Reconsidering “State Capitalism” in Light of the Sources

From its own standpoint and that of its critics, the Soviet Union constituted a social system antithetical to the principles of capitalism. Despite the rhetorical assault on capitalism, as well as real limitations on private property and markets, Soviet production and social mediation remained predicated on the persistence of wage labor and commodity production – the constitutive core of capitalism. To conceptualize the apparently paradoxical productive logic of "actually existing socialism," this presentation will reconsider theories of "state capitalism" – including those by Friedrich Pollock, C.L.R. James, and Raya Dunaevskaya – in light of new insights from the Soviet archives.