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 engineering, industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a Soviet-type economic planning, distinc ...

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

dekulakization Dekulakization (russian: раскулачивание, ''raskulachivanie''; uk, розкуркулення, ''rozkurkulennia'') was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulak ...

introduced by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

Biography

In 1905 Krirtzman joined the

Menshevik The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

wing of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

. He was expelled from the

University of Odessa Odesa I. I. Mechnykov National University ( uk, Одеський національний університет Iмені І. І. Мечникова, translit=Odeskyi natsionalnyi universytet imeni I. I. Mechnykova), located in Odesa, Ukraine, i ...

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

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

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 The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( rus, Госплан, , ɡosˈpɫan), was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of ...

and the

Central Statistical Directorate The Central Statistical Administration (or Board or Directorate) (russian: Центральное Статистическое Управление), abbreviated TsSU (russian: ЦСУ), was the main statistical organization of the former Soviet U ...

. 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 Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...

'' and a member of the

Communist Academy The Communist Academy (Russian: Коммунистическая академия, transliterated ''Kommunisticheskaya akademiya'') was a higher educational establishment and research institute based in Moscow. It included scientific institutes of ...

. He also taught at the

Institute of Red Professors An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

Sverdlov Communist University The Sverdlov Communist University (Russian: Коммунистический университет имени Я. М. Свердлова) was a school for Soviet activists in Moscow, founded in 1918 as the Central School for Soviet and Party Work. ...

and the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

. 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; ) 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 ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

and was 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 Alexander V. Chayanov (russian: Александр Васильевич Чаянов; 17 January 1888 – 3 October 1937) was a Russian, then Soviet agrarian economist, scholar of rural sociology, and advocate of agrarianism and cooperatives. ...

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. 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) (russian: Абра́м Моисе́евич Дебо́рин Ио́ффе; , Upyna, Kovno Governorate – 8 March 1963) was a Soviet Marxist philosopher and academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Uni ...

Gleb Krzhizhanovsky Gleb Maximilianovich Krzhizhanovsky (russian: Глеб Максимилианович Кржижановский; 24 January 1872 – 31 March 1959) was a Soviet scientist, statesman, revolutionary, Old Bolshevik, and state figure as well as a ge ...

and

Stanislav Strumilin Stanislav Gustavovich Strumilin (Strumillo-Petrashkevich) (russian: Станисла́в Гу́ставович Струми́лин (Струми́лло-Петрашке́вич); 29 January 1877, Dashkovtsy, Podolia Governorate – 25 January ...

. He was buried at the

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery ( rus, Новоде́вичье кла́дбище, Novodevichye kladbishche) 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 ...

and his estate is kept in the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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