Introduction

Abstract

The genesis of capitalism, a theme embracing the social, economic, and political transformation of feudal society, an "old society pregnant with a new one" (1), is a central problem in Marxist scholarship. In the study of Russian history by Soviet historians this concept has served as a framework for research on the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, the Marxist theory of the transition is only a very general guide to current research, for the moments of the transformation are open to competing interpretations. Primitive capital accumulation, differentiation of the peasantry, and change in the mode of production are evaluated in various ways and variously dated by different historians. The diversity of opinion has centered especially on the chronological issue — whether capitalism first appeared in the eighteenth century, the seventeenth century, or even earlier (2) — which in turn affects a range of related issues, for example the interpretation of peasant revolts. (3) Thus, to follow Soviet research on the genesis of capitalism is to observe the formation of autonomous schools of thought, each with its own literature.