Filtzer, Donald Arthur (1976) E.A. Preobrazhensky and the theory of expanded reproduction in the USSR during the period of primitive socialist accumulation.PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5064/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] E. A. PREOBRAZHENSKY AND THE THEORY OF EXPANDED REPRODUCTIu; ý IN THE USSR DURING THE PERIOD OF PRIMITIVE SOCIALIST ACCUMULATION Donald Arthur Filtzer Thesis Submitted for Degree Doctor Philosophy the of of Institute Soviet East European Studies of and University Glasgow of May 1976 CONTENTS Summary iv Preface 1 Introduction: Preobrazhensky's Marxism 15 Part I: Marx's Reproduction Schemes the Analysis and of Mixed Economy a Chapter 1: Circulation Simple Reproduction 83 and Chapter 2: Marx the Reproduction Fixed Capital 117 on of Appendix to Part I: The Reproduction II(v+s); of Necessities Luxuries 141 and Part II: Simple Expanded Reproduction Under Concrete and Capitalism Chapter 3: Simple Reproduction 151 Chapter 4: Expanded Reproduction Under Pure Capitalism 161 Appendix to Chapter 4: The Application Prices of of Production 186 Chapter 5: Expanded Reproduction Under Concrete Capitalism 193 Part III: The Expanded Reproduction Fixed Capital of Chapter 6: Reserves Under Expanded Reproduction 212 Chapter 7: The Accumulation Fixed Capital 241 of Chapter 8: Marx the Use the Amortization Fund 272 on of Chapter 9: The Accumulation Fixed Capital Under of "Pure" Capitalism 284 Part IV: Expanded Reproduction in the USSR During the Period Primitive Socialist Accumulation of Chapter 10: General Outlines the Goods Famine 303 of CONTENTS (Contents) Chapter 11: The Circulation Reproduction and of the Individual Components the Product in of Both Sectors 337 Chapter 12: The Accumulation Fixed Capital Under of Concrete Capitalism 376 Chapter 13: The Goods Famine in the USSR 390 Conclusion 409 Bibliography 423 SUMMARY Evgeniy Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky was one of the great Marxist thinkers the Bolsheviks that of generation of prepared and carried out the October Revolution. Yet his has work remained relatively unexplor- by Marxists. Those Preobrazhensky's ed non-Marxist accounts of writ- ings hope- and political activities, even where well-intentioned, are lessly inadequate. They the Marxist he grasp neither categories used the fact that his theories be nor economic can only understood within the context of his work as a whole and his theory of the transitional society. As a result this thesis opens with an extensive and in-depth Intro- duction into the nature of Preobrazhensky's Marxism, touching its upon important most philosophical roots and stressing the role of class con- in Preobrazhenzky's theory the transition. sciousness of The body the deals Preobrazhensky's main of work specifically with theory in the Soviet during the of expanded reproduction system period its We Marx's of primitive socialist accumulation. start with use of the their his theory reproduction schemes, and show connection with of industrial the the circulation of capital and with reproduction of spe- Then cific production and social relations under capitalism. we use Marx's theory the fixed of reproduction of capital under simple capital- ist to demonstrate the for the reproduction need reserves within system industrial to derive the two-sector and scheme of separate and agricul- tural that Preobrazhensky to Further, this to sectors was use. we use introduce the the importance the question of of material exchange of their specific use values under reproduction, as well as exchange on the basis their of value. Next Preobrazhensky's theory we analyze and expand upon of simple Here that, and expanded reproduction under concrete capitalism. we show in department I II, given unequal organic compositions of capital and the tendency for the to there and organic composition of capital rise, is a tendency towards under-production of means of production. This can be overcome by drawing the petty-commodity sector into the orbit of impelling that to the capitalist exchange, and sector make necessary in its to the to adjustments production so as allow capitalist sector its internal disproportions the overcome own via exchange with peasant sector. the Then we open up an unexplored area of Marxist economics, ex- from that panded reproduction of fixed capital. Starting off a problem Preobrazhensky had touched upon in an entirely different context, we ex- fixed amine the effects that the extended turnover period of capital has upon expanded reproduction: It gives rise to a chronic deficit of to means of production. After exploring a number of possible solutions is the the problem we find that under pure capitalism the only solution transfer from department II to department I. of capital famine In to the findings to the Soviet goods we order apply above first take detour that famine in its general must a and examine goods trace morphology. Following in large part Preobrazhensky's argument, we out the inherent, structural tendencies towards the under-production of it means of production within the Soviet system, which cannot overcome because of its backwardness. This deprives it of all the economic and