Bread, Sweat, and Tears? The Ascendance of Capitalist Accumulation Strategies in the Russian Republic of Karelia, 2001--2002

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of small business entrepreneurship and developing capitalism in the Russian Republic of Karelia. The entrepreneurial-minded individuals at the heart of my research began organizing labor and production in the mid 1990's to create businesses that are now thriving within a spirit of capitalism that is emerging locally as a part of their efforts. Their energy and imagination unite Western-inspired ideas with Soviet-era structural continuities to accumulate capital at impressive rates. I examine the inner workings of their enterprises and the business networks within which they operate, focusing both on labor control and on how the entrepreneurs effectively socialize and retain workforces that can withstand the demands of a new market economy. This dissertation is based upon 15 months of field work in 2001-2002, which included months of participant-observation as a production worker in commercial cake and bread bakeries and also extended interactions with entrepreneurs and their managers.