Soviet foreign economic relations are the attention-seeking yet neglected stepchild of Sovietological political economy. The demands are nagging: They require an understanding of the peculiar institutions, economics, and politics of both the Soviet Union and its trading partners. The return on this effort is sometimes meagre: What exactly did we learn that we did not know before? Combining broad sweep with close attention to the small but fascinating facts of history, and based on intensive labor in the former Soviet state and party archives, Sanchez-Sibony has overcome the difficulties of his theme to write an important book.
The message of Red Globalization is that in its orientation to the world economy, the Soviet Union was a more normal country than is evident from a Cold War perspective. Like others, Soviet leaders were well aware of the gains from trade and sought to realize them pragmatically. This course was not always...