1 Varga, Eugene S., Izmenenija vekonomike kapitalizma v itoge vtoroj mirovoj vojny (Moscow, September, 1946).Google Scholar See, for example, Will Lissner in New York Times, January 25, 1948; Solomon Schwarz in New Leader, February 14, 1948; numerous Associated Press and United Press items in the New York Times and other newspapers; and Joseph Newman's Moscow dispatches in the New York Herald Tribune for January 26, 1948, and subsequently. See also interesting items in Socialističeskij vestnik, December 1947, and the Economist for March 20, 1948.

2 In addition to Varga's book, of which, contrary to some American press stories, several copies are available in the United States (25,000 copies were published) the most important document is the verbatim report of the discussion at the joint meetings of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and the Faculty of Economics of Moscow University on May 7, 14, and 21, 1947, published in the sixty-four-page supplement to the November, 1947, issue of Mirovoe Khozjajstvo i mirovaja politika (No. 11). This supersedes the eleven-page version in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Section of Economics and Law, No. 4 (July-August, 1947). The main Party-political commentaries on the discussion are articles by I. Gladkov in Bolshevik, No. 17 (September 15, 1947); by I. Laptev in Pravda for January 26, 1948; and by Gatovskij, L. in Bolshevik, No. 5 (March 15, 1948).Google Scholar Politburo member Voznesenskij, N., in his book The War Economy of the U.S.S.R. during the Patriotic War (Moscow, 1948)Google Scholar, scathingly denounces Soviet economists sharing Varga's views, but does not name him (see especially pp. 18, 19, 31, 166, 172, 185. On pp. 31 and 172 Voznesenskij quotes Varga.)

3 Pravda for October 7, 1947, reported the merging of the Institute of World Economics and World Politics headed by Varga with the Institute of Economics, headed by K. V. Ostrovitjanov, into a single Institute of Economics, with Ostrovitjanov as director. It appeared for a time as if Varga still retained a position of great distinction in Soviet economic scholarship, but this seems more doubtful in the light of reports in the New York Herald Tribune for May 12, 1948, and in Novoe russkoe slovo for May 13 that the famous journal, World Economy and World Politics, edited by Varga, has been replaced by Problems of Economics, edited by Ostrovitjanov, with Varga as a sub-editor. These reports quote sharp criticism, in the first issue of the new publication, of Varga and other Soviet economists for “stubborness” in clinging to “reformist” views and failing to respond to the requirements of the Party Central Committee. The application to the works of some of the offending economists of such terms as “wrecking” and “deference to American capitalism” in Ostrovitjanov's new review may portend further measures.

4 Typical is the statement in the second paragraph of the very significant article in Pod znamenem marksizma, No. 7-8, 1943, on “Some Questions of the Teaching of Political Economy,” quoting Lenin to the effect that the deepest and the most detailed confirmation and application of Marx's theory is its economic doctrine.

5 See also the decree of October 24, 1946, of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. demanding that the Academy's Institute of Economics produce works attacking “anti-Marxist bourgeois schools” of economics, in Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., No. 5, 1946. Relevant also is the rebuke administered in the third issue of Kultura i Žizn’ (July 20, 1946) to the legal scholar Kečekjan. Kečekjan was accused of maintaining in an article that the essence of social relations in bourgeois society consisted, not in exploitation, but in the “noninterference” by the bourgeois state in the economic sphere. The article was published as a discussion piece in Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, but Kultura i Žizn' declared that since Kečekjan's views were “anti-Marxist” they were not a fit subject for discussion.

6 No. 13, October 30, 1946. See lead article criticizing the Institute for confining its output to descriptive rather than analytical works. Varga's book is not mentioned, indicating that it had not yet been published, though it was approved for printing on September 20, 1946.

7 Varga, , op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p., 12.

9 Ibid., p. 15.

10 Ibid., pp. 16-17.

11 Ibid., p. 18.

12 Ibid., p.33.

13 Ibid., p.50.

14 Ibid., p.53.

15 Ibid., p. 126.

16 Ibid., p. 149.

17 Ibid., p. 170.

18 lbid., p. 207.

19 Ibid., p. 257.

20 Ibid., p. 268.

21 Ibid., p. 291.

22 Ibid., p. 319.

23 References in parentheses in the following pages are to the sixty-four-page supplement to No. 11 (November, 1947), of Mirovoe khozjajstvo.

24 For the discussion of Aleksandrov's History of Western European Philosophy see Gak, G. and Makarovski, A., “The magazine Problems of Philosophy” Bolshevik No.5 (July 15, 1947), pp.50–58 Google Scholar and speech delivered by A. A. Ždanov at the all-union conference of philosophers convened to discuss Aleksandrov's book, Bolshevik, No. 16 (August 1, 1947), pp. 7-23.

25 On the latter point, Varga had already published in Mirovoe khozjajstvo, No. 3 (March, 1947), a position closer to the Party line than that taken in his book. In a note in a subsequent number (No. 5, June, 1947) he explained that his mistakes regarding this point arose from the fact that the “countries of new democracy” had been only in the first stage of development while the book was being written.

26 Supplement to November, 1947, issue of Mirovoe khozjajstvo i mirovaja politika, pp. 4-8.

27 Ibid., p. 25.

28 Ibid., p. 14.

29 Ibid., p. 29.

30 Ibid., pp. 20-24.

31 Ibid., p. 43.

32 In his article, “Characteristics of the Domestic and Foreign Policy of the Capitalist Countries during the Epoch of the General Crisis of Capitalism,” Mirovoe khozjajstvo, No. 6 (June, 1946), pp. 8-17.

33 Voznesenskij, , op. cit., p. 5.Google Scholar It is, however, significant that he qualifies this position by maintaining that though the Anglo-Americans and Soviets had conflicting war aims they were “in one camp.”

34 In addition to references in footnote 2, see review of Varga's book by A. Shneerson in Planovoe khozjajstvo. No. 3 (March, 1947; released for publication June 21), and also review of L. Eventov's The War Economy of England, by Dvorkin, I. N., in Bolshevik, No. 13 (July 15, 1947)Google Scholar, and of Višnev's, S. The Economy of the Capitalist Countries during the Second World War in Bolshevik, No. 3 (February 15, 1948).Google Scholar The New York Herald Tribune for May 12, 1948, reported from Moscow another sharp attack on Varga, et al. by Ostrovitjanov in the economic journal replacing Mirovoe khozjajstvo.

35 Professor Reikhardt, of Leningrad, had already sounded this note in the May,1947, discussion.