Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism

Samir Amin

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781583676011
• eBook ISBN: 9781583676035
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Out of early twentieth-century Russia came the world's first significant effort to build a modern revolutionary society. According to Marxist economist Samir Amin, the great upheaval that once produced the Soviet Union has also produced a movement away from capitalism – a long transition that continues even today. In seven concise, provocative chapters, Amin deftly examines the trajectory of Russian capitalism, the Bolshevik Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possible future of Russia – and, by extension, the future of socialism itself. Amin manages to combine an analysis of class struggle with geopolitics – each crucial to understanding Russia's singular and complex political history. He first looks at the development (or lack thereof) of Russian capitalism. He sees Russia's geopolitical isolation as the reason its capitalist empire developed so differently from Western Europe, and the reason for Russia's perceived "backwardness." Yet Russia's unique capitalism proved to be the rich soil in which the Bolsheviks were able to take power, and Amin covers the rise and fall of the revolutionary Soviet system. Finally, in a powerful chapter on Ukraine and the rise of global fascism, Amin lays out the conditions necessary for Russia to recreate itself, and perhaps again move down the long road to socialism. Samir Amin's great achievement in this book is not only to explain Russia's historical tragedies and triumphs, but also to temper our hopes for a quick end to an increasingly insufferable capitalism. This book offers a cornucopia of food for thought, as well as an enlightening means to transcend reductionist arguments about "revolution" so common on the left. Samir Amin's book – and the actions that could spring from it – are more necessary than ever, if the world is to avoid the barbarism toward which capitalism is hurling humanity.

1. Russia in the Global System:
Geography or History?

The double collapse of Sovietism as a social project distinct from capitalism and the USSR (now Russia) calls into question all the theories that have been put forward both regarding the capitalism/socialism conflict and the analysis of the positions and functions of the different countries and regions in the world system. These two approaches—the first giving priority to history, the second to geography, are often exclusive of one another. In the tradition of historical Marxism, and particularly in its predominant version in the former USSR, the only great problem of the contemporary world recognized as worthy of scientific treatment was that of the passage of capitalism to socialism. As from Lenin, a theory of revolution and socialist construction was gradually formulated, which is summarized in the following points:

(i)capitalism must finally be overturned throughout the world through the class struggle conducted by the proletariat;

(ii)the socialist revolution has started in certain countries (Russia first, later in China) rather than in others because they constituted, for various reasons, the “weak links” in the chain of world capitalism;

(iii)in those countries, the construction of socialism is possible in spite of their late development;

(iv)the transition of capitalism to socialism will therefore evolve in, and through, the competition between the two state systems, some of which have become socialist, the others having (provisionally) remained capitalist.

In this type of analysis, history—which governs the social and political particularities that constitute the different societies in the modern world (including those of the “weak links”)—plays the key role, to the point that the geography of the world system, in which the various positions and functions of these societies are determined, is entirely subordinated to history. Of course, the reversal of history, overturning the “irreversible socialism” on behalf of capitalism, must question the whole theory of the transition to socialism and its construction.

Geography, however, takes on another dimension in, for example, an analysis of the movement of modern history that is inspired by the fundamental principle of what one can call, to be brief, the “world system” approach: what happens at the level of the whole (the world system) controls the evolution of the parts that compose it. The roles played by the Russian Empire and by the USSR would therefore be explained by the evolution of the world system, and this is what makes it possible to understand the collapse of the Soviet project. Just as the extremists among the historical Marxists only know the class struggle through history, an extremist interpretation of the world system approach is possible, one that virtually eliminates class struggle because it is incapable of changing the course imposed on it by the evolution of the system as a whole.

It is useful to mention here that theories about the specificity of Eurasia and its particular place in the world system preceded the formulation of the world system approach by several decades. In the 1920s, Russian historians (Nikolai Trubetzkoy and others) had put forward such proposals, which were then forgotten by official Soviet conformism, but they were resuscitated in recent years. The theses developed in an article by Andrei Fursov in Review recall the theory of the Eurasian specificity in certain aspects and distinguishes it from others. I would be in favor of a synthesis of the two types of analysis, particularly as concerns the Russian-Soviet case. Having already defended such an approach in more general terms, I believe such a synthesis to be enriching for Marxism.

