This study examines the critical period of the first two Soviet Five-Year Plans, during which agriculture was collectivized, the economy subordinated to central state planning, the Stalin political regime consolidated and a new social structure created. For the first time in Soviet history collective farmers were permitted to retain a personal household plot and their own animals, and a free market continued alongside state planning. Important features of this system remain a part of the Soviet economic system today, and are therefore of interest to those studying its evolution. The focus of this book is the relation between economic policy, economic and political institutions and the economic and social environment. R.W.Davies has written The Development of the Soviet Budgetary System, The Socialist Offensive and The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929-1930. He has collaborated with E.H.Carr on two volumes of A History of Soviet Russia.