Merchants and Markets in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-30

The contribution of private traders to reconstruction in Russia after World War I was a crucial one. This text contrasts the dimensions of private trade with the felt anxieties of Bolsheviks concerning traders' destabilizing intentions, many of which, it is argued, were misplaced in retrospect.

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This text explores the history of private internal trade in the USSR during the NEP of the 1920s. Private traders operated in a politically hostile but economically promising environment. Their contribution to post-war reconstruction was a crucial one. An exhaustive portrayal of the markets and dimensions of private trade is contrasted with the felt anxieties of Bolsheviks concerning traders' destabilising intentions and abilities. Retrospectively, many of these apprehensions were misplaced.