Between the years 1000 and 1500, the world system was clearly composed of three main blocs of advanced societies, China, India, and the Middle East, to which can be added a fourth, Europe, whose development was extremely rapid. It was in this last region, which had been marginal until the year 1000, that the qualitative transformations of all kinds crystallized and inaugurated capitalism. Between Europe and eastern Asia—from the Polish frontiers to Mongolia—stretched the Eurasian landmass, whose position in the global system of the period largely depended on the way these four regions articulated what can be called the ancient world system (precapitalist tributary social system, if my definition of these social systems is accepted).

It seems impossible to give a convincing picture of the birth of capitalism without taking into consideration the two sets of questions concerning (i) the dynamics of the local transformations in response to the challenges confronted by these societies, particularly the dynamics of social struggles, and (ii) the articulation of these dynamics in the evolution of the ancient world system seen as a whole, in particular the transformation of the roles of the different regions that composed the ancient world system and, therefore, the functions of the Eurasian region.

If we are to take the global viewpoint into consideration and thus relativize the regional realities, we must recognize that the great majority of the civilized population of the ancient world was concentrated in the two Asian blocs, China and India.

Moreover, what is striking is the regularity of growth of these two blocs; their population of some 50 million inhabitants grew to 330 and 200 million in 1800 and 450 and 300 million in 1850, respectively. These extraordinary increases compare with the stagnation of the Middle East, precisely from the Hellenistic period. The population of the latter probably attained its maximum—50 million—at this time and then declined almost regularly, stabilizing at around 35 million on the eve of the industrial revolution and European penetration. (It should be recalled that the population of Egypt had been 10 to 14 million inhabitants at certain epochs of the pharaonic age, but it fell to 2 million in 1800. The decline of Mesopotamia and Syria was of the same order.) A comparison should also be made with the stagnation of barbarous Europe until the year 1000. The population went from 20 million two centuries before the Christian era to probably less than 30 million toward the year 1000 before exploding to 180 million inhabitants in 1800 and 200 million in 1850.

It is then easy to understand that Europe, when it became aware of itself, became obsessed with the idea of entering into relationships, if not conquering, this fabulous Orient. Until late in the eighteenth century, the Chinese Empire was, for the Europeans, the supreme point of reference, the society that was the most civilized, the best administered, and its technologies that were the finest and most effective (Étiemble, 1972). The power of the Chinese Empire was such that it was only from the end of the nineteenth century that anyone dared to attack it. In contrast, India, which was more fragile, had already been conquered and its colonization played a decisive role in British progress. Fascination with the Far East was the main impulse of such European initiatives. However, the discovery and conquest of the Americas absorbed European energies for three centuries. The function of Eurasia must be seen in this perspective.

The Middle East, considered by some as the region that was the heir of Hellenism (a synthesis of five cultures: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria-Phoenicia, Greece-Anatolia, Iran) constituted the third pole of advanced civilization.

The intense trade between these three poles thus affected the dynamic of the ancient world. These “silk routes,” as they are called, crossed the southern region of Eurasia, from the Caspian Sea to China, to the south of the Kazakh steppe, from Tian Shan to Mongolia (Amin, 1991).

Nevertheless, the relative stagnation of the Middle East pole (for reasons that are not relevant to this study) ended in a gradual decline of its foreign trade. There were at least two important consequences. The first was that Europe became aware, thanks to the Crusades, that the Middle East was not a rich region to conquer for itself, but the zone to be crossed, or bypassed, to reach the really interesting regions of Asia. The second was that China and India diverted their sights from the west to the east, constituting the peripheries that really interested them in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia. The two eastern poles did not actively search for relations with the Middle East and still less with Europe. The initiative was therefore taken by the Europeans. The Eurasian landmass and the ocean were the main competing passages enabling the Europeans to enter Asia.

