Pollock’s Soviet field study produced cautious, politically evasive analysis

Evidence

Through Ryazanov’s friendship, Pollock was able to speak with members of the dwindling opposition within the Bolshevik Party during his trip, in addition to his actual field studies of Soviet planning. The impressions he brought back to Frankfurt after several months were thus not entirely favorable. His book carefully avoided commenting on the political consequences of the Revolution and the forced collectivizations of the 1920’S. On the central question he treated - the transition from a market to a planned economy - Pollock was less the enthusiastic supporter than the detached and prudent analyst unwilling to pass judgments prematurely. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 133

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how political conditions constrain scholarly candor — Ryazanov’s access bought Pollock’s silence on collectivization. A case study in the economics of diplomatic access.
• XREF: connects to: Pollock’s labeling of the Soviet economy as socialist depended on Bolshevik self-descriptions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 242; Pollock’s Soviet study aimed to prove planned socialist economy possible