ABSTRACT
Economic difficulties notwithstanding, the Association perceived Russia’s economic needs with remarkable clarity. To the historian who has undertaken the task, it is evident, moreover, that the Association, although consciously groping toward a definition of economic priorities, remained deeply enmeshed in the dilemmas of national economic backwardness. Pragmatists though they were, they unquestionably acted as harbingers of many of the elements of the Keynesian school of economic thought, which later gained ascendancy in the West. The scant attention that the Russian business class has thus far received from historians may, perhaps, be attributed to a general reluctance to engage in the often thankless labor of chronicling a lost cause. The scant attention that the Russian business class has thus far received from historians may, perhaps, be attributed to a general reluctance to engage in the often thankless labor of chronicling a lost cause.
