Stalin's Quest for Gold

Osokina's narrative is a deeply researched, engagingly written institutional history of Torgsin, with crucial macro-economic calculations and statistics, as well as insightful details about Soviet life in the 1930s.

~HISTORY: Reviews of New Books

A fascinating book to read. All of its richly researched topics, from relations between Torgsin and the state security apparatus to interior design offer intriguing insights into the relationship between plan and market, state and society, practice and ideology. Elena Osokina is an eloquent storyteller and a thoughtful commentator, expertly mediating between individual stories and larger historical—and historiographic—questions. [Reviewing the Russian edition.]

~Slavic Review

Elena Osokina's analysis of a key Soviet business affords a fascinating angle on diverse aspects of Soviet life. Soviet historians have traditionally focused on collectivization as the regime's solution to the urgent need for hard currency but Osokina draws attention to Torgsin as a still more important source and emphasizes the extent to which famine was the engine of the company's growth. A richly rewarding book. [Reviewing the Russian edition.]

~Kritika

Elena Osokina's book is unique in its genre. It sheds new light on the history of the Soviet economy and the industrialization of the USSR.

~Franz Steiner Verlag Journals

Osokina explored several archives and a large literature in order to reconstruct the history of this un-Bolshevik understanding in the workers paradise. Her book is all the more valuable since it provides a glimpse into the social practices, which appeared in the shadow of the Torgsin.

~Recensio.net