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This book aims to reconstruct the activities of enterprises and individuals over two decades in one developing country (Hungary), within and across four politico-economic domains (agriculture, infrastructure/construction, commerce, and manufacturing), from the initial Stalinist obsession with heavy industry through later reforms paying greater attention to profitable farming and the provision of abundant consumer goods. It provides hundreds of grounded, granular stories for reflection, as reported by actors and direct observers, ranging from innovation and improvisation to obstruction, failure, and fraud. Further, it offers an otherwise-unobtainable close encounter with another world, familiar in some respects while amazingly peculiar in others. The social history of enterprise and work in postwar Central European nations "building socialism" has long been underdeveloped. Through extensive macro-level research on planning and policy in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Bloc countries, a grand narrative has been framed: reconstruction and breakneck industrialization under Soviet tutelage; then eventual mismanagement, stagnation and crisis, leading to collapse. This book seeks to explore what socialism actually looked like to those sustaining (or enduring) it as they faced forward into an unknowable future, to assess how and where it did (or didn't) work, and to recount how ordinary people responded to its opportunities and constraints. This study will appeal to readers interested in a understanding how businesses worked day-to-day in a planned economy, how enterprise practices and technological strategies shifted during the first postwar generation, how novice managers and technicians emerged during rapid industrialization, how peasants learned to farm cooperatively, how organizations improvised and adapted, how political purity and practical expertise contended for control, and how the controversies and convulsions of the postwar decades shaped a deeply flawed project to "build socialism."

This book aims to reconstruct the activities of enterprises and individuals in one developing country (Hungary), within and across four politico-economic domains (agriculture, construction, commerce, and manufacturing), from the aftermath of the 1956 revolt through extensive reforms emphasizing profits more than ideology so as to provide abundant consumer goods. It provides hundreds of grounded, granular stories for reflection, as reported by actors and direct observers, ranging from innovation and improvisation to obstruction, failure, and fraud. Further, it offers an otherwise-unobtainable close encounter with another world, familiar in some respects while amazingly peculiar in others. The social history of enterprise and work in postwar Central European nations "building socialism" has long been underdeveloped. Through extensive macro-level research on planning and policy in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Bloc countries, a grand narrative has been framed: reconstruction and breakneck industrialization under Soviet tutelage; then eventual mismanagement, stagnation and crisis, leading to collapse. This successor volume to an earlier study of the 1945-57 period seeks to explore what socialism actually looked like to those sustaining (or enduring} it as they faced forward into an unknowable future, to assess how and where it did (or didn't) work, and to recount how ordinary people responded to its opportunities and constraints. This study will appeal to readers interested in a understanding how businesses worked day-to-day in a planned economy, how enterprise practices and technological strategies shifted during the first postwar generation, how managers and technicians learned by doing, how peasants began to farm cooperatively, how organizations improvised and adapted, how political purity and practical expertise contended for control, and how controversies and contradiction shaped a deeply flawed project to "build socialism." Philip Scranton is University Board of Governors Professor Emeritus, History of Industry and Technology, at Rutgers University, USA.. His publications include nineteen books and 80+ scholarly articles, multiple contributions to exhibition catalogs, and numerous reviews of books and conferences.

This study aims to reconstruct the activities of enterprises and individuals over two decades in one developing country (Hungary), within and across four politico-economic domains (agriculture, infrastructure/construction, commerce, and manufacturing), from the initial Stalinist obsession with heavy industry (Volume 1: Creating the Theft Economy, 1945-1957) through later reforms paying greater attention to profitable farming and the provision of abundant consumer goods (Volume 2: From Chaos to Contradiction, 1957-1972). It provides hundreds of grounded, granular stories for reflection, as reported by actors and direct observers, ranging from innovation and improvisation to obstruction, failure, and fraud. Further, it offers an otherwise-unobtainable close encounter with another world, familiar in some respects while amazingly peculiar in others. The social history of enterprise and work in postwar Central European nations "building socialism" has long been underdeveloped. Through extensive macro-level research on planning and policy in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Bloc countries, a grand narrative has been framed: reconstruction and breakneck industrialization under Soviet tutelage; then eventual mismanagement, stagnation and crisis, leading to collapse. This book seeks to explore what socialism actually looked like to those sustaining (or enduring} it as they faced forward into an unknowable future, to assess how and where it did (or didn't) work, and to recount how ordinary people responded to its opportunities and constraints. This study will appeal to readers interested in understanding how businesses worked day-to-day in a planned economy, how enterprise practices and technological strategies shifted during the first postwar generation, how novice managers and technicians emerged during rapid industrialization, how peasants learned to farm cooperatively, how organizations improvised and adapted, how political purity and practical expertise contended for control, and how the controversies and convulsions of the postwar decades shaped a deeply flawed project to "build socialism."

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF TABLES -- PREFACE -- CHAPTER 1 Introduction -- PART I: EARLY YEARS -- CHAPTER 2 Specialty Manufacturing to 1876 -- CHAPTER 3 Institutions and the Context for Specialty Production -- PART II: CENTENNIAL TO COLUMBIAN: SPECIALTY PRODUCERS, 1876-1893 -- CHAPTER 4 The 1876 Exposition and Philadelphia Manufacturing -- CHAPTER 5 Providence and New York: Jewelry, Silverware, and Printing -- CHAPTER 6 Midwestern Specialists: Cincinnati Tools and Grand Rapids Furniture -- PART III: DEPRESSION AND ADVANCE, 1893-1912 -- CHAPTER 7 Chicago and Grand Rapids: Palace Cars and Furniture -- CHAPTER 8 Fashioning the Machine Tool Hub: Cincinnati -- CHAPTER 9 Back East: The Electrical Equipment Industry -- CHAPTER 10 The Perils of Providence: Jewelry's Erratic Course -- CHAPTER 11 Workshop of the World: Philadelphia -- PART IV: DIVERGING PATHWAYS, 1913-1925 -- CHAPTER 12 War, Depression, and Specialty Production into the 1920s -- CHAPTER 13 Looking Ahead -- NOTES -- INDEX

Business history for three generations has focused almost exclusively on capitalist firms, their managers, and their relations with markets, states, and rivals. However, enterprises on all scales also operated within communist nations "building socialism" in the wake of World War II. This article represents a first-phase exploration of business practices in three Central European states as Stalinism gave way to cycles of reform and retrenchment in the 1960s. Focusing chiefly on industrial initiatives, the study asks: How did socialist enterprises work and change across the first postwar generation, given their distinctive principles and political/economic contexts, and implicitly, what contrasts with capitalist activities are worth considering.

This text is the author's reply to reactions to "Managing Communist Enterprises" from three colleagues, Lee Vinsel, Natalya Vinokurova, and Pál Germuska. It includes reflections on his work process in researching capitalist and noncapitalist firms and sectors and the practical and theoretical bases for that work. In the course of replying to particular suggestions and critiques, the rejoinder also offers some considerations about the current and future course of business history as a discipline.