Barynkin, A. V. EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTS ABOUT THE ECONOMIC WAR ON THE EVE OF WWI AND AFTER ITS END. Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2024;46(8):39–44. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2024.1108


Historiography, source studies, methods of historical research

EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTS ABOUT THE ECONOMIC WAR ON THE EVE OF WWI AND AFTER ITS END

Barynkin
A. V. 		Saint Petersburg State University
Keywords:
World War I
economic war
naval blockade
neutral countries		 Summary: The history of studying the First World War spans over a hundred years. Traditionally, authors have focused primarily on diplomatic, military-strategic, and operational issues. However, issues related to economic warfare, which were already evident in expert literature in the early years of the confrontation between military-political blocs, have long been on the periphery of researchers’ attention. In the 1920s and 1930s, legal scholars, historians, economists, and military personnel were interested in the relationship between the economic potentials of the parties, the efforts of the war participants to reorganize the national economy and adapt it to the needs of wartime. This trend was characteristic of both domestic and British and American expert literature. This article aims to examine the development of ideas about economic warfare, differences in assessments of its effectiveness, legality, consequences, the concept itself, and the appropriateness of this dimension of confrontation within the framework of domestic and English-language literature. Observations made during the study of works from the late 19th to the fi rst third of the 20th century suggest signifi cant differences in interpretations of the concept and practices of economic warfare. A distinctive feature of English-language authors was their exceptional interest in maritime trade in wartime conditions and the effectiveness of the blockade of Germany. In British literature, an unspoken consensus was formed that the economic front of the war was no less important than the military fronts. It was typical for American experts to assess the United States as the injured party, which did not cancel the perception of itself as the only defender of a fair world order and the rights of neutral countries already in 1915. Domestic literature at the beginning of the 20th century and in the fi rst years of the war relied primarily on the economic potential of Russia. However, already in the 1920s and 1930s, due to the works of a new galaxy of experts, the high signifi cance of economic warfare was demonstrated, defi nitions were given, and methods and objects of this kind of confrontation were established. The risks caused by the latter and the need to make strategic decisions in the sphere of the national economy associated with the possible threat of a naval blockade of the Soviet state on the eve of a new inevitable clash were also described.



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