Capitalist Evolution and Soviet Evolution

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that a historical model of capitalist development is useful in the analysis of Soviet Socialist evolution.1 The procedure is to compare two periods of the Soviet experience with appropriate periods of Western capitalist experience. The Soviet industrialization period is compared to the emergence of capitalism in England and the post-Stalin Soviet period is compared with the emergence of mature or corporate capitalism. A final sec? tion draws some implications from this analysis. A word of explanation concerning periodization should help clarify for the reader the argument to be unfolded below. The comparison of the Soviet industrialization period is made to early capitalist England because that represents the classic example of capitalist industrializa? tion. Both the literature generally and Marx specifically use the par? ticulars of the English case to articulate theories of capitalist origin and evolution. More recently, however, the former colonies across the Atlantic have surpassed Britain and become the prototypical case of mature capitalism. The literature is now cast with the United States of America as the principal referent. In other words, for the original and mature periods of capitalist civilization first British and now American capitalism represent the cutting edge of history. It is therefore appropriate that the Soviet comparison be made in the first instance?that of industrialization?to Britain, and in the sec? ond instance?that of post-World War II modernization or contempo rization?to the U.S.A.