Lev Natanovich Kritzman (Russian: Лев Натанович Крицман; 16 June 1890 – 17 June 1938) was a Soviet Marxian

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

who became a prominent advocate of state planning in the 1920s

Soviet economy The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy ...

. After 1929, his views on agricultural reform were aligned with mass collectivisation and

dekulakization Dekulakization (; ) was the Soviet campaign of Political repression in the Soviet Union#Collectivization, political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of supposed kulaks (prosperous peasants) and their familie ...

introduced by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

Biography

In 1905 Krirtzman joined the

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

wing of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

. He was expelled from the

University of Odessa The Odesa I.I.Mechnykov National University (), often referred to as Odesa National University ( ONU, ), located in Odessa, Odesa, Ukraine, is one of that country's major Public university, state-sponsored universities, named after the scientis ...

in 1910, but continued his education in exile. He graduated from the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

and received a doctorate in philosophy. He returned to Russia in after the October Revolution 1918 and joined the Russian Communist Party (b). Kritzman worked the state economy and was a member of the board of the State Planning Committee and the Central Statistical Directorate. Kritzman was a member of the editorial board of ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

'' and a member of the Communist Academy. He also taught at the Institute of Red Professors, Sverdlov Communist University and the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

. From 1926 to 1929 he was executive editor of the journal ''On the Agrarian Front'' and a member of the editorial board of the journal '' Problems of Economy'' as well as a member of the editorial board of the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

''. He was also the editor of the ''Economic Encyclopedia''. Kritzman wrote many books and polemics and socialist construction as well as criticisms of non-Marxist political economy. He staunchly opposed the theory of Alexander Chayanov and the family labor school. He fought for the justification of the three-tier scheme of differentiation of the peasantry (poor peasant -middle peasant - kulak), which became one of the foundations of the

policy in 1929–1933. Hardly any information is available about Krizman's last years, which apparently were largely spent on private studies. In Soviet and Russian publications, it is usually noted that he succumbed to kidney disease in June 1938. On the other hand, some recent publications from English speaking sources claim that Krizman fell victim to the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, however there isn't any evidence to support this. His death is sometimes dated to have happened in June 1937. An obituary in connection with his death was signed by Eugene Varga,

Abram Deborin Abram Moiseyevich Deborin (Ioffe) (; , Upyna, Kovno Governorate – 8 March 1963, Moscow) was a Soviet Marxism, Marxist philosopher and academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1929). Deborin oscillated between The Bolsheviks, Bo ...

, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky and Stanislav Strumilin. He was buried at the

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery () is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. History The cemetery was designed by Ivan Mashkov and inaugurated ...

and his estate is kept in the Archives of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kritzman, Lev Natanovich Marxian economists 1890 births 1938 deaths Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Mensheviks Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Soviet economists University of Zurich alumni Academic staff of Moscow State University Soviet people of Jewish descent Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Jewish socialists Odesa University alumni People from Odesa