Leonid Ivanovich Abalkin: an Economist of the Epoch of Perestroika, And Not Only That

In this joint article, a professor and a master’s candidate of the Faculty of Economics
of the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University trace the biography of the outstanding
representative of Soviet and Russian economic science, Academician Leonid Ivanovich
Abalkin. The authors attempt to define the stages in Abalkin’s scientific creativity and
ideological evolution, distinguishing four such stages in all. The most important of these
was the period that saw him working for the government of the USSR, when he was
engaged in developing his concept of economic reform – a concept that centred on a
“gradualist” transition from a planned to a regulated market economy. As part of the
objectives of their study of this final stage, the authors analyse the concepts that Abalkin
advanced of Russia’s “national interests”, and of the “Russian economic school”. At the
end of the article, the authors formulate their own view of Abalkin’s “social ideal” (longterm
benchmark) during the culminating stage of his creative activity.