ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the system of values of the Soviet private entrepreneurs. It explores the aforementioned elements of the nepmen's system of values and compares them with the pre-Revolutionary Russian merchants' system of values. The state policy towards nepmen ranged between degrees of tolerance, but was usually characterised by hostility. The Soviet state needed nepmen to restore the destroyed economy, but at the same time it was frightened of nepmen as potential counterrevolutionaries. The formation of the nepmen as an independent social group was indissolubly linked with the emergence of their system of values. One of the main elements of this system was an aspiration to wealth. The political activity of nepmen was limited to declarations and never evolved into active forms of struggle against the Soviet regime. Nepmen brought a definite element of pragmatism into the too revolutionary for normal life consciousness of the Soviet people. This element of pragmatism made it closer to the reality.
