Moscow Institute of the National Economy

(full name, G. V. Plekhanov Moscow Institute of the National Economy), the oldest and largest institution of higher learning in the field of economics in the USSR.

Founded in 1907 as the Moscow Commercial Institute and known from 1919 to 1924 as the K. Marx Institute of the National Economy, the institute has had its present name since 1924. In 1919 the country’s first workers’ school was opened at the institute. During the 1930’s, institutions of higher education dealing with power engineering, trading cooperatives, and planning (later, economics) were established in Moscow out of departments of the institute; the Far Eastern Institute of Soviet Trade in Vladivostok was similarly formed. The development of schools of economic thought within the institute is linked with the names of such scholars as V. R. Vil’iams, D. M. Genkin, Ia. Ia. Nikitskii, P. P. Petrov, and F. V. Tserevitinov.

In 1973 the institute had departments of general economics, industrial economics, economics and planning of material and technical supply, economic cybernetics, trade and commerce, finance, industrial commodities, foodstuffs, technology, and mechanics. Correspondence courses were also offered, as were programs for advanced training of faculty members at other institutions of higher learning and technicians and for leading officials attached to Gosplan (the State Planning Committee), Gossnab (the State Committee for Material and Technical Supply), and the Ministry of Trade of the USSR. The institute also featured a preparatory division for prospective students, 44 sub-departments, two sectorial laboratories, a research division, and a library of about 1 million volumes.

During the 1972–73 academic year, the institute had approximately 14, 500 students; the faculty of 750 included 63 professors and doctors of sciences and more than 400 docents and candidates of sciences. The institute has been granted the right to confer doctoral and candidate’s degrees. Scholarly proceedings have been published since 1947; joint publications with republic-level institutions of higher education have appeared since 1972. During its existence the institute has trained more than 42, 000 specialists. The institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1957.