Lenin outlines four potential courses of development during the “state capitalist” phase of the transitional period, which also explains why such a wide variety of movements, both inside and outside of Russia, refer to his ideas. Three of these possibilities remained aligned with the conceptions of socialism (the fourth being the Ustryalov scenario of reversion to capitalism). In the course of time, the three basic trends could be observed not only in political thought and factional struggles, but also in historiography:
1. Intellectual groups, politicians, and thinkers who considered the multisector economy (defined by a state-regulated market and the state overseen by society) of the NEP as socialism – later identified as “market socialists” – who took their inspiration from the late work of Bukharin, although he never actually called a market economy “socialism” (despite counting on the market economy continuing for a long time, even if differently from Lenin).21
2. Stalin and his followers who were called, in this sense, “state socialists” – although it was Lenin who was proclaimed the progenitor of the market reforms of socialism in 1951. In the 1980s, this trend finally merged with the market socialists,22 who had earlier been designated “revisionists.” István Mészáros gives a generous summary of the characteristics of market socialism’s nature. Most importantly he unmasks the common motives of social democratic thinking and the Stalinist tradition in their similar “superstitious” way of relating to state and market. Both camps positioned themselves rigidly in opposition to the conversion of state property into communal property. Both the traditional forms of labor division and the power of disposing of surplus value remained within the scope of the detached apparatus. Every experiment that tried to reform this was undermined by the leaders of that party, even though Lenin had founded it with exactly the opposite aim. Though the later forms of market socialism were advertised as reformed state socialism, the first (market socialism) proved to be an evolved state of the second (state socialism), which in the end led to capitalism.23
3. The conception of socialism founded on autodynamic – self-generating – and needs-based production, direct democracy, cooperative ventures, and the “cooperative system” of producer and consumer collectives, traces back to Lenin’s way of thinking and has a rather extensive historiography to its credit.24
Революции 1917 г. в России – анализ и оценка качественных трансформаций общества
Ананченко А.Б.
Аннотация. Понимание исторического места революций 1917 г. в России необходимо для формирования позитивного исторического самосознания нашего общества. Февраль 1917 г. – классическая буржуазная революция нового времени. Октябрь 1917 г. – новая социально-политическая революция, которая не завершает формирование нового общества, нового социально-экономического организма, а впервые в истории начинает создание такого общества с захвата политической власти в стране и создание нового общества на основе мировоззренческого, философского, экономического, культурного и социально-политического проекта. С Октября 1917 г. мы можем говорить о вариативности исторического процесса, о строительстве нового общества, создании и применении технологий социального управления.