flexibility have for social that a socialist economy would anticipating inherent- and circumventing these disproportions, and makes the economy ly weaker and more prone to crisis than even the advanced capitalist countries. From there we introduce to the Marxist theory of another new aspect by of expanded reproduction, examining the circulation and reproduction the individual in the components of the annual product of all sectors from Soviet economy. Although we start off Preobrazhensky's own treat- incomplete. ment of the topic, this was sparse and It proves necessary to trace in detail the the individual out great circulation of elements from the both of expanded reproduction point of view of their quantita- tive their exchange as values and material exchange as particular use Here the division is between those values. primary products produced in the turns that private and state sectors--it out no category of ex- be panded reproduction can reproduced except via a complex circuit of exchange involving all departments of all sectors. What is more, under Soviet conditions, this exchange involves strict proportionality between distinct department the Any disequilibrium be- each and all of others. tween two departments, in terms, lead either value or material will the into entire system stagnation. Finally, we apply these findings to our discussion of the expand- fixed We trace the ed reproduction of capital. out expanded reproduc- tion of fixed capital under both concrete capitalism and in the Soviet Here find that the dic- system. we conditions of expanded reproduction tate that the department I increasingly peasant sector's assumes an larger the the the share of production of circulating part of constant in departments. Yet this the capital all condition contradicts condi- tions famine the type that of material exchange under a goods of exist- in the Soviet Union. As Preobrazhen- ed with virtually every aspect of this the his long-standing sky's analysis, confirms validity of posi- tion that, both from from an economic and a political point of view, in impossible. Only socialism one country was massive material assis- tance from help the USSR other socialist countries could pull out of its impasse. Only the intervention the Western political of proletar- iat the Revolution from degeneration. could save PREFACE intended This thesis was originally as a study of the methodologi- cal foundations of the works of E. A. Preobrazhensky, the Soviet econo- leading both the theoretically mist who was one of members, and politi- cally, of the Trotskyist Oppositions of the 1920's. At the time it to that Preobrazhensky's in seemed us economic writings were so rich implications, their that they be political and philosophical could only if basic these properly appreciated philosophical premises were made Marx drawn their explicit, and connection with out as extensively as We believe be Preobrazhensky's this to the possible. still case. writ- ings in the 1920's him to be the show one of most original and exciting just his but thinkers, not of own time, of all of twentieth century Marxism. We hope that least indication the we can give at some of val- idity this in the Introduction this thesis, deals of appraisal of which the Preobrazhensky's Marxism. with character of In any case, a quick glance at the table of contents will tell the it down reader that little of our original plan actually made onto paper. This for First, Preobra- was essentially two reasons. any such study of tra- zhensky as a methodologist and as a representative of a particular dition fairly Marxism thorough-going examina- within would necessitate a itself--starting tion the Marxism with of philosophical evolution of Marx's battles his Kant, Hegel, and own with philosophical predecessors, Feuerbach, and wending its way through a critical assessment of the var- ious into beginning currents of Marxism that arose, and came conflict, Marx bastardization the the the of with end of nineteenth century and embodied in the dogmas the Second International. Such a study, while of invaluable to not merely and, as we say, still necessary an appreciation Sov- of Preobrazhensky, but the Trotskyist movement within the of entire iet Union in the twenties, have been within undertaken simply could not -2- the bounds of a PhD thesis, particularly by someone whose academic train- ing is not in philosophy proper. This is not to say that we have ig- nored this problem. To the contrary. Not simply in our Introduction, but throughout this thesis we have tried to draw a constant connection between Preobrazhensky's ideas the economic and philosophical assump- tions and political goals that lay behind them. The lies in the the that second reason nature of material eventual- ly did become the After the his subject of our study. publication of finished The New Economics, Preobrazhensky in major work, published form take drafts that he intend- article what we can only as of chapters include in Part II Volume I ed to successive volumes as of of The New Volume II. The first Economics and as of these was a pair of articles, "Sotsialisticheskie i Kommunisticheskie Predstavleniya Sotsial- entitled izma" ("Socialist Communist Ideas About Socialism"), in and published (hereafter VKA), Nos. