What the Russian Revolution was (from the viewpoint of changes in the economic system)

The article deals with a wide range of issues related to the nature of the Russian revolution and to the essence of socialism, built in the USSR, as well. The author analyzes the objective and subjective factors, which predetermined the specific way of the formaition of “Soviet socialism”. In Russia, at the time of the October Revolution, there were no economic prerequisites for socialism. In addition, the Soviet government was forced to take on the tasks left over from the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Objectively evaluating the situation, Lenin came to the conclusion that in such a peasant country like Russia it can not be a direct transition to socialism, and that a “special transition period” is needed, during which the economy as a whole will be managed on the basis of commodity-money relations, and relations with peasantry will be based on the principle of parity exchange. This idea began to realize with the introduction of the NEP, which has led to a rapid economic recovery. But since the late of 1920s, Stalin abandoned such principle of the NEP as cooperation with the peasantry, and moved on to the construction of socialism in one country. And the forced collectivization of agriculture became a spring-board to the industrialization. By the mid-1930s as a result of rapid industrialization the economic prerequisites of socialism were created, the dominant form of property became public one, represented by state-owned enterprises and collective farms, the planned economic system began to function. It was a special type of economic mobilization system, which was formed as a result of the formal perception of the image of socialism as a very centralized system. Gulag, the restriction of human rights, ideological control became an integral part of it. This system has demonstrated its strength during the war and post-war recovery, but in the course of time its flaws and limitations became more and more apparent. The growth rate decreased, there were queues and overstock, consumption lagged behind the western level, etc. Attempts to reform the “Soviet socialism” did not succeed and eventually it ceased to exist. Defining the “Soviet socialism” as a kind of “mutation” of socialism, the author nevertheless emphasizes its value in terms of the historical experience of mankind, noting that it has become a kind of “rehearsal” of socialism of the XXI century. The article also describes the socio-economic situation in present-day Russia.

revolution, Lenin, “reverse course”, NEP, productive forces, production relations, “Soviet socialism”, Russian capitalism, «обратный курс», «советский социализм»

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