The Secret Leviathan: Soviet Communism: Secrecy and State Power

The Soviet regime was one of the most closed in modern history, its potential defined by the power of the party elite and the special services, censorship, and conspiracy that permeated all spheres of public life. Noting these features, contemporary historiography often sidesteps the question of what the price of total control was for the state as a whole. M. Harrison's book is the first comprehensive analytical and multifaceted history of Soviet secrecy, shedding light on its dual nature. While providing comprehensive control over productive and human capital, it simultaneously increased transaction costs, provoked managerial indecisiveness, reduced work efficiency, undermined citizens' trust in institutions and each other, and nurtured an uninformed elite. How did autocrats seek a balance between secrecy and efficiency, and was it even possible?

The author seeks answers to these questions by analyzing an extensive array of data to understand how historically changing regimes of secrecy influenced the economic potential of the Soviet state from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the USSR in 1991.