Simon Pirani

Academic research, investigations, reportage and commentary

Academic research

My academic interests include the recent economic and political changes in the former Soviet Union, and Russian labour history in the post-revolutionary period.

From mid 2007 I am working as a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

My publications on energy markets in the former USSR include:

Editor, Russian and CIS Gas Markets and Their Impact on Europe (forthcoming in January 2009 from Oxford University Press).

Ukraine’s Gas Sector (PDF) (Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2007).

My publications on Soviet history include:

The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24: Soviet Workers and the New Communist Elite (Routledge, 2008).

*** For more information on this book, and related research, visit www.revolutioninretreat.com ***

Editor, jointly with Donald Filtzer, Wendy Goldman and Gijs Kessler, of A Dream Deferred: New Studies in Russian and Soviet Labour History (forthcoming in 2009 from Peter Lang).

I also participate in the International Business & Finance Research Group at Strathclyde University. For more information please email me at smpirani@hotmail.com.

Other academic publications:

The party elite, the industrial managers and the cells: early stages in the formation of the Soviet ruling class in Moscow, 1922-23, Revolutionary Russia, vol. 19, no. 2, December 2006

The party elite, industrial managers, specialists and workers, 1922-23. Paper for the Study Group on the Russian revolution conference, January 2006 (PDF file)

Were there alternatives? Movements from below in the Scottish coalfield, the Communist Party, and Thatcherism, 1981-1985 (with Terry Brotherstone, University of Aberdeen) - Critique No.36 (2005)

Mass mobilisation versus mass participation: the Bolsheviks and the Moscow workers 1921-22. Paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavonic Studies convention, December 2004 (PDF file)

The Moscow Workers' Movement in 1921 and the Role of Non-Partyism - Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56 no.1 (2004)

Class Clashes With Party: Politics in Moscow between the Civil War and the New Economic Policy - Historical Materialism, Vol. 11, issue 2 (2003)

"State Patriotism" in Gennady Zyuganov's Politics and Ideology - Slovo, Vol. 10, no. 1/2 (1998)

Review of Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime 1919-1924 - Revolutionary History Vol. 5 No. 4 (1994)

Investigations

I undertake investigations for business clients, NGOs and others. Examples include:

Investigation into the death of the Ukrainian journalist Gyorgy Gongadze. As a member of the investigation commission set up jointly by the International Federation of Journalists, National Union of Journalists of the UK and Ireland, the Gongadze Foundation and the Institute of Mass Information (Kiev), I have authored or co-authored three reports that you can download here: no.1 (January 2005), no.2 (September 2005, PDF file) and no. 3 (September 2007).

Shell in Nigeria – oil and gas reserves crisis and political risks: shared concerns for investors and producer-communities. A briefing to Shell shareholders, June 2004. Read about it HERE or download it HERE.

Behind the mask of corporate social responsibility: Shell in Nigeria – Christian Aid report, January 2004. I contributed the case study on Shell in Nigeria to this report, aimed at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Click HERE to download the report (PDF).