The infamous Kommunarka test site became the site of the deaths of many disgraced Soviet scientists. One of them was the economist Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondratiev. In the first years of the existence of the USSR, he led the agrarian planning of the country. The main part of Kondratiev's theoretical heritage was the book "Large cycles of conjuncture". The scientist also substantiated the NEP policy, which made it possible to restore the Soviet economy after the devastating Civil War.
Childhood and youth
Economist Nikolai Kondratyev was born on March 16, 1892 in the village of Galuevskaya, Kostroma province. From the age of 13 he went to the church teacher's seminary. During the first Russian revolution, the student became a Social Revolutionary and helped the work of the textile workers' strike committee. For this, he was expelled from the seminary and even sent to prison.
A year later, Nikolai Kondratiev was released and entered the school of horticulture and agriculture in the Ukrainian city of Uman. In 1908year he went to St. Petersburg. In the capital, Kondratiev shared a room with the culturologist and sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, the future founder of the theory of social mobility.
Beginning of scientific activity
In 1911, Nikolai Kondratiev entered St. Petersburg University. After graduation, he chose the Department of Political Economy and Statistics and decided to prepare for a professorship.
At this time, Kondratiev led a stormy literary and scientific activity. He collaborated with Vestnik Evropy, Zaveta and other magazines, and also gave numerous lectures. The young intellectual was in the scientific circles of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky and Lev Petrazhitsky. Professor Maxim Kovalevsky made him his secretary. In 1915, Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondratiev published his first monograph on the economy of his native Kostroma province.
Participation in revolutionary events
Even being part of the scientific community of St. Petersburg, Kondratiev remained a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. For a long time, he was under secret surveillance by the Okhrana. In 1913, when the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated in Russia, Kondratiev spent a month in prison.
The economist's political activity intensified after the sudden events of the February Revolution. The young scientist was a delegate to the III Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, held in Moscow in May-June 1917. There he delivered a speech in support of the Provisional Government. Then the economist became an adviser to Kerensky on agricultural issues. Nikolai Kondratiev participated in the creation of the Council of Peasants' Deputies and in September was delegated by him to the All-Russian Democratic Conference. The economist was elected to the Provisional Council of the Republic. In addition, he managed to participate in the activities of the Main Land Committee and the League of Agrarian Reforms.
Aiding the Kerensky government, Kondratiev worked to overcome the food problem that arose due to the long war against Germany and its allies. Lack of food affected the mood of society. The creation of a stable supply system would make it possible to smooth out many social contradictions and avoid a political crisis. At that time, Kondratiev was a supporter of the idea of a state grain monopoly. He also pinned hopes on the distribution, although in 1917 it did not solve the food problem - the threat of a large-scale famine continued to loom before the Provisional Government.
Retreat from politics
The October Revolution moved Kondratiev to the opposition camp. He became a member of the Constituent Assembly from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. When this body was dispersed, the scientist moved to the Union of the Revival of Russia, which opposed the Bolsheviks. In 1919, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party underwent a final defeat. Kondratyev Nikolai Dmitrievich retired from politics and devoted himself entirely to science.
After the revolution, Kondratiev moved to Moscow. There he began teaching at several higher educational institutions - the Shanyavsky University, the Cooperative Institute, the Petrovsky Agriculturalacademy. For some time, the economist's place of work was the Moscow People's Bank. In 1920, Kondratiev was arrested and became a defendant in the case of the Union for the Revival of Russia. The former Social Revolutionary was saved by the intercession of the utopian Alexander Chayanov and the prominent Bolshevik Ivan Teodorovich.
Work in the State Planning Commission
Through the efforts of Kondratiev, the Market Institute was founded under the People's Commissariat of Finance. The Soviet economist headed it in 1920-1928. He also worked for three years in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. In the State Planning Committee of the USSR, Kondratiev was a member of the agricultural department. The scientist led the development of a strategy for the development of the agricultural sector.
In 1922, Nikolai Kondratyev, already a significant contributor to the economy of the young Soviet state, was once again the target of repression. He was included in the list of undesirable citizens preparing for deportation from the USSR. Kondratiev was defended in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Since the specialist controlled several important processes, his name was crossed out from the black list.
Abroad
In 1924, Kondratiev went on a foreign scientific trip. He visited Germany, Canada, the UK and the USA. The economist had to get acquainted with the market mechanisms of Western countries. This experience was useful to him in the development of the principles of the New Economic Policy. It was Nikolai Kondratiev (1892-1938) who was one of the main adherents of the new economic policy, to which the Bolsheviks came after several years of devastating war communism. Also, the Soviet specialist had to assess the prospectsUSSR exports.
Kondratiev's friend Pitirim Sorokin was already living in the States at that time. He suggested that Nikolai Dmitrievich stay in America, head a university department there and protect himself and his family, who went abroad with him. However, Kondratiev refused to leave his homeland. He was fascinated by the new opportunities that the NEP opened up for him.
