BOOK REVIEW: “Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev”, by Oscar Sanchez-Sibony, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 293 pages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2020-0012Abstract
Red Globalization depicts the economic globalization of the Soviet Union. The primary merit of the book, I argue, lies in emphasis and counteraction of numerous misconceptions regarding economic policies of Eastern European socialist countries that followed the USSR’s model. Presented in a temporal manner, the sequence of events is globally embedded at every turn, a timely and necessary act of historical contextualization that ultimately demonstrates international economic dependencies.
Starting from the early onset of industrialization, the book focuses on the struggles of re-structuring an existing reality via the consolidation of a new economic and social foundation. Prompted by agricultural mechanization, Soviet industrialization efforts were initially financed by grain exports, spurred by expanding rail infrastructure inland. In the post-war era, despite the Cold War’s premise of equality between the two powers, the resource allocation necessary for economic reconstruction originated largely from the former and targeted the USSR among many other war-torn countries. Soviet leadership actively pursued US credit necessary for the import of goods and raw materials in a period when exports were absent. Trade steadily resumed with eastern bloc countries, and, despite the backdrop of military occupation, commercial exchanges were equitable, as numerous countries resisted Soviet domination.
References
Ban, Cornel (2012), Sovereign Debt, Austerity and Regime Change: The Case of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania, East European Politics and Societies. 26(4): 743-776.
Kornai, János (1980), Economics of Shortage. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Kornai, János (1992), The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism. Prince-ton: Princeton University Press.
Turnock, David (2006), The Economy of East Central Europe 1815-1989. London and New York: Routledge.
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