A Century of NEP Studies: Time to Take Stock?

The chronicle of the study of the most important aspects of the history of the New Economic Policy (NEP) over the century that has elapsed since the beginning of the NEP reforms is analyzed. Three definite periods can be distinguished in the NEP historiography: the Soviet stage, the Perestroika period, and the post-Soviet phase. At the same time, each period is characterized by a specific political situation, which left an imprint both on the degree of relevance and the priority of certain subjects in the study of NEP and on the methodological approaches to the study of these subjects. The author believes that, in the future, the most promising NEP studies will focus on the interface of areas: economic history and social history, economic history and the history of state institutions, military history and social history, etc.

The role and significance of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the history of our country are well known. Being in a crisis by the end of 1920, the Soviet economy began sharp and, most importantly, steady growth starting from 1921. By and large, the transition to NEP was of key importance for the preservation of Soviet statehood, and in the realities of those years, this meant the preservation of domestic statehood as such, since it was obvious that only the Bolsheviks were able to ensure the territorial unity and controllability of Russia. It is probably not too much of a mistake to say that the Soviet state overcame an extremely important barrier by choosing a new course that ensured the rapid recovery of the economic sphere.
A century separates us from the beginning of the NEP reforms. Considering the fact that attempts to analyze and comprehend those events historically began almost immediately after the end of NEP, we can talk about a hundred-year period of the historiography of the New Economic Policy. During this time, in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, a whole area of historical research has developed-nepovedenie (NEP studies)which has become an important part of historical science. Conferences and symposia on various aspects of it are held regularly, and new scientific papers are published just as often. However, the approaches and main vectors of NEP historiography have repeatedly changed.
NEP rather quickly became the subject of close interest of both historians and political scientists, and often politicians, who sought to justify certain decisions with references to "historical experience" (or to what they considered such). It was appealed to when discussing the economic reforms of the 1950s, it was seen as a way to build "socialism with a human face" during the years of perestroika, and subsequently it began to be mentioned in the controversy about the merits and demerits of socialist and capitalist economic models. Academic studies of the processes and trends of that brief period were sometimes used as illustrations or proofs of one political concept or another, but most often they were simply ignored.
Meanwhile, scientific research began already in the 1930s and has not stopped to this day. True, it should be noted that there are relatively few historiographic works devoted to the history of the study of the NEP period, and, as a rule, they are either devoted to the historiography of certain aspects of that period, and not to the 1920s generally, 1 or consider mainly the works of post-Soviet researchers, phasing Soviet historiography out. 2 In addition, such studies and especially reviews are often "a set of reviews of the works of individual authors, without giving … a complete picture." 3 Thus, at the moment, the problem of analyzing the NEP historiography has not yet been resolved. This article is devoted to this issue. Of course, such a voluminous subject can be considered in detail only within the framework of a monographic study; thus, it will inevitably have the character of a brief, almost concise review. Nevertheless, it seems that an analysis of the development of the NEP issues in the historiography of the past years will make it possible to understand which issues have been the focus of research and which are still awaiting study.
The historiography of NEP, i.e., the process of writing its history, began almost immediately after the curtailment of this course and the transition to the policy of mass industrialization. Although a number of domestic researchers 4 believe that the Soviet period of historiography should be conducted from the works of V.I. Lenin, N.I. Bukharin, and L.D. Trotsky, apparently, this is some exaggeration. Historiography is still written by historians, not politicians. In fact, S.A. Pokrovskii 5 became the first historiographer of the NEP. Then, back in the prewar period, a collective monograph 6 was published, which considered, among other things, the economic innovations of the 1920s. However, by and large, the historiography of NEP from the 1930s-1940s is limited to this.
In the 1950s, the monograph by E.B. Genkina 7 saw the light of day, but the real surge of interest came in 2 Bekhtereva, L.N. (2010)  the 1960s. 8 It is especially important that, during this period, domestic researchers singled out the most important aspects of the general problems of NEP. A number of works were devoted to the study of the essence of the private capitalist structure of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and its interaction with the socialist economy. 9 Another leading theme of NEP studies was stories related to the class struggle (now, probably, this topic would be classified as a history of social conflicts). 10 The issues of the agrarian economy were quite fully covered. 11 Almost the entire Soviet historiography of NEP, for obvious reasons, fits into the Leninist interpretation of the temporary forced retreat to state capitalism, which was required for tactical reasons, as an intermediate stage in building a socialist society. 12 During the years of perestroika (1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991), NEP was seen mainly as an alternative (in relation to the Stalinist model) way of building a socialist society. Therefore, works published in those years 13 are characterized by active highlighting of the economic successes of the New Economic Policy, the presence of a certain political and, not least, economic pluralism, a rapid cultural renaissance, and other positive trends of those years. Note that NEP in this approach was considered, as a rule, not in itself but in constant juxtaposition and comparison with the practice of the 1930s, primarily as "non-Stalinism." Back at the end of the existence of the Soviet Union, a monograph was published, which, in this perspective, drew a line under the Soviet period in studying NEP. 14 The ideological focus during this period was gradually transferred from the theses about the possibility of combining socialism and a market economy, about the advantages of cost accounting and similar issues to emphasizing the fact that the rejection of NEP led to the construction of a totalitarian society, plunged the country into the abyss of the Gulag, etc. 15 Sometimes this political commitment took on absurd forms, when even NEP was seen as some kind of totalitarian construct that needed a democratic alternative. 16 This position is most clearly stated in the introductory article by S.S. Volk to the publication of N. Vol'skii's memoirs: "Rejection of NEP and the transition to a command economy hastened the creation of a totalitarian regime that doomed the people to inhuman suffering and more than once put the country on the brink of disaster." 17 Of course, this 13  approach did not contribute to an impartial and academic study of the subjects under consideration. At the same time, it should be noted that, one way or another, such a formulation of the question led to a thorough analysis of both the details and nuances of the circumstances of the curtailment of the NEP course and the underlying causes of this process. By and large, it was precisely the study of "who dismantled NEP and why?" that was the main historiographic achievement of the NEP studies of the perestroika times.