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In 1924, Stalin's repressions had not yet begun. No one could even imagine that the horrors that shook the USSR in the 1930s would happen. From Stalin's declassified correspondence with Yakov Agranov, one of the organizers of the terror, it is known today that Kondratiev was tortured in custody on the personal order of the leader. Being in the USA, the economist hardly expected something like this.
Returning from abroad, Kondratiev continued active work in the field of economic planning - he proposed and worked out the so-called agricultural five-year plan of 1923-1928
Contribution to the economy
In 1925, Kondratiev's most important theoretical work, "Large cycles of conjuncture", was published. It caused a wide discussion both in the USSR and abroad. A new term has appeared, which was proposed by Nikolai Kondratiev, “cycles of economic development.”
According to the scientist's theory, the world economy is developing in a spiral. Ups are cyclically replaced by downs, and vice versa. The researcher believed that the length of one such period is about 50 years. In the USSR, many did not like the ideas that Kondratiev put forward. "CyclesKondratieff" were considered the author's retreat from Marxism.
Interestingly, the economist put forward his hypothesis without any theoretical basis. Kondratiev used only his own empirical observations. He analyzed in detail the performance of the economies of the United States and Western Europe from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century. Having done this work, the scientist built graphs and discovered repetitive synchronicity. Kondratiev defined the following phases in the development of any economy: growth, top, decline, depression.
If in the Soviet Union the bold theory did not find application, then abroad it was appreciated by many economists of world renown. The Kondratiev concept was defended by the Austrian and American scientist Joseph Schumpeter. In Russia, studies of the heritage of a compatriot resumed only after Perestroika. Among other things, Kondratiev left behind fundamental research on the dynamics of prices for agricultural and industrial goods.
Conflict with authorities
"Great cycles of conjuncture" caused rejection by the Soviet leadership. Soon after the publication of the monograph, a magazine persecution of Kondratiev began, organized by Grigory Zinoviev. There was no scientific controversy in it. Criticism was like denunciation. Although the Soviet leadership after Lenin's death was a dozen Bolsheviks vying for power, they almost completely did not tolerate Kondratiev.
The exception was Mikhail Kalinin. Stalin later blackmailed him with longstanding ties to Kondratiev. Nikolai Bukharin supported the theoretical ideas of the scientist (when Bukharin was also tried and sentenced to capital punishment, the Bolshevik was also accused of political alliance with the disgraced economist).
Opala
Although Kondratiev himself, the "Kondratiev Cycles" and all his other economic initiatives were attacked at the highest level, the scientist was not going to give up his positions without a fight. He defended his own rightness both in magazines and at meetings. Especially striking was his speech at the Communist Academy, which took place in November 1926. In addition, Kondratiev wrote reports and memorandums to the Central Committee.
In 1927, another article by Zinoviev appeared in the Bolshevik magazine under the loud headline "Manifesto of the Kulak Party". It was she who set the tone in which the last fatal blows were de alt to Kondratiev in the future. Accusations of sympathy for the kulaks and undermining socialism were no longer just threats, they were followed by the real actions of the Chekists.
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Theoretical proposals and books of Nikolai Kondratiev proceeded from the idea that the economy should develop gradually. This principle was contrary to the Stalinist haste with which the flywheel of Soviet industrialization was spinning. In many ways, for this, in 1928, Kondratiev was removed from the leadership of his brainchild, the Market Institute, and thrown out of scientific life.
In 1930, Nikolai Dmitrievich wrote a letter to his friend Sorokin, which was illegally delivered to the USA through Finland. In the messagethe scientist briefly described the growing horrors of Soviet reality: dispossession in the countryside, pressure on the intelligentsia. Without work, Kondratiev was on the verge of starvation. He asked Sorokin for help. He turned to Samuel Harper, a professor at the University of Chicago who often visited the USSR.
Arrest and imprisonment
During another trip to the Soviet Union, Harper met Kondratiev several times. One day, the two of them came to an apartment agreed in advance, where agents of the GPU were waiting for them. Kondratiev was arrested. It was 1930.
While in prison, the economist continued his scientific work. In conclusion, he wrote several works. Formally, Nikolai Kondratiev, whose biography is connected with the Social Revolutionaries and even Kerensky, was tried in the case of the Labor Peasant Party. In 1932 he was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. Kondratiev went to the Suzdal political isolator. There he continued to write.
Only one work from the Suzdal period, devoted to the macromodel of economic dynamics, has survived to this day. While in prison, the scientist watched how his monographs become world famous and economic forecasts come true. It was all the more bitter for him to experience a forced separation from full-fledged scientific activity.
Execution and rehabilitation
Although the eight required years have passed, Kondratiev did not wait for his release. In 1938, at the height of the Great Terror, he was tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. On September 17, the scientist was shot. placemassacre was the landfill "Kommunarka". The repressed and buried there.
In 1963, after the XX Congress of the CPSU, Kondratiev was rehabilitated, although this fact was not made public. The scientific legacy of the economist for many years remained the object of defamation and criticism of official Soviet science. The good name of Kondratiev was finally restored in Perestroika, in 1987, when he was rehabilitated for the second time (this time together with his ruined colleague Alexander Chayanov).
