The notorious Kommunarka training ground became the site of the death of many Soviet disgraced scientists. One of them was the economist Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondratiev. In the early years of the USSR, he led the country's agrarian planning. The main part of Kondratyevâs theoretical heritage was the book âBig Business Cyclesâ. The scientist also substantiated the NEP policy, which allowed to restore the Soviet economy after the devastating Civil War.
Childhood and youth
The economist Nikolai Kondratyev was born March 16, 1892 in the village of Galuev Kostroma province. From the age of 13 he went to church-teacher 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 Kondratyev was released and entered the school of horticulture and agriculture in the Ukrainian city of Uman. In 1908, he went to St. Petersburg. In the capital, Kondratyev shared a room with cultural expert and sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, the future founder of the theory of social mobility.
The beginning of scientific activity
In 1911, Nikolai Kondratyev 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 violent literary and scientific activity. He collaborated with Herald of Europe, Testaments and other magazines, and also delivered numerous lectures. The young intellectual was in the scientific circles of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky and Leo Petrazhitsky. Professor Maxim Kovalevsky made him his secretary. In 1915, Kondratiev Nikolai Dmitrievich published his first monograph on the economy of his native Kostroma province.
Participation in revolutionary events
Even as part of the scientific community of St. Petersburg, Kondratiev remained a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. For a long time behind him was secret surveillance of the secret police. In 1913, when the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated in Russia, Kondratyev spent a month in prison.
The political activity of the economist intensified after the sudden events of the February Revolution. The young scientist was a delegate to the Third Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, held in Moscow in May - June 1917. There he made a speech in support of the Provisional Government. Then the economist became an adviser to Kerensky on agricultural issues. Nikolay Kondratiev participated in the creation of the Council of Peasant 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.
Helping the Kerensky government, Kondratyev 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 smooth out many social contradictions and avoid a political crisis. At that time, Kondratiev was a supporter of the idea of ââa state bread monopoly. He also had his hopes for a breakdown, although in 1917 it still did not solve the food problem - the threat of a massive hunger continued to loom in front of the Provisional Government.
Deviation from politics
The October Revolution transferred Kondratyev to the opposition camp. He became a deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the Social Revolutionaries. When this body was dispersed, the scientist switched to the Union of the Revival of Russia, which opposed the Bolsheviks. In 1919, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was finally defeated. Kondratiev Nikolai Dmitrievich moved away from politics and devoted himself completely to science.
After the revolution, Kondratiev moved to Moscow. There he began to teach at several higher educational institutions - Shanyavsky University, Cooperative Institute, Petrovsky Agricultural Academy. For some time, the place of work of the economist was the Moscow People's Bank. In 1920, Kondratiev was arrested and became a defendant in the case of the "Union of the Renaissance of Russia." The former Socialist-Revolutionary was saved by the intercession of the utopian Alexander Chayanov and prominent Bolshevik Ivan Theodorovich.
Work in Gosplan
Through the efforts of Kondratiev, the Market Institute under the People's Commissariat of Finance was founded. The Soviet economist led it in 1920-1928. He also worked for three years at the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. In the USSR State Planning Commission, Kondratiev was part of the agricultural department. The scientist led the development of the agricultural industry development strategy.
In 1922, Nikolai Kondratyev, whose contribution to the economy of the young Soviet state was already significant, again became the target of repression. He was included in the list of unwanted citizens preparing for expulsion from the USSR. Kondratiev defended in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Since the specialist controlled several important processes, his name was deleted from the black list.
Abroad
In 1924, Kondratiev went on a foreign scientific trip. He visited Germany, Canada, Great Britain and the USA. The economist had to get acquainted with the market mechanisms of Western countries. This experience was useful to him when working out the principles of the NEP. 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 military communism. Also, a Soviet specialist was supposed to assess the prospects for export of the USSR.
Kondratievâs friend Pitirim Sorokin at that time already lived in the States. He suggested that Nikolai Dmitrievich stay in America, head the university department there and protect himself and his family, who went abroad with him. However, Kondratiev refused to abandon his homeland. He was fascinated by the new opportunities that the NEP opened up before him.
