The British economic historian who built the seven-volume chronicle of Soviet industrialisation
In his final volume he wrote: "While my view of Soviet history has changed… when the details of history are in conflict with preconceived ideas, the latter should give way… I remain on the Left, believing… that a better organization of society is possible."
A British economic historian. He co-authored Foundations of a Planned Economy with E. H. Carr and carried Carr's work forward into the 1930s, completing the seven-volume The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia. In The Years of Hunger (2004), co-authored with Stephen Wheatcroft, he used post-Soviet archives to estimate famine deaths at 5.5–6.5 million and argued the famine was not a planned genocide but the result of procurement-first policy, harvest failure, and belated leadership response. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in his youth, he left after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and remained on the Left, holding that 'a better organization of society is possible.'
Career Timeline
- 1943–1946RAF radio communications service
- 1950BA, SSEES, University of London
- 1954PhD, University of Birmingham (Soviet budgetary system)
- 1954–1956Assistant lecturer, Institute of Soviet Studies, Glasgow
- 1956–1965Research fellow, lecturer, senior lecturer, Birmingham
- 1963–1979Founding director, CREES, University of Birmingham
- 1965–1988Professor of Soviet Economic Studies, Birmingham
- 1988Retired; Emeritus Professor