In the early 1990s, Russia entered a period of largescale modernization of both the political and economic structure of the country. Simultaneously, there was also a certain change in the main direction in the study of the New Economic Policy. The introduction of new, previously unknown sources into scientific circulation and the final rejection of the dogmas and stereotypes accumulated during the Soviet period led to the appearance of monographs 18 and articles 19 covering the history of the 1920s from a new angle. The rejection of the Stalinist model of socialism as the starting point of study and the transition to the study of various aspects of the New Economic Policy without constant references to Stalinist practice made it possible to expand significantly the list of topics that came to the attention of historians and deepen the degree of development of already known and, at first glance, studied subjects. Yet, most importantly, in the post-Soviet period, the study of NEP has begun to be treated from the position of impartial academic knowledge, and not as a "policy overturned into the past." Although some works of the first half of the 1990s still showed a trend of analysis within the framework of the "totalitarian model," 20 this approach has gradually faded away. The publications of NEP scientists in the post-Soviet period are distinguished by "the desire to return the status of a 'normal' historical period to early Soviet history." 21 It is noteworthy that NEP topics often caused lively discussions and debates at various scientific 18  conferences and symposia (in the years of perestroika such meetings were relatively rare), and the results of these discussions became the basis for collective monographs or specialized collections of articles. 22 In the 2000s, several collective works devoted to the analysis of various aspects of the New Economic Policy were published. 23 The main direction of study was, on the one hand, the application of the system principle to the study of subjects of economic history in the 1920s 24 and, on the other hand, the addition of the problems of economic and political history with subjects related to issues of sociocultural history. 25 It should be noted that, in the first half of the 1990s, Russian historiography survived the fascination with the use of computer Separately, I would like to note the international scientific project Labor Activism in Soviet Russia, 1918Russia, -1929. This collective study not only gave domestic researchers valuable experience in practical cooperation with foreign colleagues but also made it possible to turn to the history of the labor movement, pushing aside the patterns and clichés of Soviet historiography. The collection published as a result of this project 27 demonstrates that the history of the labor movement is an integral and important subject of social and political history, which needs to be studied in detail, regardless of ideological attitudes.
In addition, the collection set new standards for scientific representation. Along with articles by domestic and foreign historians, it included reviews of documentary collections from a number of federal archives, as well as reports from the Soviet and émigré press on research topics and a chronicle of the strike struggle. The results of this project caused such a wide resonance in scientific circles that in 2002 the editorial board of the journal Otechestvennaya istoriya considered it necessary to hold a special "roundtable" fully devoted to the emergence and evolution of the protest movement among Soviet workers in the 1920s. 28 In the years that followed, the study of political protest among various strata of the Soviet population continued. 29  a set of studies devoted to the issues of labor motivation and incentives to increase labor productivity in the industry of those years. 30 The authors of these works agreed that the party leadership completely dominated industrial relations, tightly controlling the working masses by both direct and numerous indirect administrative tools. Formally amateur and independent public organizations were gradually transformed into "party transmission belts," with the help of which the Soviet leadership channeled the social activity of the working class in the desired direction.  (1918-1924 гг.) [Labor Relations in Soviet Russia (1918-1924 sian Society (1917-1936 which considers a subject that was practically not touched upon in the framework of Soviet historiography-the process of survival of representatives of the propertied estates of tsarist Russia and their "getting used" to NEP society. Thematically, this work is related to the studies of E.V. Demchik devoted to the problems of the history of the social stratum of the "NEPmen" in Siberia, 33 and a similar case study of Leningrad 34 or the Ural region. 35 In addition, a number of works touched upon the history of "NEPmanism" on an all-Union scale. 36 However, seemingly quite well-known subjects were also studied. In the post-Soviet period, such topics began to be considered from a new angle. For example, economic issues were increasingly considered from the point of view of multistructurality, which required special attention of researchers to the model of interaction between private and state industries. 37 As was already mentioned, this subject was one of the favorites among the NEP scientists of the Soviet period. However, if then it was considered in the for- mat of the unconditional superiority of state socialist property and the gradual squeezing of the "petty owners" to the sidelines of the economy, now this problem has been cleared of ideological attitudes and is being studied as an independent one. The "archival revolution" gave domestic historians access to archival funds that were previously practically inaccessible to researchers. This, in turn, opened the way to a well-founded study of subjects that were previously considered taboo. One of these "unsealed" topics was the history of the defense industry. Of course, most works on this topic are devoted to the 1930s-1940s; however, the defense industry of the NEP period was not ignored either. Moreover, defense industry researchers quite often consciously sought to cover as long a chronological period as possible to trace the dynamics of processes in the industry as a whole or in its individual segments. It can be said that the history of the defense industry during the NEP years has been considered in Russian historiography in sufficient detail. 38 However, it is necessary to note a certain influence of foreign historiography: the monograph by L. Samuelson,39 published in Russia in 2001, played an important role and organically entered the general series of works on this issue.
