ABOUT THE SOVIET ARCHIVES RESEARCH PROJECT Under this project we are studying the Soviet state and party archives to gain a basic understanding of the way the Soviet economic, political, and social system worked. The project's research fields have been designed around the strengths of the Hoover Institution's archival holdings in areas such as forced labor, party regulation and audit, the archives of "The Communist Party on Trial," and others. Begun in 2000, the first phase of the project addressed the workings of the Soviet economic system and its political economy, particularly under Stalin. This phase of the project produced research papers, articles, and monographs focusing on planning and case studies of resource allocation, the legal system, corruption, and the behavior of Stalin as dictator. This phase produced two books, a monographs on The Political Economy of Stalinism, published by Cambridge Press and an edited volume Behind the Façade of Stalin's Command Economy published by Hoover Press. The second phase of the project, currently under way, is concentrating on the two most secretive parts of the Soviet command system: forced labor in the Gulag labor camps, and the defense economy. This phase is giving rise to more working papers, articles, and monographs. A substantial by-product of this phase is a seven-volume History of Stalin's Gulag, in Russian, published by ROSSPEN in cooperation with the Russian State Archival Service. Other results include an edited volume on forced labor, The Economics of Forced Labor, published by Hoover Press, and a collection of essays, currently under preparation, entitled Guns and Rubles: the Defense Industry in the Stalinist State. A third phase will involve the publication and analysis of more than thirty newly discovered stenograms of the Politburo, the core executive committee of the ruling party, in the 1920s and 1930s. These stenograms provide verbatim accounts of meetings covering topics that range from the internal party struggle, NEP and economic policy, and the Syrtsov and Eismont affairs, to the publication of the Short Course (Stalin's authorized history of the Bolshevik party). The latest phase to be projected is the electronic reproduction of Stalin's personal archive, which now resides in the RGASPI state archive in Moscow. Selected documents and associated commentary will be published in print as a multi-volume series by ROSSPEN, and it is anticipated that documentary and analytical works will also be published in English in a joint Hoover-Yale Press series. This research has been recognized by the scholarly community in a number of ways. Two of its publications have won international awards, the Hewett Book Award for the best monograph in economics/political science awarded by the AAASS and the Montias Award for the best article in comparative economics awarded by the ACES. This scholarly recognition is also reflected in a survey article on this research that will appear in the Journal of Economic Literature (September 2005). Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University Phone: 650-723-1754 |
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