The New Economic Policy from the National Economy Perspective: Petr Pavlovich Maslov, Irkutsk — Chita, 1920–1922

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the little-known “Siberian” period of Petr Pavlovich Maslov's (1867–1946) work. He was soon to become a Soviet academician-economist, and in the first post-revolutionary years he was an opponent of the Bolsheviks. Believing that a sound economic policy was impossible without the support of economics, he saw no prospect of developing such a policy in the political economy of the class struggle, which was based on a private-economic (as well as state-economic) perspective on economic phenomena and processes. The scientist contrasted political economy with “the science of the national economy” as the economics of development, with the national-economic point of view underlying it. It was from the standpoint of national-economic development goals and methods of accumulation that the scientist assessed the economic policy of the Soviet Power, be it War Communism or the New Economic Policy. This paper is based on the author's report at the All-Russian Scientific Conference “Russian Economic Reforms in the Regional Dimension” (Novosibirsk, September 2021) commemorating the 100th anniversary of the New Economic Policy.