Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia

Ideology and Industrial Organization, 1917-1921

This thoughtful book has an interesting thesis: that the failure of the Bolsheviks to create 'the socialist society to which their doctrine pointed and on which their legitimacy depended' was the consequence of their attempt to do so through the process of 'societal mobilization'. . . . He then provides strong support for his thesis by analyzing the weakness of central control, focusing on the bureaucratization of state power and on the development of gray and black markets, the demonstrative consequences (along with repressive force) of the inability of the state to create a socialist order.
Slavic Review

Remington profiles the Bolshevik project of social transformation and political centralization known as War Communism. He argues that the effort to institute a centrally planned and administered economy shaped the ideology of the regime, the relations between the regime and the working class, and the character of state power.

about the author

Thomas F. Remington

Thomas F. Remington is professor of political science at Emory University.

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Thomas F. Remington