Europe was, as has been already said, marginal until toward the year 1000. Like Africa—which remained marginal after the year 1000—Europe was a region in which the people were not really settled, or constituted, in tributary state societies. But this poor periphery of the ancient system suddenly took off within a particular structure that combined a peripheral feudal tributary form (the fragmentation of powers) and a European universalism of Roman Christianity. During the progress of this system, which was to conclude by Europe becoming the center of the capitalist and industrial world in the nineteenth century, it is possible to distinguish successive periods that, in turn, define the roles that Eurasia was to play in the accelerated dynamism of the system.

The Crusades (1100–1250) were the first stage in this rapid evolution. Western (Frankish) Europe then sought to break the monopoly of the Middle East, the obligatory (and expensive) passage for its relationships with eastern Asia. This monopoly was in fact shared between Orthodox Christian Byzantium and the Islamic Arab-Persian Caliphate. The Crusades were directed against both of these two adversaries and not only the Muslim infidel, as is so often thought. However, finally expelled from the region, the Europeans tried other ways of overcoming this obstacle.

The Crusades accelerated the decline of the Middle East, reinforcing still further the lack of interest of the Chinese in the West. In fact, the Crusades facilitated the “Turkization” of the Middle East: the increased transfer of powers to Turcoman military tribes, who prepared the simultaneous destruction of Byzantium and the Caliphate, which were succeeded, from 1450–1500, by the Ottoman Empire.

Furthermore, the Crusades enriched the Italian towns, giving them the monopoly over the navigation in the Mediterranean and prepared their active role in seeking ways to bypass the Middle East. It is interesting to note that two major routes were opened up by Italians: Marco Polo, who crossed the Russo-Mongol Eurasian landmass and, two centuries later, Christopher Columbus, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Eurasia entered into history at that time, between 1250 and 1500, during the course of the second phase of this history. Its entry marginalized the ancient silk routes that linked the Middle East to China and to India by the southern part of central Asia, to the benefit of a direct Europe-China liaison, passing further to the north, through the Eurasia of the Genghis Khan Empire (this was exactly the route of Marco Polo). In turn, it opened the secular struggle for the control of Eurasia between the Russians of the forest and the Turko-Mongols of the steppes. The formation of the Muscovite state had several impressive stages: liberation from the Mongol yoke, increased expansion through Siberia, and military conquest of the southern steppes up to the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas, the Caucasus mountain range, and finally south-central Asia and Transcaucasia.

This history bequeathed Eurasia with some special characteristics that strongly differentiated it from the European formations as well as those of China. It did not, as is said rather superficially, become (or remain) “half-Asian” (the expression obviously being in a pejorative sense). In fact it is too far away from the Chinese model to be so described. But nor did Eurasia become constituted into a densely populated, homogenous state as gradually happened in Europe, with its absolute monarchies and then with its modern bourgeois nation-states. The occupation of such a large area weakened such characteristics, in spite of the desire of St. Petersburg, as from 1700, to imitate European absolutism. Also, in the Russian Empire the relationship between the Russians and the Turko-Mongol peoples of the steppes was not the same as the relationship developed by the Europeans during their colonization of other nations. The Russian Empire did not exploit the work of the Turko-Mongols, as the Europeans did in their colonies; it was a political power (Russian) that controlled the spaces occupied by both peoples. This was, in a way, perpetuated in the Soviet Union, where the Russians dominated in political and cultural terms but did not economically exploit the others (on the contrary, the flow of wealth went from Russia to central Asia). It was the media that popularized and confused these profoundly different systems by superficially calling them both empires (S.Amin, 1992b).

