Uneven and Combined Development in the Theory and Practice of the Soviet Union

• In Event: Understanding Authoritarianism - II

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the relationship and compatibility between the theory of primitive accumulation and the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) in the context of capitalist development. At first glance, the theories seem mutually incompatible. Primitive accumulation holds that the violent dispossession of peasants is a necessary precondition in any transition to capitalism; U&CD assumes that later-developing countries can “skip” early stages of development by drawing on foreign examples, thereby accomplishing the transition to capitalism more quickly and easily and also without as much bloodshed. Contemporary scholars who work within these two traditions rarely address each other’s arguments. This paper will seek to demonstrate that both processes can and do occur together, that they are not only compatible but inseparable; moreover, even though the theory of U&CD was first developed by Trotsky, we can find its main principles already embedded in Marx’s original theory of primitive accumulation. In fact, I will argue, it was precisely because of the implications of U&CD that the Soviet Union experienced the “peasant problem” that “socialist primitive accumulation” was designed to overcome; and it is also because of U&CD that this alternative path failed.

Author

• Dave Siegel, St. Joseph's University