The Marxist economist who predicted the Great Depression, and was punished for arguing capitalism could adapt
In the late 1920s, when most analysts proclaimed capitalism stable, he predicted the Great Depression; when the Comintern insisted on capitalism's imminent collapse, he predicted its end — and was proven right both times, earning Stalin's confidence.
A Hungarian Marxist economist who directed the USSR Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and World Politics for two decades as the Comintern's foremost analyst. He earned Stalin's confidence by correctly predicting both the onset of the Great Depression and its end, each time against prevailing orthodoxy. After the war, his argument that wartime state intervention enabled capitalism to adapt provoked a fierce campaign: his institute was shut down in 1947 and he was branded a 'bourgeois economist.' Rehabilitated after Stalin's death, he received the Lenin Prize in 1963; a posthumous manuscript, opened per his will, delivered a sharp critique of Soviet bureaucratic degeneration.
Career timeline
1906Joined Hungarian Social Democratic Party; economics editor of party paper Népszava
1909PhD in philosophy, University of Budapest — dissertation on Kant's antinomies
1919People's Commissar of Finance, then Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, Hungarian Soviet Republic
1920Fled to USSR; joined VKP(b); began work in the Comintern
1921–1927Director, Comintern Statistical-Information Institute ('Varga Bureau'), Berlin
1927–1947Director, Institute of World Economy and World Politics (IMKhMP), USSR Academy of Sciences
1939Full member (Academician), USSR Academy of Sciences
1963Awarded Lenin Prize for life's work on modern capitalism
The political economist who opened Khrushchev's economic debate, and institutional founder of Soviet sociology
'All formations arose spontaneously — only the socialist formation came into being through organized mass action. Might not all our problems stem from this?' — at a closed institute meeting, recalled by V.A. Yadov
Economist of the Khrushchev thaw. He placed Liberman's 1962 article in Pravda, triggering the economic reform debate, and founded the first Soviet sociological institute. Edited Kommunist and Pravda; removed for his liberal orientation.
Career timeline
1926Graduates from Kharkov Institute of National Economy
1925–1943Works in Ukrainian SSR commissariats of agriculture and justice, then teaches political economy in Kharkov
1940Candidate of Economic Sciences degree; supervisor Ostrovityanov, opponent Shepilov
1943–1949Secretary of Kharkov Oblast Party Committee in Khrushchev's Ukrainian apparatus
1950–1952Director, Institute of Economics, Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences; head of social sciences division
1952–1955Head of CC departments for economic/historical sciences and science/culture
1955–1958Editor-in-chief of Kommunist, the party theoretical journal of the Khrushchev thaw
1958–1964Editor-in-chief of Problems of Peace and Socialism (Prague), hub of the Eurocommunist network
1962With Khrushchev's backing, places Liberman's article in Pravda, triggering the all-union reform debate
1964–1965Editor-in-chief of Pravda; removed after attempting to publish Solzhenitsyn
1965–1967Academician-Secretary of the Economics Department, USSR Academy of Sciences
1967–1971Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences and founding director of ICSI, the first Soviet sociological institute
1972Forced to resign; ICSI restructured for 'excessive liberalism,' leading researchers dismissed
1971–1993Member of the Academy Presidium; edits the standard political economy textbook
Founder of Soviet economic sociology; her 1983 report lit the intellectual fuse of perestroika
"As one of just eleven academician-economists receiving a high salary from the state, I consider myself personally responsible to the people for the state of the economy and society" — 1983
Born in Kyiv, she abandoned physics for economics after reading Marx's Capital. At Novosibirsk's Akademgorodok, her rural research pioneered Soviet economic sociology, and in 1983 she wrote a report diagnosing how planned economies breed alienation and rigidity. The KGB seized every copy, but the leaked text, the 'Novosibirsk Manifesto', became an intellectual catalyst for perestroika. She was president of the Soviet Sociological Association, founding director of VTsIOM, and a People's Deputy who worked with Sakharov and Yeltsin.
Career timeline
1943–50Three years of physics at Moscow State, then economics with honors
1950–63Institute of Economics, agrarian sector; earns Kandidat degree 1956
1963–87Novosibirsk IEiOPP; heads social problems department 1967; founds the economic-sociological school
1968 / 1981Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, then full academician — one of only five women at the time
1983The 'Novosibirsk Manifesto': diagnoses structural flaws and social rigidity in Soviet planning
1986–91President of the Soviet Sociological Association
1988–92Founding director of VTsIOM, the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center
1989–91People's Deputy; works with Sakharov and Yeltsin in the Interregional Deputies' Group
