A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953.(Book review)

Historian, The, December, 2005 by Sakwa, Richard

A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953. By Julie Hessler. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 366. $39.50.)

This richly researched study of Soviet trade in the early years of Communist power draws on a wide range of archival, memoir, and secondary sources. The book charts the vicissitudes of supplying foodstuffs to a population traumatized by war, revolution, and collectivization, as well as by a regime intent on achieving a cultural revolution in attitudes towards property and the exchange mechanism itself. The patterns of retailing that were established in this early period lasted until the end of Soviet power, including the ubiquitous queues and contempt for the consumer. Things were...

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