Putting privately owned Russian pharmacies and pharmaceutical factories under state control in 1918/1919 did not improve the output and the distribution of soaps, disinfectants, hormones, vitamins, and medicines. Newly available archival records show that managers appointed by the Soviet government to run sequestered factories employed business methods common to market economies to make the Soviet pharmaceutical sector profitable and productive. However, an inefficient macroeconomy and interference in day-to-day policy-making in the core industry by exogenous officials (frequent reorganization, limits on imports, and excessive exports) hindered production; this plus inefficient distribution shorted consumers. Inadequate amounts of pharmaceuticals undoubtedly contributed to high mortality during the civil war (1917-1921), collectivization and industrialization (1927-1938), and World War II (1939-1945).

The Author: Mary Schaeffer Conroy received her B.A. in history and humanities from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, her M.A. in history from the Russian & East European Institute at Indiana University, and her Ph.D. in history from Indiana University. Currently Full Professor in the History Department at the University of Colorado at Denver, Conroy is the author of Peter Arkad’evich Stolypin: Practical Politics in Late Tsarist Russia and In Health and In Sickness: Pharmacy, Pharmacists and the Pharmaceutical Industry in Late Imperial, Early Soviet Russia, for which she received the George Urdang Medal in 1998. The editor of Emerging Democracy in Late Imperial Russia, Conroy has contributed chapters to compilations and articles to Soviet Studies/Europe Asia Studies, Pharmacy in History, and other journals.