Money in Socialism: Policies, Practices, and Experiences, 1945-1991

• Applicant: Dr. Gunnar Take
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 573559926

Money is a complex, fluid institution. Although difficult to control by centralized authorities, it has proven to be a powerful tool for mediating social relations within a wide range of modern societies. Marxist political thought had initially aimed at overcoming money as one of capitalisms most prominent representations. In government, however, socialist regimes soon realised that its positive practical effects far outweighed potential ideological objections. Hence, money and credit served many functions in socialist societies, ultimately aimed at stabilizing economic production and distribution and strengthening social cohesion. For decades only sporadically subject to historical research, we now observe a number of qualitatively significant studies on monetary practices, socialist consumer cultures, and on intermediary organizations and institutions between the socialist governments and the population such as banks. This research provides intricate insights, but also faces many challenges, particularly with regards to methodology and scope. The majority of the authors – including us two applicants – has focussed on single national frames without substantial comparative perspectives. We want to overcome such shortcomings by assembling colleagues from different disciplines with a range of methodological and language skills to work on inclusive approaches. After discovering that sporadic bilateral cooperation and one-off conferences are no sufficient solutions, we would like to establish an interdisciplinary network which brings our insights together and combines methodological approaches. Through the lens of money, we explore the interplay between society, economy, and politics in socialist states. We analyse different practices on macro-, meso- and micro-scales, touching on topics such as the (re-)monetization of economies and societies after 1945, lending and building trust and saving and hoarding. The 13 network members will primarily consist of early postdocs who will form pairs and jointly develop their approaches and arguments over the course of three years while gaining substantial feedback from the others at two conferences as well as remotely at defined stages. As a first tangible output, we will elaborate a document reader for the platform osmikon. In a second step, we will present our research in a joint volume with six articles and explore opportunities for further collaboration.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Stephan Rindlisbacher