show that even after Trotsky changed his economic views from isolationist to integration, the revolutionary still did not reject the possibility of building socialism in one country: the People's Commissar after 1925 only claimed that political isolation of Soviet Russia did not require its economic isolation ; that is, to build socialism in the USSR it is quite possible and even necessary to use Western technical skills [11] [18] [19] [20] (see “ Our Revolution ” [21] ).

 
The New Economy by Preobrazhensky (2008)

Moreover, Day believed that Trotsky’s integration plan, which contributed to a balance between light and heavy industry, in no way coincided with the concept of Yevgeny Preobrazhensky (see the book “The New Economy ”). Trotsky's idea was that trade with Europe would prepare the way for the subsequent cooperation of the USSR with socialist Europe, and the integration of the Soviet economy into the world would contribute to the world revolution. Thus, after 1925, Trotsky asserted only that the construction of socialism in a separate, economically isolated country is an impossible task: the construction of socialism in the only country participating in the world economy was, according to the revolutionary, quite feasible [22] [23] . Professor Baruch Knei-Patz also agreed with this judgment, writing that the main thesis in Dei’s “excellent” work was that the contradictions between Stalin and Trotsky were not connected with socialism in a single country and a permanent revolution; Bolshevik leaders disagreed on the much more immediate and practical question of what concrete steps should be taken to promote economic growth and movement towards socialism [24] - between economic isolation and economic integration. Trotsky did not object to socialism in one country, but to socialism in a separate country [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [10] .

Missing Parts

Recognizing Trotsky's fertility as a theorist, Day noted the people's commissar’s ability to make the most stupid political mistakes at the wrong time. According to some critics, Day, who analyzed both the vast amount of materials published in the 1920s, and Trotsky’s archive in the Harvard Library [26] [30] [31] [32] , also managed to uncover Trotsky’s own attempts to create a myth about himself and their economic programs. As a result, according to reviewers, Professor Day in his concentrated ( English dense ) and well-written book challenged the historians of the 1970s, making an important contribution to the study of the economic and political history of the USSR [33] [3] [34] [35 ] [36] . Moreover, the author sometimes overemphasized the influence of ideology on political debate, neglecting the more pragmatic (including personal) political considerations of the participants in the discussions [30] [37] . In particular, Day did not mention the “key” discussion of 1926 at all, in which Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev tried to hold Stalin accountable (for falsifying the legacy of Lenin ) and, only calling for help from the party organization, did the Secretary General persuade his critics to remain silent [14] . In other words, Day follows the Bolshevik aphorism that “politics is the most concentrated expression of the economy” [6] .

 Unlike many Western sources on Soviet history, [Day] puts political issues (rather than individuals) in the spotlight. This approach gives him advantages in understanding Soviet politics, not only as a struggle for personal power, but as a struggle for power to implement one of the political alternatives [13] . 

Professor Moshe Levin believed that Day provided readers with a useful overview of Trotsky's ideas on economic policy, but did not explain Trotsky's attitude to NEP . Levin was under the impression that Trotsky initially adopted NEP in order to reduce his own political tensions with the majority of Soviet communists; and only subsequently did the revolutionary more positively evaluate the new economic strategy as such. But these judgments were not proved by the author [38] [39] . In addition, Levin questioned the claim that Trotsky was a supporter of economic isolation: the People's Commissar had never created any systematic theory of isolation of the USSR; according to Levin, he only reacted to the actual isolated state of the only country in which the dictatorship of the proletariat was established [27] [35] [40] .

Professor Andrew György noted, as one of the most interesting points in Day’s “sad” [41] book, a description of Trotsky's approach to authoritarianism and militarism . Despite the fact that the People's Commissar himself was a “professional civilian”, he actively insisted on strict military discipline: while mobilizing the industrial workers of the RSFSR, Trotsky “preached” moving them from place to place, publishing lists of deserters, creating fines from deserters and even their internment in concentration camps. Thus, with his own activities in the early years of post-revolutionary Russia, Trotsky created the ground for the subsequent terror of the 1930s (see The Great Terror ) [3] [42] [43] .

 The book [Day] adds some new and, at the same time, irreplaceable views on how the old Bolsheviks sought to remake their world [44] . 
 
Former building of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Moscow, 2007)

Relevance of the study

Kendall Bales, a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, considered the questions about Soviet economic policy of the twenties, discussed in Day's monograph, to be relevant in the 1970s: they helped to understand the Soviet Union, in particular, the tendency to expand foreign trade and attract investment in those years (technology development). Day's book reminded that the question of economic isolation (or greater integration with the capitalist economy) has existed since the first days of the Bolshevik revolution. Believing that Brezhnev , like his colleagues in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU , would have been shocked by the idea that they were followers of Trotsky's (and not Stalin's) views, Bailes recalled the “flurry” of negotiations and contracts with Western and Japanese firms that were going and being concluded in those years. Beils noted that the “wave” of books on dictators is “refreshing” the work, which reconstructs the ideas of the losing political opponents of future leaders and reveals the various alternatives discussed before the consolidation of dictatorial power in various hands [45] [46] [47] . In addition, the economic debate about Russia in the 1920s was of universal importance as a source of theoretical models for the industrialization of developing countries, for many of which the Soviet Union was "a bit of a prototype." In a discussion of foreign economic policy, Day raised well-known questions about how a developing country can receive assistance from “advanced capitalist states” —in the form of technology, capital, or through regular trade — without jeopardizing its political and economic independence [14] [48 ] [48 ] ] .