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi Akademii referred to as historical 12 13,1925. These to the and were comprise most of second, final part of Volume I of The New Economics, with the portion of this volume being promised by Preobrazhensky to go to the printer some time in 1926.1 To the best of our knowledge, it never did. In addition, heading there was a group of three articles, coming under the general in System "Economic Equilibrium Under Concrete Capitalism the of and of the USSR, " which were to form the first section of Volume II. The latter volume, according to Preobrazhensky, was to be "devoted to a is, Soviet industry, concrete analysis of the Soviet economy, that of Soviet the agriculture, the system of exchange and credit, and economic first Soviet the policy of the state, together with an examination of 2 VKA 17, rudiments of socialist culture., The first of these articles, is marked, "A chapter from Volume II of The New Economics; " all three carry the words "To be continued" at their close. In addition, we can infer from to the closing VKA 22 that together they were passage of -3- Volume II, constitute the theoretical portion of presenting an analysis both of the regularities of expanded reproduction, under modern capital- ism and in the particular economy of the Soviet Union. The remainder in Volume II to take the task "filling/the of was up of algebraic scheme in the USSR that have here of reproduction we outlined with concrete data provided by Soviet statistics and, above all, by the Control Fig- Gosplan. " It "touch ures of would as well upon certain theoretical in interests that, the the questions of shortening purely methodologi- cal section of the study, we prefer to illustrate with figures from the living Soviet "3 present-day economy. These three in In the first articles are no way complete. place, in haste, doubt due they to the were written obvious no pressures of in Preobrazhensky involved. the political struggle which was so actively There in the are numerous misprints, especially numerical examples, and in barest form. the themselves the arguments are usually presented only Preobrazhensky followed log- the to their rarely up particular analyses ical individual the the theor- concluions, and mode of elucidation of is jumpy leaves lot to be by the etical points often and a presupposed In reader. addition, many of the seemingly obvious political conclusions highly left The the tech- are unstated. arguments, which are on surface draw nical, rarely out the conclusions to which they are pointing, ex- in in the This be terms cept most round about way. again must explained As theoreti- of the political context within which they were written. felt by Preobrazhensky have that, cal, academic pieces, must certainly 1926 1927, he free draw and was not to the openly political conclusions it from his work that he had done in The New Economics. Once more, was left to the reader to cull out of the mass of reproduction schemes and had the inferences that Preobrazhensky sparse political the commentary intended. clearly -4- Even so, there is a clear coherence to these in its works which helps turn their also explain overtly abstract and even technical char- They acter. represent a rigorous attempt to work out for the emerging Soviet the economy regularities of economic reproduction their and re- highly lation to the Soviet unstable social relations within the system, hand, development the the on one and proper and application of the an- for alytical categories needed such an analysis, on the other. In this Preobrazhensky, as we will demonstrate at some length in the body of this thesis, was undertaking a task quite similar to that which Marx had in Volume II Capital. embarked on of Originally had discussion these to we planned our of articles oc- Once began to Preobrazhensky's cupy one part of one chapter. we pore over however, the use of reproduction schemes, more and more problems arose demanded that This our attention and attempted solutions. was almost inevitable, the fact that in his treatment Marx's Preo- given of schemes brazhensky himself breaking In the first was entirely new ground. place, Preobrazhensky's in VKA 17--which lays the basis for his argument all he. subsequent analysis--is less than straightforward. In this article two fundamental in Marx's First, he made alterations schemes. added two new departments to those that Marx worked with: To Marx's scheme for he The capitalism added a sector of petty-commodity production. define object was then to the regularities of expanded reproduction historically under the more realistic conditions of capitalist and pre- Second, he dropped capitalist production coexisting with each other. Marx's assumptions that a)the organic composition of capital remains constant over time and b)that accumulation in department II "adjusts" to by that in department I (which the procedure employed was expositional Marx). The into in detail below, was that problem, as we will go some development, all of these represent distinct tendencies in capitalist be from Preobrazhensky which must analyzed separately one another.