The Business of Socialism: Economic Life in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

(Graduate students, enroll in 327B. Undergraduate students, enroll in 227B.) This colloquium investigates the processes of buying, making, and selling goods and services in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We will familiarize ourselves with a variety of approaches to writing the history of economic life and discuss to what extent they are applicable to state socialist systems. Our focus will not be on theories of socialism but on empirically grounded studies that allow for insights into how the system operated in practice and interacted with capitalism. We will, among others, explore the following questions: What was the role of the state in the economies east and west of the Iron Curtain? Are socialism and capitalism two incompatible systems? How did women experience and shape economic life after the Second World War? What had a greater impact on the economies of the region: Cold War politics or globalization?