 In particular, the Soviet Union of that period proposed a model of a semi-developed country that nationalized all foreign investments, and then found that it still needed additional capital [14] . 

A professor at the University of British Columbia, Paul Maranz, noted that Day could “set up his network” a little wider: in order to include in the book a more detailed discussion of Trotsky’s thoughts (and their relationship with Karl Marx’s legacy [14] [32] ). Marants added that Day had clearly set his goal and managed to realize it creatively by writing a small, concise and extremely useful book for those interested in the history of Marxism , Trotskyism , as well as the USSR and the economy of socialism in general [40] [49] [50] .

In 1977, Professor Day's book was included in the Reading lists in radical political economics list [51] .

Editions and translations

  • Day RB Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation. - Cambridge University Press , 1973.- 221 p.
  • Day RB Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation. - Cambridge University Press , 2004 .-- 232 p. - (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Vol. 13; Soviet and East European studies). - ISBN 9780521524360 . - ISBN 0521524369 .
  • Day R. B. Leo Trotsky and the policy of economic isolation / scientific. ed. A. A. Belykh; per. from English A.V. Belykh. - M .: Case, 2013. - 469, [1] p. - (Economic history in the past and present / Russian Acad. National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation). - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-7749-0766-3 .

See also

  • The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky (1978)
  • “ Trotsky ” Thatcher (2003)
  • The Economic Organization of War Communism (1985)
  • “ Bread and Power in Russia ” (1990)
  • “ The uprising in Kronstadt. The year 1921 ”(1970)
  • “ Bandits and Partisans ” (2008)

Notes

  1. ↑ Day, 2013 , p. four.
  2. ↑ Poupard, 1986 , p. 393.
  3. ↑ 1 2 3 4 Gyorgy, 1974 , p. 175.
  4. ↑ Daniels, 1974 , p. 234.
  5. ↑ Warth, 1977 , p. 204.
  6. ↑ 1 2 Kowal, 1975 , p. 265.
  7. ↑ Kirstein, 1975 , s. 434.
  8. ↑ Gyorgy, 1974 , p. 174.
  9. ↑ Marantz, 1975 , p. 349.
  10. ↑ 1 2 Mulholland, 1975 , p. 145.
  11. ↑ 1 2 Hedlin, 1975 , p. 399.
  12. ↑ Rowney, 1975 , p. 152.
  13. ↑ 1 2 Bailes, 1974 , p. 653.
  14. ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Daniels, 1975 , p. 721.
  15. ↑ Kirstein, 1975 , s. 431-432.
  16. ↑ Day, 2013 , p. 367.
  17. ↑ Kowal, 1975 , p. 264.
  18. ↑ Daniels, 1975 , pp. 720-721.
  19. ↑ Kirstein, 1975 , s. 432-433.
  20. ↑ Barber 1975 , pp. 330-331.
  21. ↑ Menashe, 1976 , p. 369.
  22. ↑ Hedlin, 1975 , pp. 399-400.
  23. ↑ Nureyev, Latov, 2013 , p. 15-16.
  24. ↑ Marantz, 1975 , pp. 349-350.
  25. ↑ Knei-Paz, 1978 , p. 333.
  26. ↑ 1 2 Rowney, 1975 , p. 153.
  27. ↑ 1 2 Lewin, 1974 , p. 1032.
  28. ↑ Menashe, 1976 , pp. 368-369.
  29. ↑ Daniels, 1975 , p. 720.
  30. ↑ 1 2 Bailes, 1974 , p. 652.
  31. ↑ Barber, 1975 , p. 331.
  32. ↑ 1 2 Macdonald, 1974 , p. 216.
  33. ↑ Hedlin, 1975 , p. 400.
  34. ↑ Menashe, 1976 , p. 370
  35. ↑ 1 2 Bailes, 1974 , p. 654.
  36. ↑ Enteen, 1975 , p. 412.
  37. ↑ Enteen, 1975 , p. 413.
  38. ↑ Lewin, 1974 , p. 1031.
  39. ↑ Kirstein, 1975 , s. 432.
  40. ↑ 1 2 Marantz, 1975 , p. 350.
  41. ↑ Gyorgy, 1974 , p. 176.
  42. ↑ Menashe, 1976 , pp. 370-371.
  43. ↑ Nureyev, Latov, 2013 , p. 9.
  44. ↑ Menashe, 1976 , p. 371.
  45. ↑ Bailes, 1974 , pp. 652-653.
  46. ↑ Daniels, 1974 , pp. 233–234, 237–238.
  47. ↑ Likhachev, 2016 , p. 39-40.
  48. ↑ Likhachev, 2016 , p. 39.
  49. ↑ Kowal, 1975 , pp. 265-266.
  50. ↑ Beilharz, 1987 , p. 191.
  51. ↑ Rosenberg, 1977 , p. 157.

