Red Plenty [Tapa blanda]

This is a novel of an economic concept, The Central Plan, set in the Soviet Union of the 50's and 60s. But it is a novel that uses semi-fictional characters to tell some real economic history. It is amusing and very readable, but it also comes with 50 page of explanatory notes and references, and with multi-page chapter introductions gently explaining Soviet dreams, hopes and economics.

It does an excellent job of explaining one of the central tragedies of the USSR, showing how an idealistic economic dream for making the world a better place foundered so dramatically. It seemed so obvious at the time: a planned economy, optimally coordinating all resources and production would clearly be so much more efficient than the chaos of capitalism. It would build a better, rosier world for everyone. Except...

Spufford uses fluid fictional scenes to gently tease out the hopes and contradictions of the period. We see the initial genuine utopian fervor that centralized planning is the Right Answer; then the defensive cunning of plant managers in manipulating the system; the hopeful attempts at mathematical optimizations; the desire to have some kind of pricing mechanism to drive rational decision making; the fear of the authorities of the social unrest caused by price swings; the slow drift from Khrushchev's brash wild optimism and even wilder plans, to the slow acceptance of defeat and stagnation under Brezhnev.

Spufford writes well and is often very amusing as he explores the foibles and hypocrisies of Soviet life. Yes, the central thread is all about economics, but fear not, it is cleverly told, with short vivid episodes exploring Soviet life as well as gently exposing the dreams and tragedies as idealized economics encounters the real world. For example, a wonderful triplet of short scenes exhibits the sly maneuvers of one factory's management to meet their assigned production goals. This starts with the slow revelation that they have sabotaged one of their own giant machines so that they will be allowed to upgrade it, and ends with their woeful discovery that they must replace it "as is" because the new upgraded machine would be cheaper. Cheaper? Yes, we learn how that can be a fatal barrier in a planned economy.

Overall this is a very enjoyable work, both as a novel, and as an insightful exploration of a failed utopian vision.

This review pertains to the hardback book which is not available from Amazon.

It never occurred to me, even into adulthood, that I would ever see the collapse of the Soviet Union in my lifetime. That it happened so quickly was a shock. How this happened has piqued my curiosity for twenty years. It is common knowledge today that the collapse of the Soviet economy was hugely instrumental in the collapse of that system but, knowing that and understanding how and why had not been clear to me. At university, economics was reputed to have the ability to anesthetize whole classrooms. But, with Francis Spufford's "Red Plenty", there is definitely no threat of anesthesia. Economics never bogs the reader down. Spufford's technique of combining fiction with some very intricate history and economics brings the subject alive to the extent that I could hardly put the book down. Who or what is killing the Soviet economy? How is it happening? The ways people and industries cope with the flawed economic system and the effort to try to build a new one are never contrived or unbelievable and always informative. The people, both fictional and real, are both sympathetic and believable. The book revolves around the effort to build a central planning system that would reputedly rival the economies of the west without resorting to capitalism. The inherent flaws in the Soviet model and the human foibles that continuously undermine the old economy and the new effort is just fascinating. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year. Highly recommended.

Red Plenty may be one of those fictional works that do a great job of telling us the truth. I just don't know, however, because it is fiction. Francis Spufford does a great job presenting a believable window into the minds of "typical" Russians in the fifties and sixties, and explaining both the flaws of the Russian economic model, and the effects those flaws had on the economy and its participants.

I get nervous, however, when authors present economic ideas in a work of fiction, however because the set piece explanations lead to easy generalizations and ignore the painful details required by economic choice. If Spufford is writing fairly as a result of his economic and social research, I am very impressed, with his economic and social insight. If he is spinning like Ayn Rand to support some political goal, I would like a little notice.

In the end, I recommend the book, but don't know if the economic story it tells is as accurate as Spufford makes it seem. Because the economic story is the heart of the book, my three star rating is based on that uncertainty, because the book is not about the characters and their situations, rather the characters and their situations are used to tell an economic tale.

As an aside, toward the end of the book is a simply brilliant explanation of the biological process that leads to lung cancer. While that description does little to advance the story, that description is worth reading for itself and should be in every high school biology book.

I will await Spufford's next work with eagerness and as he establishes a track record and as I get a better idea where he is coming from, I hope my recommendation of Red Plenty will rise.