Alchemy of Soviet industrialization. The Torgsin Time

About the book: Medieval alchemists struggled with creation of a philosopher's stone, which could transform ordinary metals into gold. The Stalinist leadership had been able to imitate it. The Torgsin stores became the philosophical stone of Soviet industrialization, where for the period of hungry years of the first five-year plans, Soviet citizens were forced to trade gold, monetary currency, precious metal products for rye flour, cereals, sugar and ordinary mass-produced products. The Torgsin was a cynical method for replenishment of the Soviet state, which began to modernize the country being a bankrupt, without foreign reserves. Dynamic upswing of a peasant-based country into industrial future was largely financed by personal savings of citizens. The book is full of details of everyday life of the 1930s, the era of the formation of a Soviet consumer culture, a planned economy, a shortage of goods and the black market. Elena Osokina Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor published books on the socio-economic history of the first decades of Soviet rule.

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