Socialist Accumulation
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Primitive socialist accumulation, sometimes referred to as the socialist accumulation, was a concept put forth in the early
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
during the period of the
New Economic Policy The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...
. It was developed as a counterpart to the process of the
primitive accumulation of capital In Marxian economics and preceding theories,Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2) the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, prior accumulation, or original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital and therefore ...
that took place during the early stages and development of capitalist economies. Because the
Soviet economy The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy ...
was underdeveloped and largely agrarian in nature, the Soviet Union would have to be the agent of primitive capital accumulation to rapidly develop the economy. The concept was proposed originally as a means to industrialize the
Russian economy The economy of Russia is an Developing country, emerging and developing, World Bank high-income economy, high-income, industrialized, mixed economy, mixed Market economy, market-oriented economy. —Rosefielde, Steven, and Natalia Vennikova. " ...
through extracting surplus from the peasantry to finance the industrial sector.


History

The major proponent and main theorist of the concept was
Yevgeni Preobrazhensky Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky ( rus, Евге́ний Алексе́евич Преображе́нский, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ prʲɪəbrɐˈʐɛnskʲɪj; – 13 February 1937) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet ...
, a Soviet economist. His 1921 lectures, ''From N.E.P. to Socialism'' and 1924 lectures ''The Fundamental Law of Socialist Accumulation'' provided the skeletal framework for what he would expand on in his 1926 work ''The New Economics.'' The concept was initially developed during Preobrazhensky's interaction with and analysis of the
New Economic Policy The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...
. Its main principle is that the state sector of economy of the transitional period has to appropriate the
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
's
surplus product Surplus product () is a concept theorised by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. Roughly speaking, it is the extra goods produced above the amount needed for a community of workers to survive at its current standard of living. Marx f ...
to accumulate resources necessary for the growth of the
industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...
. Preobrazhensky describes this process as "the exploitation of one system by the other." The goal of primitive socialist accumulation was for the state to eventually "achieve the level of present-day capitalist technique", to make possible the changing of the technical basis of the state economy, and "to organize labor scientifically." Preobrazhensky aligned himself with the Left Opposition after his signage of the Declaration of the 46, and the theory of primitive socialist accumulation became the main economic platform of the Left Opposition; with Preobrazhensky becoming their foremost political theorist. His theory would come under fire from other Soviet economists at the time such as Bukharin. While some have argued that Stalin would eventually implement primitive socialist accumulation as the economic policy of the USSR,
Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel (; 5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter, was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...
, Marxist economist, challenged the view that Stalin implemented the policies of Trotsky with the same methods as he stated "Stalin is said to have put Trotsky's programme into practice, even if with a brutality Trotsky himself would not have approved". He further elaborated that the economic programme advocated by Trotsky and the
Left Opposition The Left Opposition () was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed '' de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within th ...
"undoubtedly underwent many changes in the period 1923-35". Mandel also argued that the policies of the Left Opposition are distinguishable from the proposals of the United Opposition of 1926-7 and the alternative strategies developed by Trotsky in his later works such as " The Revolution Betrayed (1936) and " The Transitional Programme (1938)". It should also be noted that there was a fundamental difference between the forced industrialization practiced under Stalin and the theory as supported by Trotsky and Preobrazhensky. For example, both did not believe in the use of coercion, and did not believe in the utilization of forced expropriation or collectivization.


See also

*
Primitive accumulation of capital In Marxian economics and preceding theories,Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2) the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, prior accumulation, or original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital and therefore ...
*
Capital accumulation Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form ...
*
Capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
*
Economy of the Soviet Union The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and Industrial engineering, industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a Soviet-type economic planning, dis ...
*
Scissors Crisis The Scissors Crisis () was an incident in 1923 in the economy of the Soviet Union during the New Economic Policy (NEP), when there was a widening gap ("price scissors") between industrial and agricultural prices. The term is now used to describe ...


References


Bibliography

* {{cite book , last1=Mandel , first1=Ernest , title=Trotsky as alternative , date=1995 , publisher=
Verso Books Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review'' (NLR) and includes Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson on its board of directors. According to its webs ...
, location=London , isbn=978-1859840856 Socialism Economy of the Soviet Union