Yuri Larin (Mikhail Zalmanovich Mikhailovich Lurie)
Юрий Михайлович Ларин
1882–1932
○ Natural causes
An imaginative economic theorist who bridged NEP and central planning, co-founded Gosplan, and championed Jewish agricultural settlement
"The real heroism with which he conquers physical disabilities which long ago would have overwhelmed a less unbreakable spirit." — Arthur Ransome, British journalist who met Larin in Moscow, 1920
An economist and revolutionary born in Simferopol. A founding member of Gosplan, he advocated centralized planning based on his study of the German war economy. He led the Jewish agricultural settlement movement (OZET) and wrote prolifically despite lifelong muscular dystrophy.
Career Timeline
- 1900–1903Organized social-democratic groups in Simferopol and Odessa; sentenced to 8 years exile
- 1904–1916Menshevik in exile; studied German war economy, shaping his central-planning vision
- 1917Joined Bolsheviks; founding member and presidium member of VSNKh
- 1921–1932Co-founded Gosplan; proposed continuous work week and shaped planning policy
- 1925–1932Chaired OZET, leading Jewish agricultural settlement; wrote against antisemitism
Related historical events
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)Radical advocate of a planned economyAs a Gosplan founding member and presidium member, he advocated the abolition of money and comprehensive planning within the NEP framework, while chairing OZET to promote Jewish agricultural settlement.
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationGosplan official
Abolishing Money: The 'Colored Paper' Vision
The most radical point in Larin's economic thought was his advocacy for the abolition of money. He believed that money would inevitably wither away as socialism advanced. As the planned economy matured, money would lose its function as a store of value and become nothing more than 'ordinary colored paper' that future generations would encounter only in history textbooks. Larin ridiculed commercial accounting and free trade, and he was among the key theorists who pushed for a resolution at the Congress of Soviets that would declare the abolition of monetary circulation in Russia.
This vision was considered extreme even within Bolshevik circles during the War Communism period. The noted British historian William Chamberlin called Larin 'an economist with fantastic views,' and even after NEP, Larin acknowledged money only as a temporary instrument. For him, money was merely an unavoidable compromise of the transitional period, not a permanent component of a socialist economy. Though never realized, this radical vision remains an intellectual legacy representing one pole of Soviet planning thought.