Maria Smith-Falkner
Encyclopedia
Maria Natanovna Smith-Falkner (born February 16, [February 4, Old Style] 1878, in Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 – died March 7, 1968, in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

) was a Soviet economist and statistician of Jewish origin, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1939 onwards. She was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having joined the Bolsheviks in 1918.

Biography

  • 1901-05 - studied at the faculty of economics of the University of London
    University of London
    -20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

    .
  • 1918-19 – chief of the department of economic research at VSNH (All-Russian Council of National Economy). Member of the Coil Section of the VSNH.
  • 1919 – served in the Red Army
    Red Army
    The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

     in the Southern Front in the course of the Russian Civil War
    Russian Civil War
    The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

    .
  • Since 1921 – taught at universities and colleges in Moscow (the Moscow State University
    Moscow State University
    Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

    , the Georgi Plekhanov
    Georgi Plekhanov
    Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where...

     Moscow Institute of National Economy, the Oil Institute and others).
  • 1925 – earned her doctorate in economics.
  • 1921 – 1924 – professor at the faculty of social studies of Moscow State University
  • 1924 – 1930 – professor at Moscow Institute of National Economy after Plekhanov.
  • 1925 – 1934 - full member scholar at the Communist Academy of the Central Executive Committee. (Moscow).
  • 1926 – 1930 – member of Board of the Central Statistics Administration of the USSR.
  • 1930 – 1934 – professor at the International Lenin School
    International Lenin School
    Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...

    .
  • 1934 – 1936 – professor at the Economic Research Institute attached to the Gosplan
    Gosplan
    Gosplan or State Planning Committee was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu...

     (the State Planning Committee).
  • 1937 – editor of the State Socio-Economic Publishing House.
  • 1938 – 1941 – professor at Moscow Economic Planning Institute.
  • 1941 – 1944 – senior staff scientist at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of USSR.
  • 1944 – 1946 – senior staff scientist at the Institute of Foreign Trade.
  • 1948 – 1955 – team manager at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Scientific Interests

Smith-Falkner's research was focused on the issues of political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

 of capitalism and socialism, statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, etc. Her scientific interests were: economics of capitalism and socialism, statistics theory, the status of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 in the Western countries, etc. She conducted her research at the Institute of Economic Studies attached to the Gosplan (the State Planning Committee) and the Economic Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Maria Smith-Falkner edited the works by David Ricardo
David Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...

 and Sir William Petty
William Petty
Sir William Petty FRS was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers...

 to be published in the Soviet Union.

Major works

  • Prodovolstvennyi vopros v Anglii (The Food Question in England). St. Petersburg, 1917. The book was marked by Vladimir Lenin
    Vladimir Lenin
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

     in the Book Chroncle (Knizhnaya letopis) journal.
  • Klassovaia borba v sovremennoi Anglii (Class Struggle in Modern Great Britain), Moscow, 1922.
  • Dinamika krizisov i polozhenie proletariata (The Moving Sources and Trends of Crises and the Status of Proletariat), Moscow, 1927.
  • Teoriia i praktika sovetskoi statistiki (The Theory and Practice of the Soviet Statistics) (Collected articles), Moscow, 1930.
  • Polozhenie rabochego klassa kapitalisicheskikh stran v svete teorii obnishchaniia Karla Marksa (The Status of the Working Class in the Capitalist Countries in the Light of Karl Marx's Pauperization Theory). Moscow, 1933.
  • Polozhenie rabochego klassa v SShA,Anglii i Frantsii posle vtoroi mirovoi voiny. (The Status of the Working Class in the USA, Great Britain and France after the WWII). Moscow, 1953.
  • Ocherki istorii burzhuaznoi politicheskoi ekonomii( The Studies on the History of the Bourgeois Political Economy. Mid. XIX c. – Mid.XX c.). Moscow., 1961.

Awards and prizes

Maria Smith-Falkner was awarded the Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...

, another order and a medal.
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