The liveliest among the works on the history of the defense industry was the correspondence discussion about the timing and most important features of the formation of the military-industrial complex. Although a unified point of view has never been developed, there is no doubt that only after the publication of these works did the history of the Soviet defense industry begin to rely on a significant source base, which allowed for substantive scientific debate.
Decent coverage in the historiography of the post-Soviet period was given to subjects related to financial policy, for example, a detailed analysis of the activities of financial and credit institutions of the Soviet state 40 and the cooperative movement. 41 The growth of property stratification, the emergence of a layer of NEPmen, and the social tension caused by these factors led to various deformations of the usual strategies of everyday behavior, way of life, and social mentality. The study of these complex subjects with an unobvious source base has resulted in a number of interdisciplinary studies of the sociocul-tural aspects of everyday life under NEP. 42 Interest in the history of everyday life, not of state institutions but of society, gave rise to an increase in attention to a subject that is uncharacteristic of Soviet historiographythe history of consumption. In the post-Soviet period, several monographs were published specifically devoted to the supply and domestic trade issues of the 1920s. 43 Significant progress has been made in the study of demographic history. 44 Using data from the 1926 census and the latest cliometric tools, researchers managed to reconstruct the time series of the population size for 1917-1926. This, in turn, made it possible to determine accurately the size of human losses during the events of 1917, the Civil War, and the famine of 1920-1921 at 11-15 million people.
Finally, it should be noted that there has been a significant increase in research on the "regional aspect" of the New Economic Policy. Thus, of the 389 dissertations defended in 1992-2010 in Moscow and one way or another dealing with the subject of NEP, almost a quarter (92) were devoted specifically to regional subjects. 45 Such an approach makes it possi-ble to isolate the main tendencies of this course, to evaluate the nuances, and to get an idea of all its diversity, from aspects characteristic of the entire Soviet Union to shades that mattered only at the local level. As an example, I will cite a set of works devoted to the study of the economic and political everyday life of the 1920s in the Urals 46 and in the Volga region. 47 The domestic historiography of NEP is clearly divided into three periods, each of which was characterized by certain trends. Most works of the Soviet period relate to the 1960s-1980s. Working within a rigid ideological framework, Soviet historians managed to lay the foundations for scientific research on many of the most important aspects of the history of NEP. The main achievement of the historiography of the perestroika period was a detailed study of the causes and the actual process of curtailing NEP. In the post-Soviet period, there is a de-ideologization of NEP studies. Now historical studies are not obliged to confirm Lenin's judgments anew, they should not correspond to one political opinion or another of the supporters of "humane socialism" or detractors of Stalin-ist totalitarianism. It has become possible simply to do science. A number of subjects that seemed to have been studied in sufficient detail have received a new, not related to the previous patterns, reading, and many works devoted to various subjects of social history have appeared.
On the other hand, recognizing all the above achievements, I would like to note that the history of the NEP has not yet been fully studied. For example, it is a generally accepted fact that the Soviet economy was preparing for a possible war, and this preparation had begun back in the 1920s. However, there are still very few studies on the history of the preparation for mobilization of industry, transport, and agriculture during the NEP period. 48 This subject was not lucky at all: for economic historians, it remains an element of the country's military preparation, while for specialists in military history, it is an integral part of economic history. Another subject, also insufficiently covered historiographically, is the history of the Soviet armed forces during the NEP years. While the relationship between military circles and repressive bodies becomes the object of domestic research quite often, 49 the social aspect of the Red Army as a tool for the formation of a citizen of the Soviet Union, the "Soviet man," is still awaiting in-depth study. 50 I can assume that the most promising areas of NEP studies in the coming years will be research at the intersection of areas: for example, the history of the defense industry and the mobilization preparation of the civil industrial sphere, the history of the armed forces and social history, etc.
Overall, NEP studies over the past hundred years have come a long and difficult path, have developed into a vast area of Russian historiography, and themselves, in turn, have begun to be divided into separate areas. NEP scientists have developed many problems and subjects, but, I think, new studies will open for us new facets of the history of that difficult time.
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