Homecoming
In 1924, the Stalinist repressions had not yet begun . No one could even imagine that there would be horrors that shook the USSR in the 1930s. From the declassified correspondence of Stalin with one of the organizers of the terror, Yakov Agranov, it is known today that in the detention of Kondratiev, the leader was tortured by personal order. While in the United States, the economist could hardly have imagined something like that.
Having returned from abroad, Kondratyev continued his active work in the field of economic planning - he proposed and worked out the so-called agricultural five-year plan 1923-1928.
Contribution to the economy
In 1925, Kondratyevâs most important theoretical work, The Big Cycles of the Market, was published. It caused widespread discussion both in the USSR and abroad. A new term appeared, which was proposed by Nikolai Kondratiev, - "cycles of economic development."
According to the theory of the scientist, the global economy is developing in a spiral. Rises are cyclically replaced by recessions, 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 put forward by Kondratiev. The Kondratiev Cycles were considered the authorâs retreat from Marxism.
Interestingly, the economist put forward his hypothesis without any theoretical justification. Kondratiev used only his own empirical observations. He analyzed in detail the indicators of the economies of the USA 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 repeated synchronism. Kondratiev defined the following phases of the development of any economy: growth, peak, decline, depression.
If the bold theory has not found application in the Soviet Union, then many world-famous economists have appreciated it abroad. Kondratieff's concept was upheld by the Austrian and American scientist Joseph Schumpeter. In Russia, studies of the compatriotâs heritage were resumed only after Perestroika. Among other things, Kondratyev left behind basic research on the dynamics of prices of agricultural and industrial goods.
Conflict with the authorities
âBig cycles of conjunctureâ provoked rejection among the Soviet leadership. Soon after the publication of the monograph, journalistic persecution of Kondratiev began, organized by Grigory Zinoviev. There was no scientific polemic in it. Criticism was like informing. Although the Soviet leadership after the death of Lenin was a dozen Bolsheviks gnawing for power, it almost completely did not tolerate Kondratyev.
The exception was Mikhail Kalinin. Stalin later blackmailed him with long-standing ties with Kondratiev. Nikolai Bukharin supported the scientist's theoretical ideas (when Bukharin was also tried and sentenced to capital punishment, including the Bolshevik, who was also accused of political union with the disgraced economist).
Opal
Although Kondratiev himself, Kondratievâs 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 innocence 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 memos to the Central Committee.
In 1927, another article by Zinoviev appeared in the Bolshevik magazine under the high-profile heading âManifesto of the Kulak Partyâ. It was she who set the tone in which the last fatal blows were inflicted on Kondratyev. Accusations of sympathy for the fists and of undermining socialism were no longer just threats, they were followed by real actions by the Chekists.
Request for help
Theoretical proposals and books by Nikolai Kondratyev proceeded from the idea that the economy should develop gradually. This principle contradicted the Stalinist rush with which the flywheel of Soviet industrialization spun. Largely for this, in 1928 Kondratyev 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 United States through Finland. In the message, the 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 his next trip to the Soviet Union, Harper met several times with Kondratiev. Once they both came to the apartment agreed in advance, where they were waiting for the agents of the GPU. Kondratiev was arrested. It was 1930.
Sitting in prison, the economist continued his research activities. In conclusion, he wrote several works. Formally, Nikolai Kondratyev, whose biography is associated with the Socialist Revolutionaries and even Kerensky, was tried in the case of the Labor Peasant Party. In 1932 he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Kondratiev went to the Suzdal political isolator. There he continued to write.
Only one work of the Suzdal period devoted to the macro-model of economic dynamics has survived. In conclusion, the scientist watched how his monographs became world famous and economic forecasts came true. It was all the worse for him to experience a forced separation from a full-fledged scientific activity.
Execution and rehabilitation
Although eight years have passed, Kondratyev did not wait for release. In 1938, at the height of the Great Terror, he was tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. September 17, the scientist was shot. The place of reprisal was the Kommunarka training ground. There, the repressed and buried.
In 1963, after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Kondratiev was rehabilitated, although this fact was not made public. The scientific heritage of the economist for many years remained the object of defamation and criticism of official Soviet science. Finally, the good name of Kondratiev was restored in Perestroika, in 1987, when he was rehabilitated for the second time (this time along with his ruined colleague Alexander Chayanov).