Literature

Books
  • Beilharz P. Trotsky, Trotskyism, and the Transition to Socialism. - Barnes & Noble Books, 1987 .-- 197 p. - ISBN 9780389206989 . - ISBN 0709939957 .
  • Knei-Paz B. The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky = The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky. - 1st. - Oxford University Press , 1978.- 652 p. - ISBN 9780198272335 . - ISBN 0198272340 .
  • Poupard D. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. - Gale, 1986. - T. 22. - 586 p. - ISBN 978-0810324046 . - ISBN 0810324040 .
  • Reading Lists in Radical Political Economics / coord. S. Rosenberg . - Union for Radical Political Economics, 1977 .-- 185 p. - (Resource materials in radical political economics, Vol. 3).
  • Warth RD Leon Trotsky . - Twayne Publishers, 1977 .-- 224 p. - (Twayne's World Leaders Series, Vol. 72). - ISBN 9780805777208 . - ISBN 0805777202 .
Articles
  • Likhachev M. O. “Catastrophe”: the Russian economy during the First World War and the Civil War (1914-1922) // LOCUS: People, society, culture, meanings. - 2016. - No. 2 . - S. 31-40 . - ISSN 2500-2988 .
  • Nureev R. M. , Latov Yu. V. Search for the development of Soviet Russia: bifurcations and alternatives 1918-1928 // Journal of Economic Regulation / Issues of economic regulation. - 2013.- T. 4 , no. 3 . - S. 6-25 . - ISSN 2078-5429 .
  • Bailes KE Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // Technology and Culture. - 1974. - Vol. 15 , iss. 4 . - P. 652-655 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 3102261 .
  • Barber J. Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation (English) // History. - 1975 .-- Vol. 60 , iss. 199 . - P. 330—331 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 24409205 .
  • Detente: The Historic Potential. Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // Journal of International Affairs / Richard B. Day, Stephen F. Cohen. - 1974. - Vol. 28 , iss. 2 . - P. 233-238 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 24356744 .
  • Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // The American Political Science Review. - 1975 .-- Vol. 69 , iss. 2 . - P. 720-721 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 1959118 .
  • Enteen GM Richard B. Day, Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 221 pp. $ 10.95. (Distributed in Canada by Macmillan of Canada) (English) // Canadian-American Slavic Studies. - 1975 .-- Vol. 9 , iss. 3 . - P. 412-413 . - ISSN 2210-2396 . - DOI : 10.1163 / 221023975x00504 .
  • Gyorgy A. Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. - 1974. - Vol. 413 . - P. 175-176 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 1040576 .
  • Hedlin MW Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation (English) // Slavic Review. - 1975 .-- Vol. 34 , iss. 2 . - P. 399-400 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 2495209 .
  • Kirstein T. Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation. Soviet and East European Studies (German) // Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. - 1975. - Bd. 23 , H. 3 . - S. 431-434 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 41045061 .
  • Kowal LM Autori dei volumi recensiti: RB Day. Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation (English) // The Journal of European Economic History. - 1975. - Iss. 1 . - P. 264-266 . - ISSN 2499-8281 .
  • Lerner W. Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // History: Reviews of New Books. - 1973. - October ( vol. 2 , iss. 1 ). - P. 8 . - ISSN 0361-2759 . - DOI : 10.1080 / 03612759.1973.9947013 .
  • Lewin M. Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // The Journal of Economic History. - 1974. - Vol. 34 , iss. 4 . - P. 1031-1032 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 2116627 .
  • Macdonald HM Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // Social Science Quarterly. - 1974. - Vol. 55 , iss. 1 . - P. 216 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 42859347 .
  • Marantz P. Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique. - 1975 .-- Vol. 8 , iss. 2 . - P. 349-350 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 3230672 .
  • Menashe L. 964 Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation (Eng.) // Science & Society. - 1976. - Vol. 40 , iss. 3 . - P. 368-371 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 40401964 .
  • Mulholland D. Review of Soviet Economists of the Twenties: Names to be Remembered,; Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // The American Historical Review. - 1975 .-- Vol. 80 , iss. 1 . - P. 145-146 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 1859159 .
  • Rowney DK Review of Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation // Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. - 1975 .-- Vol. 17 , iss. 1 . - P. 152-153 . - DOI : 10.2307 / 40866838 .

Links

  • Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge University (2009). Date of treatment October 22, 2017.
Source - https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lev_Trotsky_and_economic_insulation policy&oldid = 90146007


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