The Soviet Accounting Bulletin was published at a rate of four ‘numbers’ per year for eleven ‘volumes’, from 1973 to 1983, jointly by the Department of Accounting and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, at the University of Birmingham, England. It was the brainchild of, and largely the work of, Derek Bailey, who provided translation of, and commentary on, original material from Soviet publications, notably the journal Bukhgalterskii Uchet.

Interest in, and informed knowledge of, the accounting function behind the “Iron Curtain” were in short supply for many decades. Derek, whilst apparently not unsympathetic to the ethos of the Soviet environment, was a true academic – independent, critical, historically-based and interested in the esoteric as well as the mainstream. Inevitably, over forty four editions plus a couple of independent essays from 1973, the material ranges widely and sometimes unpredictably. Coverage became broader towards the end, the title changing in 1981 to “Soviet and East European accounting Bulletin”. Odd articles on, for example, accounting in Syria, and on accounting in USA as seen through Soviet eyes, come and go.