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Whistleblower or Troublemaker? How One Man Took on the Soviet Mafia

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  • Harrison, Mark

Abstract

The paper tells the story of a pensioner’s fight against a local mafia of Soviet party and government officials and farm managers in a remote rural locality in the 1950s. To Moscow, he was a whistleblower. To the leaders of his local community, he was a troublemaker. Working together, the local people went to extraordinary lengths to suppress his criticisms. Eventually, Moscow intervened to vindicate him. The story illustrates vividly the political and economic issues that arose when a centralized dictatorship that relied on mass mobilization over a vast territory with sometimes poor communications tried to contain local rent seeking while moving away from mass terror as its chief instrument of control.

Suggested Citation

  • Harrison, Mark, 2008. "Whistleblower or Troublemaker? How One Man Took on the Soviet Mafia," Economic Research Papers 271309, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uwarer:271309
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.271309
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrei Markevich, 2011. "How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(8), pages 1449-1468.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions

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