PhD thesis defence by Georg-Henri Kaup
This dissertation reinterprets the economic history of the Soviet Union through the lens of mercantilism, challenging the conventional narrative that views the Soviet Union as a failed socialist experiment. Analysing the Soviet approach to natural resource management - particularly in the oil and gas, petrochemical, hydroelectric and agricultural sectors - this work argues that the Soviet state operated more like a mercantilist empire than a socialist state. The thesis traces Soviet economic policies from 1917 to 1991, showing how 'aspiringly socialist' policies devolved into mercantilist stratagems.
Chapter 1 examines the origins of Soviet resource management strategies, showing how the 1920 GOELRO plan laid the groundwork for mercantilism in the Soviet context by prioritising oil exports. Chapter 2 focuses on the 1920s and 1930s, highlighting Soviet oil policies’ parallels with the resource management policies of earlier European mercantilist empires. Chapter 3 analyses Khrushchev’s 'petrochemical plan' which, despite its developmentalist goals, deepened the Soviet Union’s reliance on crude oil exports and strengthened its economic ties with the capitalist world. Chapter 4 explores Soviet hydro projects in Central Asia, illustrating how efforts to boost cotton production mirrored past mercantilist practices and fueled nationalist movements, which destabilised the USSR.
The final chapter links the Soviet Union’s collapse to its mercantilist economic practices. While a dependence on oil exports to the west allowed the Soviet Union to avoid diluting its domestic power through agricultural reform, it also left the state vulnerable to external shocks, which materialised in the 1980s and destroyed the state in 1991.
The thesis aims to contribute to historiographical debates on Soviet economic history and offer a novel framework for understanding the Soviet Union’s historical trajectory. It argues that the Soviet Union’s failure was not merely due to mismanagement but was fundamentally rooted in the contradictions within its resource-based mercantilist policies, which ultimately led to the state’s economic and political collapse.