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This chapter sheds light on long-term trends in the level and structural dynamics of investments in Russian human capital formation from government, corporations, and households. It contributes to the literature discussing theoretical issues and empirical patterns of modernization, human development, as well as the transition from a centralized to a market economy. The empirical evidence is based on extensive utilization of the dataset introduced in Didenko, Földvári, and Van Leeuwen (2013). Our findings provide support for the view expressed in Gerschenkron (1962) that in late industrializers the government tended to substitute for the lack of capital and infrastructure by direct interventions. At least from the late nineteenth century the central government's and local authorities' budgets played the primary role. However, the role of nongovernment sources increased significantly since the mid-1950s, i.e., after the crucial breakthrough to an industrial society had been made. During the transition to a market economy in the 1990s and 2000s the level of government contributions decreased somewhat in education, and more significantly in research and development, but its share in overall financing expanded. In education corporate funds were largely replaced by those from households. In health care, Russia is characterized by an increasing share of out-of-pocket payments of households and slow development of organized forms of nonstate financing. These trends reinforce obstacles to Russia's future transition, as regards institutional change toward a more significant and sound role of the corporate sector in such branches as R&D, health care, and, to a lesser extent, education.

Highlights the available information on the food industry, which shows that it is gaining in importance in Eastern Europe and the USSR. The importance of food manufacturing is compared with its importance in the United Kingdom. International trade in agricultural and food products, and British trade with Eastern Europe and the USSR, are discussed. It is concluded that there will have to be further rapid development of the food manufacturing industry, providing opportunities for British investment. There will also be opportunities for British industry to export high quality food products as demand increases.

BOOKS are among the greatest and most wonderful achievements of human genius, they are also a powerful means of struggle for progress. The book accompanies man all his life; it is a creation of his brain and soul. It reflects the life of mankind and is the result of collective efforts of author and publisher, type‐setter and illustrator. But foremost a book is always and everywhere a social and political phenomenon. One of the most apt evaluations of the book was given by V. I. Lenin in 1917, when he was known to state to A. V. Lunacharsky, “The book is a great force indeed”.

Attempts to discover an internal logic in the high‐speed events taking place in the former Soviet Union. In addressing the problems of the country′s disintegration, examines the issue in its socioeconomic, political and territorial‐administrative aspects. Analyses, for this purpose, the nature of Soviet society prior to Gorbachev′s reforms, its present transitional stage and its probable direction in the near future.

This article examines why Soviet industrial, and especially engineering products are not, as a rule, internationally competitive, although the USSR, for nearly half a century now, ranks second in world industrial and engineering output. It is ascertained that the low competitiveness is due to the low quality and technological level of the products and is a result of hasty industrialisation and the lack of a creative scientific and enterprising climate, which prevents the country from utilising efficiently its enormous potential.

Discusses the conditions experienced by women in the former USSR who are aspiring to or are currently occupying managerial positions. Soviet women feel the pressure of two societal forces: they are expected to work as well as to be the primary person responsible for home and family. Many complain: “We have too much equality”. Previews the statistics on women in the labour force in the former USSR, and examines seven factors affecting Soviet women′s access to managerial positions: (1) the perception of management as a masculine domain, (2) cultural constraints on women′s roles, (3) women′s roles in family life, (4) the stage of the country′s economic development, (5) social policy, (6) access to higher education and (7) organizational context. Concludes with an assessment of the prospects for Soviet women in managerial positions.

Begins from the premiss that job satisfaction among caring professionals is important not only for its own sake, but also for its effect on service outcomes. Presents empirical results, from four very different countries, which suggest that management‐influenced variables can help to ameliorate job dissatisfaction arising from factors such as resource constraints. Develops the thesis that cross‐cultural comparisons are a valid instrument for assessing the effect of management efforts which contribute to psychiatric satisfaction and feelings of autonomy. Establishes the need for more cross‐national investigation of the relationship of management to worker job satisfaction.

The main purpose of the chapter is to analyze social research data on divorce in the USSR and Russia. The main method is literature review of statistic data on divorce since WWII and the results of representative opinion polls and local surveys, including author’s data.

The central conclusion is that methodological level, theoretical basis and continuity in empirical divorce research has been lacking in the last 25 years in the USSR and Russia (it concerns research techniques never piloted before; lack of clear definition and operationalization of variables when studying different aspects of divorce, etc.).

The chapter offers original research framework of divorce analysis – socially maladaptive family. It is includes external contexts of family functioning (changing legal norms concerning divorce and public opinion on it) and three aspects of “reproduction of human being” in family (material means for living; quantitative reproduction of the population, including birthrate; and qualitative reproduction of the population, including personal characteristics of family members and relationships between them).

Acquaintance with the content of the chapter will be useful for researchers of the family (especially who are interested the problems of divorce and quality of marriage) as foreign as Russian.

This chapter provides a presentation about Chapter 1 of The Balance of the National Economy, 1923–24, edited by Pavel Illich Popov. The Balance was issued in June 1926 by the Central Statistical Administration (CSU or TsSU) of the USSR, which Popov had headed from July 1918 to January 1926. In the first part of our chapter, we show how Popov’s work on the balance of the national economy was rooted in the specific scientific and political culture of zemstvo statisticians inherited from the Tsar. Statistical inquiry was considered an objective scientific process based on international standards. Furthermore, like zemstvo statisticians, CSU statisticians developed great autonomous political power. The balance of the national economy was built according to these principles, which met harsh criticism from revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. In the second part, we analyze the contents of Popov’s Chapter 1, especially the theoretical foundations of the balance and its connection with Soviet planning. In the third part, we discuss the balance’s significance in the years 1926–1929, years which ended the NEP and launched the first Five-Year Plan, so as to understand how CSU’s balance didn’t become a standard Soviet statistical instrument and was discarded as a “bourgeois” device.

Presents a history of logistical planning in the USSR and Russia from 1920‐1992. Describes in detail the functions of the centralized distribution system created in the course of Brezhnev‐Kosygin reforms (1965) and dismantled in 1991; a chronology of changes in distribution of producer goods in 1991‐1992 and explains why the newest are less effective than the dismantled distribution systems. Analyses some of the most important aspects of the Federal purchasing system which is being created in Russia (since October 1992). The core of this system will be two joint‐stock purchasing companies (Roskontrakt and Roskhlebo‐produkt) established as state‐owned agencies. The Concise Dictionary of Business Logistics (out of print in Moscow in 1994) is presented – the first Russian‐language logistical glossary, in which 1,000 terms are defined.