Eurasia did not, however, play the role of a passageway linking Europe to China except for a short period, between 1250 and 1500, at a stage when Europe did not yet have sufficient absorption capacity to bestow Eurasia with the same financial brilliance for transport as would be placed on maritime commerce. From 1500, in fact, the Atlantic/Indian Ocean route replaced the long continental crossing. And this was not only a geographical substitution. Heading west, the Europeans “discovered” America, conquered it, and transformed it into a periphery of their budding capitalism, a destiny that Eurasia had escaped and would not have been possible to impose upon it. At the same time, the Europeans had also learned how to colonize Asian countries (transforming them into peripheries of world capitalism), starting with India, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, then Africa and the Middle East, which was done in different ways from those invented during the Russian expansion into Asia.

The maritime route re-marginalized Eurasia from 1500 until 1900, and continued even after that. The Russians responded to the challenge in an original and, in many aspects, brilliant way. Fursov remarked that in 1517 the monk Philotheus had proclaimed Moscow to be the third Rome. This observation is worth bearing in mind because, as it was made so shortly after the maritime route had been opened, it gave Russia an alternative perspective, an exclusive role in history. There were some, like Nikolai Berdyaev, for example, who believed that Soviet communism pursued this aim of the messianic role for Russia in advancing the progress of all humanity.

Russia built itself up from then on, making an effective synthesis of retreating into itself and opening to the West. The former task, that of a self-centered construction, was therefore in complete opposition to the peripherization of world capitalism. There was no equivalent to this except for the self-centered construction that the United States had pursued from its independence until 1914, or even until 1941.

So there were two large spaces that organized themselves as self-centered continents, obeying one sole political power. There have been no others, except for China, since 1950. Nevertheless, one cannot but note the mediocre results obtained by Russia/USSR compared with the brilliant ones of the United States. There is a conventional explanation for this contrast that contains a lot of truth: the advantage of the United States not having a feudal heritage (an argument reinforced by pointing out that New England was not constituted as a periphery of capitalism). But it is necessary to add that by being “isolated” on the American continent, the United States was free from the vicissitudes of European politics and had only one adversary—Mexico—which was too weak to be anything other than prey, and half of its territory was taken. On the other hand, Russia was not able to avoid the European conflicts and had to deal with rivals from Western and Central Europe: Russia was thus invaded by the armies of Napoleon, had to endure the affront of the Crimean War, and was then twice more invaded in 1914 and 1941.

This continual interference in the history of Russia and that of Europe was at least in part the result of the Russian—then Soviet—choice not to close itself up in Eurasia but to remain, or become, as modern, that is, as European, as possible. This was the choice of the St. Petersburg Empire, symbolized by the two-headed eagle, one of whose heads looked toward the West. But it was also the choice of the USSR, which infused its ideology into the traditions of the European workers’ movement. The USSR’s total rejection of Slavophile and Eurasian ideologies, which had always survived in the Russian Empire, despite its official pro-Western option, is an obvious consequence of this.

The Russian Revolution does not seem to have constituted a less important phenomenon that would hardly influence the course of history once the Soviet parenthesis was closed. There is little other convincing explanation for this revolution other than by simultaneously involving history (the new contradictions introduced by capitalism) and geography (the position of Russia in the capitalist economic world).

Capitalism certainly introduced a new challenge to the whole of humanity, to the peoples of its advanced centers, and to those of its backward peripheries. On this essential point, I remain completely Marxist. By this I mean that capitalism cannot continue indefinitely as permanent accumulation and the exponential growth that it entails will end up in certain death for humanity.

Capitalism itself is ripe to be overtaken by another form of civilization, one more advanced and necessary, through the leap in people’s capacities of action that accumulation has enabled (and which is a parenthesis in history) and by the ethical and cultural maturation that will accompany it.

The...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Russia in the Global System: History or Geography?
• 2. The Czarist Empire versus the Colonial Empires
• 3. Thirty Years of Critique of the Soviet System (1960–1990)
• 4. Lenin and Stalin: Facing the Challenge of the Century
• 5. Out of the Tunnel?
• 6. The Ukrainian Crisis and the Return of Fascism in Contemporary Capitalism
• Assessment and Perspectives
• Index