Features of the Soviet-British concession collaboration in the 1920s
https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2025-4-42-57
Abstract
The article reveals the features of the Soviet-British cooperation in the field of concession activities during the 1920s, when both sides faced serious difficulties in the process of post-war reconstruction of their economies. The Bolshevik government’s search for the new forms of attracting foreign capital for accelerated industrialization corresponded to the aspirations of British industrialists to obtain the sources of cheap raw materials to expand the markets for technical goods and equipment. Despite the political difficulties, it was the concessions that could become a convenient channel for foreign investment in the USSR. Statistics show that this was facilitated by the New Economic Policy (NEP), which gained the support of the Kremlin leadership and found a positive response from the European public. By the middle of the first postwar decade, the Soviet leadership had received several thousand concession offers from Western companies, including the British ones, which, along with the German manufacturers, still occupied the leading positions in the economy of the Russian Empire. The author refutes the erroneous opinion about a total economic blockade allegedly set up by capitalist countries in order to economically “strangle” the Land of the Soviets. In reality, the share of the certain types of products at enterprises with the participation of foreign capital ranged from 30 to 80% during the heyday of foreign concessions (1925–1927) in the USSR. However, as the article, based on archival documents and published materials, shows, a number of objective and subjective factors could not but lead to the collapse of the Soviet-British concession cooperation in the first half of the 1930s. A typical example was the case of the “Lena Goldfields”, which was analyzed in detail by the author of the publication.
About the Author
E. Yu. Sergeev
Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Evgenii Yu. Sergeev, Dr. of Sci. (History), professor
32A, Leninsky Av., Moscow, Russia, 119334
References
1. Balashov, A.M. (2012), Vozrozhdenie i razvitie predprinimatel’stva v Rossii v period nepa (gosudarstvenno-chastnoe partnerstvo s uchastiem inostrannogo kapitala) [Revival and development of entrepreneurship in Russia during the NEP period (state and private partnership involving foreign capital)], Tonkie Naukoemkie Tekhnologii, Staryi Oskol, Russia.
2. Boyce, R. (2009), The great interwar crisis and the collapse of globalization, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK.
3. Butkovsky, V.L. (1928), Inostrannye kontsessii v narodnom khozyaistve SSSR [Foreign concessions in the national economy of the USSR], Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, Moscow, Leningrad, USSR.
4. Danil’chenko, S.L. (2000), Kontsessionnaya politika sovetskogo gosudarstva v gody nepa (1921–1929) [Concession policy of the Soviet state during the NEP period (1921–1929)], Abstract of Ph.D. dissertation (History), Izdatel’stvo MPGU, Moscow, Russia.
5. Davydova, T.V. (2002), “Concessions as a form of involving foreign capital in the Soviet economy of the 1920s”, in Rossiya v XIX–XX vv.: Materialy II Nauchnykh chtenii pamyati professora V.I. Bovykina, 20 yanvarya 2002 g. [Russia in the 19th – 20th centuries: Proceedings of the II Scientific Readings Commemorating Professor V.I. Bovykin, 20 January 2002], Izdatel’stvo MGU, Moscow, Russia, pp. 72–91.
6. Dobb, M. (1932), Soviet Russia and the world, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, UK. Dongarov, A.G. (1990), Inostrannyi kapital v Rossii i SSSR [Foreign capital in Russia and the USSR], Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, Moscow, USSR.
7. Hayes, P. (1978), The twentieth century, 1880–1939, Saint Martin’s Press, New York, USA.
8. Kasyanenko, V.I. (1972), Zavoevanie ekonomicheskoi nezavisimosti SSSR (1917–1940) [Gaining the political independence of the USSR (1917–1940)], Politizdat, Moscow, USSR.
9. Knieckerbocker, H.R. (1931), Soviet trade and world depression, J. Lane, London, UK.
10. Krasin, L.B. (1928), Voprosy vneshnei torgovli [Foreign trade issues], Gosudarstvennoe izdate’stvo, Moscow, USSR.
11. Lewis, R. (1994), “Foreign economic relations”, in Davies R.W. et al., comps., The economic transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 198–215.
12. Pollard, S. (1983), The development of the British economy, 1914–1990, E. Arnold, Baltimore, ML, USA.
13. Shishkin, V.A. (1983), “Polosa priznanii” i vneshneekonomicheskaya politika SSSR (1924–1928 gg.) [“Recognition series” and the foreign economic policy of the USSR], Nauka, Leningrad, USSR.
14. Shpotov, B.M. (2008), “Foreign concessions in the Soviet state (the 1920s)”, in Ekonomicheskaya istoriya Rossii XVII–XX vv.: dinamika i institutsional’nosotsiokul’turnaya sreda [Economic history of the 17th – 20th century Russia: dynamics and the institutional-sociocultural environment], UrO RAN, Ekaterinburg, Russia, pp. 184–192.
15. Sokolov, A.S. (2019), “Concession loan to the company ‘Lena Goldfields’ as a form of
16. Anglo-Soviet economic cooperation”, in Panov, A.R., ed., Politicheskaya zhizn’ Zapadnoi Evropy: Antichnost’. Srednie veka. Novoe i noveishee vremya [Political life of Western Europe: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the New and Newer Time], Arzamasskii filial NNGU, Arzamas, Russia, pp. 84–88.
17. Sutton, A. (1968–1971), Western technology and Soviet economic development, 1917– 1930, California University Press, Stanford, CA, USA, vol. 1–2.
18. Veeder, V.V. (1998), “The Lena Goldfields arbitration: the historical roots of three ideas”, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 747–792.
Review
For citations:
Sergeev E.Yu. Features of the Soviet-British concession collaboration in the 1920s. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin Series "Political Science. History. International Relations". 2025;(4):42-57. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2025-4-42-57
Views:
9
Email this article 